The never-before-told story of the African-American child who started the fight for desegregation in America's public schoolsIn 1847, on windswept Beacon Hill in Boston, a five-year-old girl named Sarah Roberts was forced to walk past five white schools to attend the poor and densely crowded black school. Incensed that his daughter had been turned away at each white school, her father, Benjamin, sued the city of Boston on her behalf. He turned to twenty-four-year-old Robert Morris, the first black attorney ever to win a jury case in America. Together with young Brahmin lawyer Charles Sumner, this legal team forged a powerful argument against school desegregation that has reverberated down through American history, in a direct legal line to Brown v. Board of Education. When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Sarah Roberts, Chief Justice Shaw created the concept of "separate but equal," an idea that affected every aspect of American life until it was overturned one hundred years later by Thurgood Marshall.Today, few have heard of the Roberts case or of the three thousand free blacks in Boston who fought valiantly and successfully-long before the civil rights movement of the 1960s-to integrate schools, theaters, and railway cars; to legalize interracial marriage; and to form the first black army regiment. Now, Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick tell the inspiring story of the remarkable activist community of which Sarah and her family were a part, bringing to light the human side of this crucial struggle. Sarah's Long Walk recovers stories of black and white Boston, of Beacon Hill in the nineteenth century, and of all the concerned citizens, both white and black, who participated in the early struggles for equal rights. The result is a rich historical tapestry, a fascinating story of the courage and conviction of ordinary people who achieved extraordinary things.

"Did Mama sing every day?" Caleb asks his sister Anna. "Every-single-day," she answers. "Papa sang, too." Their mother died the day after Caleb was born. Their house on the prairie is quiet now, and Papa doesn't sing anymore. Then Papa puts an ad in the paper, asking for a wife, and he receives a letter from one Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton, of Maine. Papa, Anna, and Caleb write back. Caleb asks if she sings. Sarah decides to come for a month. She writes Papa: I will come by train. I will wear a yellow bonnet. I am plain and tall, and Tell them I sing. Anna and Caleb wait and wonder. Will Sarah be nice? Will she like them? Will she stay?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • For the weary, the angry, the anxious, and the hopeful, this collection of moving, tender prayers offers rest, joyful resistance, and a call to act, written by Barbara Brown Taylor, Amena Brown, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and other artists and thinkers, curated by the author Glennon Doyle calls “my favorite faith writer.” It’s no secret that we are overworked, overpressured, and edging burnout. Unsurprisingly, this fact is as old as time—and that’s why we see so many prayer circles within a multitude of church traditions. These gatherings are a trusted space where people seek help, hope, and peace, energized by God and one another. This book, curated by acclaimed author Sarah Bessey, celebrates and honors that prayerful tradition in a literary form. A companion for all who feel the immense joys and challenges of the journey of faith, this collection of prayers says it all aloud, giving readers permission to recognize the weight of all they carry. These writings also offer a broadened imagination of hope—of what can be restored and made new. Each prayer is an original piece of writing, with new essays by Sarah Bessey throughout. Encompassing the full breadth of the emotional landscape, these deeply tender yet subversive prayers give readers an intimate look at the diverse language and shapes of prayer.

McClanahan is the only real successor we have to Breece D'J Pancake. Old-fashioned storytelling from modern Appalachia.

After Sarah Trestle botches a simple shoplifting attempt, she is worried that she will get kicked out of her clique of friends, which is made up of three other girls named Sarah whose main summer activities are volunteer work and the occasional petty crime.

The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. Please note there is another digital edition available without Oprah’s notes. Go to Oprah.com/bookclub for more OBC 2.0 content

An American journalist researches the notorious roundup of Parisian Jews and uncovers her French family's war-era secrets.