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WHEN THE MAPOU SINGS

One of our recommended books is When the Mapou Sings by Nadine Pinede

Infused with magical realism, this story blends first love and political intrigue with a quest for justice and self-determination in 1930s Haiti.

Sixteen-year-old Lucille hopes to one day open a school alongside her best friend where girls just like them can learn what it means to be Haitian: to learn from the mountains and the forests around them, to carve, to sew, to draw, and to sing the songs of the Mapou, the sacred trees that dot the island nation. But when her friend vanishes without a trace, a dream–a gift from the Mapou–tells Lucille to go to her village’s section chief,

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GHOSTS OF CROOK COUNTY

One of our recommended books is Ghosts of Crook County by Russell Cobb

The true—and unsolved—story of unabashedly greedy men, their exploitation of Muscogee land, and the hunt for the ghost of a boy who may never have existed

For readers of David Grann’s award-winning Killers of the Flower Moon

In the early 1900s, at the dawn of the “American Century,” few knew the intoxicating power of greed better than white men on the forefront of the black gold rush. When oil was discovered in Oklahoma, these counterfeit tycoons impersonated, defrauded, and murdered Native property owners to snatch up hundreds of acres of oil-rich land.

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A PLACE TO HIDE

One of our recommended books is A Place to Hide by Ronald H. Balson

From the winner of the National Jewish Book Award

Theodore “Teddy” Hartigan is the scion of a wealthy Washington, D.C. family who place him into a comfortable job at the State Department and a placid diplomat’s career. In 1938, as Hitler’s inexorable rise continues, Teddy is re-assigned to the US Consulate in Amsterdam to replace fleeing staff.

Teddy’s job is to process visa applications, and by 1939, refugees from Nazi-conquered Poland, Austria, and other countries are desperate to secure safe passage to America. As Hitler sweeps through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Holland, the screws tighten and law after virulent law is passed to threaten the lives,

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BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN

One of our recommended books is Brighter Than the Sun by Daniel Aleman

A timely and thought-provoking story about a teen girl shouldering impossibly large responsibilities and ultimately learning that she doesn’t have to do it alone from the award-winning author of Indivisible.

Every morning, sixteen-year-old Sol wakes up at the break of dawn in her hometown of Tijuana, Mexico and makes the trip across the border to go to school in the United States. Though the commute is exhausting, this is the best way to achieve her dream: becoming the first person in her family to go to college.

When her family’s restaurant starts struggling, Sol must find a part-time job in San Diego to help her dad put food on the table and pay the bills.

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THE FORBIDDEN DAUGHTER

The unforgettable true story of a girl born in the Kovno Ghetto, and the dangerous risk her parents faced in defying the barbarous Nazi law prohibiting childbirth.

Elida Friedman was not supposed to have been born. In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth. Yet despite the fear of death, Dr. Jonah Friedman and his wife Tzila, choose to bring a daughter into the world, a little girl they name Elida–meaning non-birth in Hebrew.

To increase their child’s chance of survival, the Friedmans smuggle the baby out of the ghetto and into the arms of a non-Jewish farm family when Elida is only three months old.

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ATTACK FROM WITHIN

One of our recommended books is Attack From Within by Barbara McQuade

An urgent, comprehensive explanation of the ways disinformation is impacting democracy, and practical solutions that can be pursued to strengthen the public, media, and truth-based politics.

MSNBC’s legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few.

American society is more polarized than ever before. We are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth—and it comes at us from all sides: opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers,

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