National Network for Equitable Library Service

In 1831, Prudence Crandall opened a school for girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. When an African-American girl named Sarah Harris asked if she could attend, Prudence agreed. But Prudence wasn't prepared for how the town would react. Parents of Prudence's white students were outraged that a black girl would be allowed to sit beside their children. They threatened to withdraw their daughters from the school if Prudence did not expel Sarah Harris. So, with the support of prominent anti-slavery activists, Prudence turned her schoolhouse into a school for only African-American girls.

Laban Carrick Hill, the bestselling author of the National Book Award Finalist Harlem Stomp, here delivers an inspiring and lyrical story of a gifted craftsman who lived in South Carolina two centuries ago. Dave's superb artistry and the deeply observant poetry he carved onto his pots reveal how he transcended the limitations he faced as a slave.

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New York Times editor and critic Wilborn Hampton is the acclaimed author of gripping narratives like Kennedy Assassination, Meltdown, and September 11, 2001. In War in the Middle East, the veteran journalist offers a fascinating account of his early 1970s reports from the volatile desert region amidst Black September and the Yom Kippur War. This insider's view of life in a war zone shows Hampton trying to write stories inside a besieged hotel with no electricity or water as fighting rages all around.

The tumult and opulence of England's Regency era burst from the pages in this work of literary nonfiction by acclaimed author Carolly Erickson. When dementia forces King George III to vacate his throne, the kingdom slips into a decade marked with excess, scandal, and riots. King George has suffered bouts of mental instability before, but in 1810 he shows no signs of recovering. Public and government business halts as word of his condition leaks out. Hoping to control the crisis, Parliament appoints the king's unpopular son Prince George IV as Regent or caretaker.

Just one year after China's long-closed doors reopened to the West in 1971, Barbara Tuchman journeyed through its cities and countryside drawing the human face on this inscrutable giant.

A powerful ruler, an alluring young woman, a scandal that would rock the nation: Anne Boleyn's life story sounds more like a juicy TV docu-drama than a chapter of English history. Although she is not of noble birth or even especially beautiful, Anne Boleyn manages to rise to the very pinnacle of the English aristocracy.

When a black man was accused of attacking a white woman in a rural Florida town, a tinderbox of racial hatred was ignited. On New Year's Day 1923, Rosewood, a town of hard-working, middle class African Americans was burned to the ground by an angry mob of whites. After hiding in frigid nearby swamps for days, the few survivors never returned. The town's existence vanished like a mirage until 1982 when a local journalist-writing an article on weekend getaways-stumbled upon the Rosewood secret.

One evening in late October 1958, the deepest coal mine in North America "bumped"-its rock floors heaved up and smashed into rock ceilings. Most of the men on the shift perished. But nineteen men were trapped alive a mile below the earth's surface, struggling to survive without food, water, light, or fresh air. Almost a week passed without rescue. Hopes of finding life dwindled; then a miracle happened: Rescuers stumbled across a broken pipe that led to the cave of survivors.

A groundbreaking investigation examining the fate of Union veterans who won the war but couldn't bear the peace. For well over a century, traditional Civil War histories have concluded in 1865, with a bitterly won peace and Union soldiers returning triumphantly home. In a landmark work that challenges sterilized portraits accepted for generations, Civil War historian Brian Matthew Jordan creates an entirely new narrative.