Crow Blue Crow Black

Poetry. LGBT Studies. Native American Studies. Chip Livingston confronts and immerses himself into new cultural territories in his second poetry collection, CROW-BLUE, CROW-BLACK, an examination-critical, colloquial, and personal-of identity in terms of geography, experience, and blood quantum. A southern, gay, mixed-blood poet is thrust into the big-city literary life of the New York School artists in Greenwich Village, yet finds "home" in Uruguay with an Argentinean. CROW-BLUE, CROW-BLACK crosses traditional Native American narrative and incantatory styles with the quick-witted street poems of the New York School. It crosses the border into the southern hemisphere and bears witness to the influence of the Rio de la Plata, the grand capitols of Montevideo and Buenos Aires on its shores. From rural coastal roots to urban urgency and back to the rhythm of rivers and ocean, CROW-BLUE, CROW-BLACK maps the continents of the Americas.

Combining unfussy, gently rhyming language with vibrant, airy illustrations, Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka has created a book that will inspire in young readers the wonder of wondering. A little boy wonders about a crow’s life—from the simple “Where do you go in the cold white snow?” to the not-so-simple “Do you ever worry when you hop and you hurry? Are you ever afraid of mistakes you made? Are you never afraid?” All of life is touched on in simple words and spare, elegant artwork. Little Black Crow is not to be missed.

I was thirteen. Being thirteen is like being in the middle of nowhere. Which was accentuated by the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere. In a house that wasn't mine. In a city that wasn't mine, in a country that wasn't mine, with a one-man family that, in spite of the intersections and intentions (all very good), wasn't mine. When her mother dies, thirteen-year-old Vanja is left with no family and no sense of who she is, where she belongs, and what she should do. Determined to find her biological father in order to fill the void that has so suddenly appeared in her life, Vanja decides to leave Rio de Janeiro to live in Colorado with her stepfather, a former guerrilla notorious for his violent past. From there she goes in search of her biological father, tracing her mother's footsteps and gradually discovering the truth about herself. Rendered in lyrical and passionate prose, Crow Blue is a literary road trip through Brazil and America, and through dark decades of familial and political history.

High up in a tree, a mother crow tends her young.

Carson Calley grew up living in Hollywood motels with his fortune-telling mother, who is full of stories about their former lives together and prophesies about his future. Believing his mother's yarns, Carson becomes a healer, with the people of Hollywood waiting in long lines to see him, but a purpose built on lies and exaggerations can't last...or can it?

The two-time Newbery medalist has crafted “a loving representation of a relationship between parent and child” in post-WWII America (Publishers Weekly, starred review). This is the story of young Liz, her father, and their strained relationship. Dad has been away at WWII for longer than she can remember, and they begin their journey of reconnection through a hunting shirt, cherry pie, tender conversation, and the crow call. This allegorical story shows how, like the birds gathering above, the relationship between the girl and her father is graced with the chance to fly. “The memory of a treasured day spent with a special person will resonate with readers everywhere.” —School Library Journal (starred review) “Beautifully written, the piece reads much like a traditional short story . . . the details of [Ibatoulline’s] renderings gracefully capture a moment in time that was lost. Relevant for families whose parents are returning from war, the text is also ripe for classroom discussion and for advanced readers.” —Kirkus Reviews

Eric Draven has returned from the dead, driven only by hate and the need to wreak revenge on those who killed him and raped and then killed his beloved Shelly.

How do we balance the desire for tales of exceptional accomplishment with the need for painful doses of reality? How hard do we work to remember our past or to forget it? These are some of the questions that Jonathan Scott Holloway addresses in this exploration of race memory from the dawn of the modern civil rights era to the present. Relying on social science, documentary film, dance, popular literature, museums, memoir, and the tourism trade, Holloway explores the stories black Americans have told about their past and why these stories are vital to understanding a modern black identity. In the process, Holloway asks much larger questions about the value of history and facts when memories do violence to both. Making discoveries about his own past while researching this book, Holloway weaves first-person and family memories into the traditional third-person historian's perspective. The result is a highly readable, rich, and deeply personal narrative that will be familiar to some, shocking to others, and thought-provoking to everyone.

For use in schools and libraries only. When the weather changes and the ever-falling snow threatens to engulf all the animals, it is Crow who flies up to receive the gift of fire from the Great Sky Spirit.