In Laura Lea Goldberg's new cookbook, The Laura Lea Balanced Cookbook, the rubber of old-fashioned home-cooking meets the road of new healthy-food. With over 120 approachable, comforting, make-ahead recipes, this first cookbook from the creator of the popular "LLBalanced" website reaffirms that balance is possible: you can find the joy, relaxation, and healing of cooking for yourself, family, and friends during these frenetic times. All of the recipes in are simple, familiar, and no-fuss. The majority of the recipes come together in thirty minutes or less and all are appealing to kids and adults alike, can be modified for picky eaters or can be proudly served at a dinner party. The food isn't dogmatic: a little of everything is used and flexibility is the key. With a focus on quality and moderation, the healthy aspects don't hit you over the head. They just make you feel good. With helpful shopping lists and easy-to-follow menu plans, The Laura Lea Balanced Cookbook will help any home cook create a foundation in the pantry and kitchen that will make the prospect of healthy cooking accessible and exciting, not stressful. It doesn't overthink things and focuses on consistency instead of perfection. In the end, The Laura Lea Balanced Cookbook will have you discovering the balance of cooking delicious, healthy meals at home while re-connecting with yourself, family, and friends.

A mother-daughter duo reclaims and redefines soul food by mining the traditions of four generations of black women and creating 80 recipes to help everyone live longer and stronger.
In May 2012, bestselling author Alice Randall penned an op-ed in the "New York Times" titled "Black Women and Fat," chronicling her quest to be "the last fat black woman" in her family. She turned to her daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, for help. Together they overhauled the way they cook and eat, translating recipes and traditions handed down by generations of black women into easy, affordable, and healthful--yet still indulgent--dishes, such as Peanut Chicken Stew, Red Bean and Brown Rice Creole Salad, Fiery Green Beans, and Sinless Sweet Potato Pie. "Soul Food Love" relates the authors' fascinating family history (which mirrors that of much of black America in the twentieth century), explores the often fraught relationship African-American women have had with food, and forges a powerful new way forward that honors their cultural and culinary heritage. This is what the strong black kitchen looks like in the twenty-first century.

An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit's legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings. From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph "Ziggy" Johnson, has been the pulse of Detroit's famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city's African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he's rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats. As he lays dying in the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it. Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black Bottom's venerable "52 Saints." Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant Joe Louis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York City's Harlem. Accompanying these "tributes" are thoughtfully paired cocktails-special drinks that capture the essence of each of Ziggy's saints-libations as strong and satisfying as Alice Randall's wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.

A lively tale of one young woman's adventure to pass her Official Princess Test, discover a means of escape from her island, and reveal her true destiny.
Thirteen-year-old orphan Black Bee Bright (B. B. for short) is funny, quirky, precocious, and adventurous. But B. B. has a secret. She's captive on an island in the middle of very tropical nowhere because she's forced to hide her true identity as a royally born princess from her parents' enemies in Raven World. B. B. must find a way to escape to the Other World where there are best friends and cool clothes, but she can't escape the island until she passes her Official Princess Test and undertakes a dangerous journey alone to the East side of the island, where eight princesses must help her discover what it truly means to be a princess.
2013 NAACP Image Award Nominee
2013 Phillis Wheatley Book Award Winner

"I No Longer Dance" reveals an athlete's devastating physical and emotional struggle of enduring a painful and crippling disease.

The author, Alice Randall Cocca, suffered from degenerative disc disease, D. D. D., for almost 10 years before her untimely death. D. D. D. robbed her of the passion, "the absolute fire and zest," she once had for living.

Her poetry lays bare the incessant pain and ravaging emotional loss that changed her life drastically. This is her story. Her voice speaks to us on paper. As we turn the pages, we, too, "feel the pain, the severity of her tears, the agony of her walk; the pain that never went away."

"So here I am
Crying
Dying in pain
My body
My soul
BLEEDS
Hear my spine cry"

"I No Longer Dance" reveals an athlete's devastating physical and emotional struggle of enduring a painful and crippling disease.

The author, Alice Randall Cocca, suffered from degenerative disc disease, D. D. D., for almost 10 years before her untimely death. D. D. D. robbed her of the passion, "the absolute fire and zest," she once had for living.

Her poetry lays bare the incessant pain and ravaging emotional loss that changed her life drastically. This is her story. Her voice speaks to us on paper. As we turn the pages, we, too, "feel the pain, the severity of her tears, the agony of her walk; the pain that never went away."

"So here I am
Crying
Dying in pain
My body
My soul
BLEEDS
Hear my spine cry"

Windsor Armstrong has a problem: her brilliant boy, Pushkin X, has become a football superstar and is planning to marry a Russian lap dancer. In Windsor's opinion, Pushkin is throwing away every good thing she has given him. When she was an unwed teen mother, Windsor attended Harvard, leaving her shady Detroit roots behind. She raised her son to be fiercely intelligent, well-spoken, and proud. Now he lives for pro football and a white woman of no account. Outraged by her son's decisions but devoted to loving him right, Windsor prepares to give up her last secret: the identity of Pushkin's father.