Americas

Materials from the Americas

African Town

Chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860, African Town is a powerful and stunning novel-in-verse.

In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and brought to Mobile, Alabama aboard a ship called Clotilda. Their journey includes the savage Middle Passage and being hidden in the swamplands along the Alabama River before being secretly parceled out to various plantations, where they made desperate attempts to maintain both their culture and also fit into the place of captivity to which they’d been delivered. At the end of the Civil War, the survivors created a community for themselves they called African Town, which still exists to this day. Told in 14 distinct voices, including that of the ship that brought them to the American shores and the founder of African Town, this powerfully affecting historical novel-in-verse recreates a pivotal moment in US and world history, the impacts of which we still feel today.

Nobody’s Pilgrims

Three runaway teenagers are chased in a road trip from the Texan frontera to New England, by a drug cartel planning to unleash chaos unto the country. Seventeen year old Turi escapes from his abusive family by reading. He hopes to actually escape by saving up from his work at a chicken farm near Ysleta, Texas. He believes the beautiful setting of his favorite book, Connecticut, will be the perfect home for him. So Turi sets off on the road with Arnulfo-an undocumented teenager he met at the farm, and Molly-a lonely girl looking to build a better life. The boys start their trip by hitching a ride with an elderly man, but they leave him behind and steal his truck when they begin to suspect he’s in the middle of an illicit operation, and hiding a dangerous secret. Unfortunately for the three runaways, the secret is hidden in the truck and results in a drug cartel chasing them down, the release of a virus, and the total breakdown of society around them.

When We Make It

Sarai uses verse to navigate the strain of family traumas and the systemic pressures of toxic masculinity and housing insecurity in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn, questioning the society around her, her Boricua identity, and the life she lives.

Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story

Wampanoag children listen as their grandmother tells them the story about how Weeâchumun (the wise Corn) asked local Native Americans to show the newcomers how to grow food to yield a good harvest–Keepunumuk–in 1621. The Thanksgiving story that most Americans know celebrates the Pilgrims. But without members of the Wampanoag tribe who already lived on the land where the Pilgrims settled, the Pilgrims would never have made it through their first winter. And without Weeâchumun (corn), the Native people wouldn’t have helped.

Vincent Ventura And The Curse Of The Weeping Woman / Vincent Ventura Y La Maldición De La Llorona

“Vincent Ventura, monster fighter extraordinaire, can’t believe the house at 666 Duende Street has attracted yet another creepy creature! In fact, this time there are several unusual beings, including two boys who disappear and reappear-are they ghosts?!? And the lady in white with fiery glowing eyes who calls out for them? Is she … La Llorona?!? And who is the other young woman? The next day at school, Vincent and his cousins Bobby and Michelle meet a new substitute teacher, Ms. Malin Che, who just moved into the haunted house. What is her connection to La Llorona and the unusual children? At least this time, the kids have new friends to help solve the mystery: Sayer, who they helped in a previous battle with trolls, or duendes, and Zulema, a witch owl who was the target of evil witches. As the relationship between Vincent and Zulema evolves, becoming more complex and exciting, so too does the current case! Two new beings turn up: a hideous figure dressed as a Mexican cowboy whose face is devoid of flesh and a second spooky woman! Ms. Che, a Latin American folklore expert, tells them about el Charro Negro and the weeping women collectively called Cihuateteos. This bilingual book for intermediate readers, the fourth installment in Garza’s Monster Fighter Mystery series, follows the nail-biting battle for the souls of two boys! Will Vincent and his friends be able to save them from the monsters’ clutches?!

The Mystery Of The Monarchs: How Kids, Teachers, And Butterfly Fans Helped Fred And Norah Urquhart Track The Great Monarch Migration

Young Fred Urquhart was fascinated by insects, especially his favorite, the monarch butterfly. He wondered where monarchs spent the winter. No one knew. After he became an bug scientist, Fred and his wife, Norah, tagged hundreds of butterflies, hoping to solve the mystery of the monarchs. But they soon discovered that they needed help. They started a “butterfly family,” a community of children, teachers, and nature enthusiasts from three countries, Canada, the United States and Mexico, to answer the question: Where do the monarchs go?

The Mystery of the Monarchs was the WOW Recommends: Book of the Month for June 2023.

The Gilded Ones #2: The Merciless Ones

The second book in the series, The Merciless Ones follows Deka after she’s freed the goddesses of Otera and discovered who she really is…but war is waging across the kingdom, and the real battle has only just begun. For there is a dark force growing in Otera—a merciless power that Deka and her army must stop.

Yet hidden secrets threaten to destroy everything Deka has known. And with her own gifts changing, Deka must discover if she holds the key to saving Otera… or if she might be its greatest threat.