Showing results by narrator "Peter Francis James" in All Categories

The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

Living in an abandoned apartment building in South-Central L.A., Socrates is one step away from the streets. He bags groceries at the supermarket, collects bottles and cans to recycle for pennies, and feels himself slipping toward invisibility - that is, until he meets 11-year-old Darryl, whose already committed murder and is perilously close to slipping into a life filled with only violence and bloodshed. Socrates' determination to fight for and save Darryl lights his own pathway to self-forgiveness.

Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. Moving forward and backward in time, with the power of poetry and the emotional richness of a narrative 10 times its length, Jacqueline Woodson's extraordinary new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of this child.

Jack Foley is serving a 30-year sentence in a Miami penitentiary, but he's made an unlikely friend on the inside who just might be able to do something about that. Fellow inmate Cundo Rey, an extremely wealthy Cuban criminal, arranges for Foley's sentence to be reduced from 30 years to three months, and when Jack is released just two weeks ahead of Cundo, he agrees to wait for him in Venice Beach, California.

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was the greatest jazz composer of the twentieth century - and an impenetrably enigmatic personality whom no one, not even his closest friends, claimed to understand. The grandson of a slave, he dropped out of high school to become one of the world's most famous musicians, a showman of incomparable suavity who was as comfortable in Carnegie Hall as in the nightclubs where he honed his style.

Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.

Primary Colors offers a richly detailed look at life on the political stump. As former congressional aide Henry Burton is dazzled and lured into presidential hopeful Jack Stanton's fledgling campaign, he becomes a cog in Stanton's unstoppable political machine. Burton illuminates, through his actions and observations, the sometimes seamy, sometimes steamy and sometimes surprisingly noble ascent to the presidency.

When Sheriff Mapes is summoned to a sugarcane plantation to find a dead Cajun farmer, he knows who committed the crime. Mapes finds himself powerless, however, when nearly 20 elderly black men confess to the murder. Can justice be served, or will the dead man's brutish father pass judgment his way?

Fiery Blair Simpson's only ambition in life is dancing, but knee injuries force her to postpone her promising career on Broadway for six long months. Seeking a quieter life by moving to a small town, she focuses on her recovery and return to the stage. But her attractive new landlord, Sean Garrett, diverts her attention by bringing new feelings to life in her heart.

When fate brings Jazmine and the X-Man together, the only thing they have in common is a dream to make it big in the music business. Jazmine, a college student, sings in the church choir and yearns for the courage to move away from her overprotective father. The X-Man, who packs a .38 and gets high with his homies, performs his own brand of gangsta rap in the street. Suddenly Black Tie Records discovers them both, and, amazingly enough, they discover each other. These unlikely lovers are a good match, realizing their dreams together....

Returning to the city that inspired his first prize-winning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens.

In his best-selling memoir, On The Road Less Traveled, Ed Hajim told the story of how he went from being a 3 year-old-boy kidnapped by his father (and then abandoned to foster care), to becoming a successful Wall Street executive and family man. The Island of the Four Ps, is a story told in two parts. The first is a modern fable, inspired by that experience, and the second is the author's personal story, which draws upon his own hard-won life lessons.

With just the right amount of wickedness, love, and compassion, Harris' masterful storytelling and delicious plot twists will have fans and newcomers alike frantically trying to find the answer to the ultimate question: Does revenge ever really pay?

In the dingy Auburn Street project where Junebug lives, ten is the age when young boys start joining gangs and helping drug dealers. Junebug has watched his friend, Darnell, drift away in a sleek, dark-windowed car. He has seen his Aunt Jolita, surrounded by a cloud of jewelry and perfume, strut off with silent gang leaders. Junebug’s mother works hard to keep him and his little sister safe. So do the librarian and the tutor who set up a reading room in the basement of the graffiti-coated apartment building.

Such is our task, and such lies before us all: Liberty or death. In the summer of 1775, fleeing from a death sentence, Octavian and his tutor, Dr. Trefusis, escape through rising tides and pouring rain to find shelter in British-occupied Boston. Sundered from all he knows Octavian hopes to find safe harbor. But in the midst of war, no place is safe. The city of Boston itself is under siege. What follows is a tale of skirmish and flame, flight and fury, and battle on sea and land.

In their only collaboration for children, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu use their childhood stories to show young people how to find joy even in hard times and why sharing joy with others makes it grow. The two spiritual masters tell a simple story of how every child has joy inside them, even when it sometimes hides, and how we can find it, keep it close, and grow it by sharing it with the world.

Junior, a 300 pound musical and artistic prodigy, depends on his imagination for companionship. Buddy is used to depending on no one but himself. Homeless, he uses his wits to survive the streets. With the help of Mr. Poole, the school custodian, the two boys discover a sheltered universe of their own in the basement room. When their hiding place is discovered, and Junior loses the only place he feels safe, his imagination takes over. It will take all of Buddy’s resource to protect his friend as the realities of Junior’s world come crashing in around them both.

In this brilliant narrative, Fleischman re-creates the first great battle of the Civil War from the points of view of sixteen different participants. Through an unflinching narrative of the battle of Bull Run, human faces begin to emerge from the faded pages of history. Read by a varied cast of narrators, the characters on both sides spring to vivid life as they share their feelings as the battle of Bull Run rages around them.

A powerful wartime saga recounting the extraordinary story of the 761st Tank Battalion, the first all-Black armored unit to see combat in World War II.