"With We Carry Their Bones, Erin Kimmerle continues to unearth the true story of the Dozier School, a tale more frightening than any fiction. In a corrupt world, her unflinching revelations are as close as we'll come to justice." –Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer-Prize Winning author of The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle investigates of the notorious Dozier Boys School—the true story behind the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Nickel Boys—and the contentious process to exhume the graves of the boys buried there in order to reunite them with their families. The Arthur G. Dozier Boys School was a well-guarded secret in Florida for over a century, until reports of cruelty, abuse, and “mysterious” deaths shut the institution down in 2011. Established in 1900, the juvenile reform school accepted children as young as six years of age for crimes as harmless as truancy or trespassing. The boys sent there, many of whom were Black, were subject to brutal abuse, routinely hired out to local farmers by the school’s management as indentured labor, and died either at the school or attempting to escape its brutal conditions. In the wake of the school’s shutdown, Erin Kimmerle, a leading forensic anthropologist, stepped in to locate the school’s graveyard to determine the number of graves and who was buried there, thus beginning the process of reuniting the boys with their families through forensic and DNA testing. The school’s poorly kept accounting suggested some thirty-one boys were buried in unmarked graves in a remote field on the school’s property. The real number was at least twice that. Kimmerle’s work did not go unnoticed; residents and local law enforcement threatened and harassed her team in their eagerness to control the truth she was uncovering—one she continues to investigate to this day. We Carry Their Bones is a detailed account of Jim Crow America and an indictment of the reform school system as we know it. It’s also a fascinating dive into the science of forensic anthropology and an important retelling of the extraordinary efforts taken to bring these lost children home to their families—an endeavor that created a political firestorm and a dramatic reckoning with racism and shame in the legacy of America.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I was brought in to help find the burial sites of the boys who had died at the reform school. I had no idea how difficult this would be. #2 I met with Glen Varnadoe, a man who believed his uncle was buried on the Dozier property. He had spent forty years working for a chemical company in Central Florida, and he was well-off. He hired a lawyer to stop the sale of the land. #3 We learned that the school had buried a number of boys who had died there, possibly nineteen more than what was reported. The state department of law enforcement said they knew how all the boys had died: some killed in a fire, others in a flu epidemic, and nothing criminal occurred. #4 We found that nearly 70 percent of the boys buried at Dozier were African American. The state’s investigation identified only 31 burials on-site, but we now had records for 45 boys.

"More than forty million Americans claim Irish ancestry. This lively book explains how and why they got to the U.S. and shows how their history made them who they are. From prehistoric Ireland to Irish schools in America, this well-illustrated book provides an essential overview of the ties between the Emerald Isle and the New World."--

From NYT bestselling author Blue Balliett, the story of a girl who falls into Chicago's shelter system, and from there must solve the mystery of her father's strange disappearance. Where is Early's father? He's not the kind of father who would disappear. But he's gone . . . and he's left a whole lot of trouble behind.As danger closes in, Early, her mom, and her brother have to flee their apartment. With nowhere else to go, they are forced to move into a city shelter. Once there, Early starts asking questions and looking for answers. Because her father hasn't disappeared without a trace. There are patterns and rhythms to what's happened, and Early might be the only one who can use them to track him down and make her way out of a very tough place.With her signature, singular love of language and sense of mystery, Blue Balliett weaves a story that takes readers from the cold, snowy Chicago streets to the darkest corner of the public library, on an unforgettable hunt for deep truths and a reunited family.

Timely social justice title, coming out within the social context of the MeToo movement and on top of the ongoing global institutional sex-abuse scandal within the Roman Catholic Church. Timely social activism tale; adult survivors known as the White House Boys (for the name of the house where abuse took place) went public with their allegations, leading to the DOJ investigation that ultimately closed the school. Written by a forensic anthropologist and biology professor at the College of Mount St Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Excellent STEM title that shows how science (forensic anthropology) matters to individuals, institutions, and communities in establishing truth and the potential for justice.

THE TIMES '100 BEST SUMMER READS' NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2020 'Sublime' Candice Carty-Williams 'An epic in miniature' Tayari Jones 'A banger' Ta-Nehisi Coates 'Generous and big-hearted' Brit Bennett 'A true spell of a book' Ocean Vuong 'A proclamation' R.O. Kwon 'A little masterpiece' Paula Hawkins 'I adored this book' Elizabeth MacNeal 'Pure poetry' Observer 'A sharply focused gem' Sunday Times 'Will remind you why you love reading' Stylist 'Haunting' Guardian 'A wonderful, tragic, inspiring story' Metro 'Prose that sings off the page... Gorgeous' Mail on Sunday 'A nuanced portrait of shifting family relationships' Financial Times 'As seductive as a Prince bop' O, The Oprah Magazine 'Razor-sharp' Vanity Fair 'Dazzling... With urgent, vital insights into questions of class, gender, race, history, queerness and sex' New York Times An unexpected teenage pregnancy brings together two families from different social classes, and exposes the private hopes, disappointments and longings that can bind or divide us. From the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming. Brooklyn, 2001. It is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress - the very same dress that was sewn for a different wearer, Melody's mother, for a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's family - from the 1921 Tulsa race massacre to post 9/11 New York - Red at the Bone explores sexual desire, identity, class, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, as it looks at the ways in which young people must so often make fateful decisions about their lives before they have even begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be. *** ONE OF THE BOOKS OF THE YEAR FOR: New York Times; Washington Post; Time; USA Today; O, The Oprah Magazine; Elle; Good Housekeeping; Esquire; NPR; New York Public Library; Library Journal; Kirkus; BookRiot; She Reads; The Undefeated ***

"Home is a complex ideation for many POC and migrant peoples. I Always Carry My Bones explores how familial history echoes inside a person and the ghosts of lineage dwell in a body. Sometimes we haunt. Sometimes we are the haunted. Pierced by an estranged relationship to Mexican culture, the ethereal ache of an unknown father, the weight of racism and poverty in this country, the indentations of abuse, and a mind/physicality affected by doubt, these poems root in the search for belonging-a belonging inside and outside the flesh. Space-making requires a clawing at the atrocities of today's social injustices. Space-making requires a dismantling of violent systems against brown and black bodies. Home is the place where the horrid and beautiful intertwine and carve a being into existence. At times, the reaction is recoil: "biomimicry-how I adapt away/ from you-biomimicry-as if to chant my way/ into something worthy of your affection." At other times, the reaction is love: "if we fracture a system long enough/ our voices build/ a neoteric system/ with our voices inside." The voices in these poems are never truly singular. POC, trans/queer individuals and all marginalized people hold evolutionary revolutions in our cells. In language and elements, we are a collective. Survival held in our adaptation-another action that culls from us. We summon the magic inside of us to create a world in which we see ourselves beyond the death expected of us. We pray to our own tongues to conjure ourselves into existence. This book longs for a sanctuary of self-the dwelling of initial energy needed for our collective fight for human rights"--