American Depression

One hundred fifty years after the end of slavery and nearly 60 years after the passage of the civil rights laws of the 1960s, average Black household wealth in the 21st century remains a fraction of the median assets of other racial, ethnic, and immigrant populations. There are many reasons, but this book is about one: two centuries of governmental encouragement of periodic sustained surges in immigration. Governmental policies and actions have enabled employers to depress Black wages and to avoid hiring African Americans altogether.

At the height of the Dust Bowl came a heat wave in 1936. Ironically, the weather early that year did not exactly suggest that heat would be a problem. In fact, February 1936 was the coldest month in the nation's history. As a result, when the weather began to warm up in March and April, people breathed a sigh of relief, but it kept getting warmer, and rain ceased to fall in some areas. In June, normally warm southern states grew unbearably hot, setting record high temperatures in excess of 110 degrees.

"McBride’s verse novel, inspired by her father’s life, gets an aural uplift from the accomplished narrator Andre Santana."—School Library Journal (Starred Review) Onyx lives with his mother, who is showing signs of early-onset dementia. He doesn't want to bring attention to his home—if...

A poignant young adult graphic memoir that follows one teen's year abroad in Japan, as she seeks to reconcile both sides of her biracial identity. Christine has always felt she is just half: Half American, half Japanese. As a biracial Japanese American who was born in Tokyo but raised in the US...