Showing results by narrator "Nikki Massoud" in All Categories

Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club series featured a complex cast of characters and touched on an impressive range of issues that were underrepresented at the time: divorce, adoption, childhood illness, class division, and racism, to name a few. In We Are the Baby-Sitters Club, writers from the original BSC generation will reflect on the enduring legacy of Ann M. Martin’s beloved series, 35 years later - celebrating the BSC’s profound cultural influence. 

From the organization We Need Diverse Books and Dhonielle Clayton, the co-author of Blackout, comes a fantasy collection of short stories from a list of diverse, award-winning, and best-selling authors. This critically acclaimed young adult anthology welcomes every voice to lead, empower, and take command of their universe.

For the curious and imaginative Moji, there is no better place to grow up than the lush garden of her grandparents in Tehran. However, as she sits with her sister underneath the grapevines, listening to their grandfather recount the enchanting stories of One Thousand and One Nights, revolution is brewing in her homeland. Soon, the last monarch of Iran will leave the country, and her home and her family will never be the same.

As a new coven, Aziza, Leo, and Tristan faced evil and triumphed. All that’s left is to put their lives back together, a process complicated by the fallout from painful secrets, the emotional and physical scars they now carry, and the mysteries that still haunt them. But with the approach of the solstice comes the arrival of strange new visitors to Blackthorn: the Summer Court, a nomadic community of Fair Folk from deep in Elphame. They’ve journeyed to the border between the human world and fairyland, far from their usual caravan route, to take back something that belongs to them.

For the past five decades Ms. has been the nation’s most influential source of feminist ideas, and it remains at the forefront of feminism today, affecting thought and culture with a younger-than-ever readership (ages 16-20!). Here are essays, profiles, conversations with and features by: Alice Walker, Cynthia Enloe, Pauli Murray, Nancy Pelosi, bell hooks, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Brittney Cooper, and Joy Harjo, as well as fiction and poetry by Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, and Sharon Olds, and many others.

Why are some of the most interesting artists of our time committed to engaging with conflict and exploitation around the world? Beautiful, Gruesome, and True tells the stories of three of them: Amar Kanwar makes riveting films about the destruction of rural India in the drive to extract natural resources. Teresa Margolles creates haunting installations from the traces of crime scenes and drug-related violence in Mexico. The anonymous collective Abounaddara has produced more than four hundred short films chronicling the uprising and civil war in Syria.

My name is Vayo, and I am a slave. My people lived in Argia, the City of Light, before Nabonidus the Defiler swept across the land. He conquered, murdering and enslaving the other tribes. I was born after the fall, in a crumbling pit of despair and sadness. Nabonidus crowned himself ruler of the land, building his new kingdom from the rubble of our fallen world. I live and serve them now, my head bowed, and my eyes down. That is, until a master servant chose me.

Kate Jenkins doesn’t believe in fate. She believes in a clear vision, meticulous planning, and hard work in order to achieve her culinary dreams. On the cusp of opening her own Parisian restaurant, Bistro Exotique, she isn’t even concerned when her standoffish—and annoyingly sexy—neighbor dismisses her as a crazy American tourist or when she meets the wildly eccentric Garrance, the self-proclaimed Spice Master of Paris, who ominously warns her of the previous owner’s failures.

Ruby Spencer is spending one year living in a small cottage in a tiny town in the Scottish Highlands for three reasons: to write a bestselling cookbook, to drink a barrelful of whisky, and to figure out what comes next. It’s hard to know what to expect after an impulse decision based on a map of Scotland in her Manhattan apartment—but she knows it’s high time she had an adventure. The moment she sets foot in Thistlecross, the verdant scenery, cozy cottages, and struggling local pub steal her heart. It doesn’t hurt that Brochan, the handyman, keeps coming around to repair things at her cottage.

As the only hedgewitch in Blackthorn, Massachusetts―an uncommonly magical place―Aziza El-Amin has bargained with wood nymphs, rescued palm-sized fairies from house cats, banished flesh-eating shadows from the local park. But when a dark entity awakens in the forest outside of town, eroding the invisible boundary between the human world and fairyland, run-of-the-mill fae mischief turns into outright aggression, and the danger―to herself and others―becomes too great for her to handle alone.

Mama Shamsi is off to the market, and today, Samira gets to go with her! Samira loves spending time with her grandmother, and she especially loves her chador, which Mama Shamsi wraps around herself every time they leave the house. As the pair get closer and closer to the market, Samira is worried about getting lost in the crowded streets of Tehran, until she has an idea: She can hide under her grandmother's chador.

Don’t be intimidated by Shakespeare! These popular guides make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable.

Don’t be intimidated by Shakespeare! These popular guides make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable.

My name is Vayo, and I am no longer a slave. I have ascended, assuming the mantle of Grae god. I wield elemental power now, and with Traba, an enormous storm bird, at my side, I set out to finally see my people set free. And yet, I am not the only one wielding unnatural strength. In his desperation, Cyrus brokered a deal with the darkest of the Undergods. If I am to defeat the King and his newfound power, I must locate the other ascendants. Only with them at my side can I restore balance. To find them, I need a relic lost to both time and sand.