Black Page Turners

The Redemption of the King: LeBron James Returns to Cleveland! by:Vince McKee
LeBron James is back in Cleveland’s court, and the city is on fire as its chosen one has decided to come home. His highly publicized, and equally highly emotional, return to Cleveland reveals his penultimate goal: to bring a championship back to northeast Ohio where he grew up.
Now, for the first time ever, the full story is told from the beginning as author Vince McKee covers James’s entire journey in every detail both on and off the court — from the start of his career with the Cavaliers in Cleveland to his departure to Miami, his time with the Heat, and finally, the much debated and highly anticipated return of the “King.”

Although pro basketball is an international juggernaut in terms of dollars, this story revolves more around hometown pride and character than money or celebrity.
Release: 3/17/15
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Zane’s Infinite Words: A Comprehensive Guide to Writing and Publishing by:Zane
New York Times bestselling author Zane shares the lessons she’s learned over the years about successful book publishing, filmmaking, and TV production.
Drawing on decades of experience as a mega-bestselling novelist, successful publisher, and executive producer of two TV shows, Zane offers practical advice on writing and publishing to aspiring writers across all media, including books, TV, and film. With her signature wit and straightforward style, Zane tells it like it is, emphasizing hard work, discipline, and commitment as the keys to a successful writing career.

Part One covers the writing and creative process, including how to define your writing style, how to outline a story, how to develop characters, typical mistakes to avoid, writing for your medium, and the revision process. Part Two covers the book publishing process, from finding a literary agent who best understands your work, to getting your work in the hands of publishers, to building an audience for your work. Zane also shares wisdom from her early years as a self-published author for those seeking an alternative to traditional publishing.

Infinite Words isn’t just a reference guide; it’s an essential companion for writers facing the unique challenges and opportunities of today’s ever-evolving world.
Release: 3/17/15
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What is African American History? by:Pero Gaglo Dagbovie
Scholarship on African American history has changed dramatically since the publication of George Washington Williams’ pioneering A History of the Negro Race in America in 1882. Organized chronologically and thematically, What is African American History? offers a concise and compelling introduction to the field of African American history as well as the black historical enterprise—past, present, and future. Pero Gaglo Dagbovie discusses many of the discipline’s important turning points, subspecialties, defining characteristics, debates, texts, and scholars. The author explores the growth and maturation of scholarship on African American history from late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries until the field achieved significant recognition from the ‘mainstream’ U.S. historical profession in the 1970s. Subsequent decades witnessed the emergence and development of key theoretical approaches, controversies, and dynamic areas of concentration in black history, the vibrant field of black women’s history, the intriguing relationship between African American history and Black Studies, and the imaginable future directions of African American history in the twenty-first century.

What is African American History? will be a practical introduction for all students of African American history and Black Studies.
Release: 3/16/15
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Delicious Foods by:James Hannaham
Held captive by her employers–and by her own demons–on a mysterious farm, a widow struggles to reunite with her young son in this uniquely American story of freedom, perseverance, and survival.
Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs, and quickly forms an addiction. One day she disappears without a trace.

Unbeknownst to eleven-year-old Eddie, now left behind in a panic-stricken search for her, Darlene has been lured away with false promises of a good job and a rosy life. A shady company named Delicious Foods shuttles her to a remote farm, where she is held captive, performing hard labor in the fields to pay off the supposed debt for her food, lodging, and the constant stream of drugs the farm provides to her and the other unfortunates imprisoned there.

In Delicious Foods, James Hannaham tells the gripping story of three unforgettable characters: a mother, her son, and the drug that threatens to destroy them. Through Darlene’s haunted struggle to reunite with Eddie, through the efforts of both to triumph over those who would enslave them, and through the irreverent and mischievous voice of the drug that narrates Darlene’s travails, Hannaham’s daring and shape-shifting prose infuses this harrowing experience with grace and humor.

The desperate circumstances that test the unshakeable bond between this mother and son unfold into myth, and Hannaham’s treatment of their ordeal spills over with compassion. Along the way we experience a tale at once contemporary and historical that wrestles with timeless questions of love and freedom, forgiveness and redemption, tenacity and the will to survive.
Release: 3/17/15
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Where the River Burned:Carl Stokes and the Struggle to Save Cleveland by:David Stradling, Richard Stradling
In the 1960s, Cleveland suffered through racial violence, spiking crime rates, and a shrinking tax base, as the city lost jobs and population. Rats infested an expanding and decaying ghetto, Lake Erie appeared to be dying, and dangerous air pollution hung over the city. Such was the urban crisis in the “Mistake on the Lake.” When the Cuyahoga River caught fire in the summer of 1969, the city was at its nadir, polluted and impoverished, struggling to set a new course. The burning river became the emblem of all that was wrong with the urban environment in Cleveland and in all of industrial America.

Carl Stokes, the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city, had come into office in Cleveland a year earlier with energy and ideas. He surrounded himself with a talented staff, and his administration set new policies to combat pollution, improve housing, provide recreational opportunities, and spark downtown development. In Where the River Burned, David Stradling and Richard Stradling describe Cleveland’s nascent transition from polluted industrial city to viable service city during the Stokes administration.

The story culminates with the first Earth Day in 1970, when broad citizen engagement marked a new commitment to the creation of a cleaner, more healthful and appealing city. Although concerned primarily with addressing poverty and inequality, Stokes understood that the transition from industrial city to service city required massive investments in the urban landscape. Stokes adopted ecological thinking that emphasized the connectedness of social and environmental problems and the need for regional solutions. He served two terms as mayor, but during his four years in office Cleveland’s progress fell well short of his administration’s goals. Although he was acutely aware of the persistent racial and political boundaries that held back his city, Stokes was in many ways ahead of his time in his vision for Cleveland and a more livable urban America.
Release: 3/17/15
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