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  Publication Date:  February 23, 2021 Format:  Audio Genre:   Race, racism, race studies Narrator:  Georgina Lawton Publisher:  Harper Audio          Length:  8 hours 7 min Buy:  Kindle  |  Audio Synopsis Raised in sleepy English suburbia, Georgina Lawton was no stranger to homogeneity. Her parents were White; her friends were White; there was no reason for her to think she was any different. But over time her brown skin and dark, kinky hair frequently made her a target of prejudice. In Georgina’s insistently color-blind household, with no acknowledgement of her difference or access to Black culture, she lacked the coordinates to make sense of who she was. It was only after her father’s death that ...

Release Date:  August 1, 2017 Publisher:  Riverhead Books Format:  Kindle Pages:  239 Pages Genre:  dystopian fiction Buy:   Kindle  |  Paperback   Synopsis:  As the twentieth century draws to a close, Maria is at the start of a life she never thought possible. She and Khalil, her college sweetheart, are planning their wedding. They are the perfect couple, "King and Queen of the Racially Nebulous Prom." Their skin is the same shade of beige. They live together in a black bohemian enclave in Brooklyn, where Khalil is riding the wave of the first dot-com boom and Maria is plugging away at her dissertation, on the Jonestown massacre. They've even landed a starring role in a documentary about "new people" like them, who are blurring the old boundaries as a brave new era dawns. Everything Maria knows she should want lies before her--yet she can't stop daydreaming about another man, a poet she barely knows. As fantasy escalates to fix...

Title:   Bird by Crystal Chan Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers Format: Paperback Pages: 295 pages Genre: Young Adult, Adoption Synopsis:  Jewel never knew her brother Bird, but all her life she has lived in his shadow. Her parents blame Grandpa for the tragedy of their family’s past: they say that Grandpa attracted a malevolent spirit—a duppy—into their home. Grandpa hasn’t spoken a word since. Now Jewel is twelve, and she lives in a house full of secrets and impenetrable silence. Jewel is sure that no one will ever love her like they loved Bird, until the night that she meets a mysterious boy in a tree. Grandpa is convinced that the boy is a duppy, but Jewel knows that he is something more. And that maybe—just maybe—the time has come to break through the stagnant silence of the past. (9)Review:  Bird is a middle school grade novel by first time author Crystal Chan .  Jewel was born on the day her brother, Bird died. His real name was John b...

I stole this photo from amazon Title:   Chosen with Purpose: A Story of Adoption and Identity by Mark Molzen Publisher: Amazon Digital Services 103 pages Genre: Adoption Synopsis:  Born to a fourteen-year-old girl and an eighteen-year-old high school dropout, the odds of Mark Molzen being in prison, dying young or becoming a drug addict were far more likely than any other outcome. So how did he beat the odds — becoming a successful, highly regarded public relations professional for an $18 billion, Fortune 150 Company? It’s all because of the plan God had for him—a plan that started when his understanding of adoption radically changed. Mark Molzen’s debut explores the stigma surrounding adoption, delves into what the Bible says about this issue, and examines the inherent power of choosing to accept that adoption is part of God’s plan for our lives. Adopted into the “United Nations of Adoption,” a family consisting of two biological children as well as four adopted chil...