Most Popular Books by Ntozake Shange

A vibrant and vital collection that celebrates the three most important muses in the life and work of Ntozake Shange—language, music, and dance. In this deeply personal book, the celebrated writer reflects on what it means to be an artist, a woman, and a woman of color through a beautiful combination of memoir and essay. She describes where her love for creative forces began--in her childhood home, a place where imagination reigned and boredom wasn''t allowed. The essays tell stories ranging from the poignant origin of her celebrated play "for colored girls" to why Shange needed to deconstruct the English language to make that production work, from the intensity of the female experience and the black experience as separate entities to the difficulty of living both lives simultaneously; from the intense love of jazz bestowed on her by her father to a similar obsession with dance, which came from her mother. With deep sincerity, attention, and her legendary candor, Shange''s collection progresses from the public arena to the private, gathering along the way the passions and insights of an author who writes with “such exquisite care and beauty that anybody can relate to her message” (Clive Barnes, The New York Times).

Shange''s lyrical poem is a tribute to the language of music and the magical, often mystical, rhythms that connect people. Music defines who we are as individuals, the places where we live, and how we exist within our communities. Music is life.Written in a syncopated style that has its own melody, the poem is perfectly married to twenty-one extraordinary and diverse works from Romare Bearden who once said, "I paint in the tradition of the blues."Here is a unique and visionary book that speaks, indeed sings, to both children and adults and is, at once, compelling, profond, and entertaining.

The Beacon Best of 1999 is what I would like to remember as the year 2000 approaches, sketches of what we hold sacred and keep for those to come. . . . These stories, poems, and essays pay homage to what''s become of us, to what we bring to the next millennium-the sweet rememberings of the imagined." -Ntozake Shange, from the Introduction Continuing a commitment to presenting experiences drawn from lives lived outside the lines, Beacon Press presents The Beacon Best of 1999, a dazzling collection that includes the work of Dorothy Allison, Junot Díaz, Rita Dove, Louise Erdrich, Martín Espada, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Ha Jin, Jamaica Kincaid, Barbara Kingsolver, Yusef Komunyakaa, Hanif Kureishi, Marjorie Sandor, and John Edgar Wideman, as well as rising stars like Touré and Reetika Vazirani. Acclaimed playwright, poet, and novelist Ntozake Shange has chosen a treasury of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction published over the past year. In The Beacon Best of 1999, women and men writing with fine grace ask us to look at the whole picture, from the street to the second story-to see, perhaps for the first time, the life of boxer Jack Johnson, or the fierceness of a love transformed into rage for a child killed by gang violence, or the complexities of a love affair in New Delhi, as lenses through which to consider questions of courage, brotherhood, and beauty. The alternative literary annual, The Beacon Best of 1999,/iu003e will introduce you to a world where tradition and convention are overturned and the unexpected is a welcome guest.

A young African-American girl is traumatized when a gang attacks her and her brother on their way home from school and spray-paints her face white. Based on a true story.

Jim Crow; Brown v. Board of Education; Bull Connor; KKK; Birmingham; the Lorraine Motel; Rosa; Martin; and Malcolm. From slavery to the separation of "colored" and "white" and from horrifying oppression to inspiring courage, there are countless stories—both forgotten and immortalized—of everyday and extraordinary people who acted for justice during the civil rights movement that changed our nation. Award-winning poet Ntozake Shange and illustrator Rod Brown give voice to all those who fought for their unalienable rights in a triumphant book about the power of the human spirit.

Using the classic call-and-response structure of black music--the visual art work as the call and language as the response--this book provides a unique interchange between contemporary visual arts and poetry

"Rosa" : On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a Montgomery, Alabama city bus and refused to give up her seat to a white man. Iconographic (14 minutes) / Lexile [registered trademark] : 900L / GRL: T / Ages 5-12.

An introduction to the legendary boxer, Muhammad Ali, including his accomplishments as a fighter and his contributions to society.