Meet Anjali! She's the spunky star of this picture book with a timeless message about appreciating what makes us special and honoring our different identities. Anjali and her friends are excited to buy matching personalized license plates for their bikes--but Anjali can't find a plate with her name. She is often teased about her "different" name, and this is the last straw. Anjali is so upset that she demands her parents let her pick a new name! When they refuse, Anjali decides to take a closer look at who she is--beyond her name--and why being different means being marvelous.  Actress and activist Sheetal Sheth has penned a deeply personal picture book about the experience of feeling othered and the journey toward embracing yourself.

A love story. An artistic journey. A matter of life and death... In 2000, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen embarked on a tour across America -- one that would give them a glimpse of the darker side of the justice system and, at the same time, reveal to them just how resilient the human spirit can be. They were a pair of young actors from New York who wanted to learn more about our country's exonerated -- men and women who had been sentenced to die for crimes they didn't commit, who spent anywhere from two to twenty-two years on death row, and who were freed amidst overwhelming evidence of their innocence. The result of their journey was The Exonerated, New York Times number one play of 2002, which was embraced by such acting luminaries as Ossie Davis, Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Glover, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and Robin Williams. Living Justice is Jessica and Erik's fascinating, behind-the-scenes account of the creation of their play. A tale of artistic expression and political awakening, innocence lost and wisdom won, this is above all a story about two people who fall in love while pursuing their passion and learn -- through the stories of the exonerated -- what freedom truly means.

What effect does it have on a person--a soul, a life--to have freedom and self-respect stripped away and then, ostensibly, returned years later after decades of incarceration? "The Exonerated" attempts to answer this question through the words of six innocent men and women who, after years in jail, emerged from death row to try to reclaim what was left of their lives.
Among them are Sunny Jacobs, a mother of two whose unwavering belief during sixteen years in jail that she would be released (despite the execution of her husband, who was also innocent, for the same crime) allowed her to dedicate herself to being a "living memorial" when she was freed. There is Kerry Max Cook, a Texan who was convicted of murdering a young woman even though she was found with another man's hair grasped in her fist--a man whom "Texas killed a thousand times, and just keeps on doing it" in his nightmares. And there is Delbert Tibbs, a black Chicago poet who speaks of his years on death row with anger and bitterness, yet also, as he says, "still sings." All their stories have been compiled and edited by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen into "The Exonerated," a play that is both a riveting work of theater and an exploration of the dark side of the American criminal justice system.