Washoe County Library System

In the years before the Civil War, Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, struggles through the miles-long march, seeks comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother, opening herself to a world beyond this world. "Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey...

Shunned from "polite" society, Lila Marleigh, the eldest daughter of an English earl and his Indian mistress, becomes hostess of an exclusive gaming club where she meets and convinces Ivor Tristam to help her solve a violent crime, igniting a passion thatshakes them both to the core. "Amita Murray takes us on a journey from the pleasure gardens of society to the dangerous streets of 19th century London, in this spectacular romantic debut by an unforgettable...

"Ohayo! It's breakfast time and Gigi can't wait to make her favorite meal--Peanut Butter Toast. Yummy! But Ojiji doesn't like peanut butter. How can anyone NOT like peanut butter? Ojiji prefers Japanese foods--like natto, made from fermented soybeans. Will Gigi learn to love a new breakfast treat? This story highlights the close relationship of Gigi and her grandfather and the importance of trying new things!"--

"An award-winning journalist tells the story of his quest to reconcile with his white mother and the family he'd never met--and how faith brought them all together. John Blake grew up in a notorious Black neighborhood in inner-city Baltimore that was thesetting for the HBO series The Wire. It was there that he became a self-described "closeted biracial person," hostile toward white people while hiding the truth of his mother's race. The son of a Black...

"Performance poet Sophia Thakur offers a powerful new collection touching on intergenerational relationships, finding your voice, and what it means to be a woman. In her heartfelt second poetry collection, Sophia Thakur takes us on an emotionally charged journey through the lives of women in the past and considers what it means to be a woman today. Exploring topics such as identity, race, politics, mental health, and self-love, she weaves together...

Sixth-graders Lauren and Tara have always done everything together so it is only natural that they both try out for their middle school musical play, about an "all-American" girl in 1958; Tara gets the lead role, as usual, because in the teacher's mind Lauren, half-Jewish and half-Chinese, does not fit the image of all-American girl--Lauren is hurt but resolved to support her friend, but her two grandmothers are furious and they intend to do something...

"Based on the true story of two girls who fall secretly, deeply, and dangerously in love at boarding school in 19th century York, Learned by Heart is a heartbreakingly gorgeous novel from the bestselling author of Room and The Wonder. Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister’s five-million-word secret journal, Learned by Heart is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and...

"An award-winning writer retraces her dysfunctional, biracial, globe-trotting family's journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household. Charlotte Gill's father is Indian. Her mother is English. They meet in 1960's London when the world is not quite ready for interracial love. Their union, a revolutionary act, results in a total meltdown of familial relations, a...

"Catalogs a lifetime of bird sightings to explore the part-Lakota author's search for identity and his reckoning with colonialism's violence against Indigenous humans, animals, and land."-- "Thomas C. Gannon’s Birding While Indian spans more than fifty years of childhood walks and adult road trips to deliver, via a compendium of birds recorded and revered, the author’s life as a part-Lakota inhabitant of the Great Plains. Great Horned Owl, Sandhill...

After her mother is hospitalized for a mental health crisis, Gabrielle, a young black and indigenous woman who has the ability to change the color of her skin, is drawn to her piano instructor who embodies everything she's missing in her life--creativity,confidence, and a nurturing sense of love. "Florida kitsch swirls together with magical realism in this glittering debut novel about a young Black and Indigenous woman who learns to change the color...