Last Updated: June 16, 2025
Surrounded: America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832
by Wilfrid Lupano
Thirty years before the abolition of slavery, some fifteen young people in the Crandall school are greeted by a wave of hostility of insane proportion. White America is afraid of some of its children. The story of this school and its legal legacy for civil rights cannot be understated. Crandall v. State (of Connecticut) was the first full-throated civil rights case in U.S. history.
Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day
by Alex L. Combs & Andrew Eakett
What does “trans” mean, and what does it mean to be trans? Illustrated conversations with modern activists, scholars, and creatives highlight the breadth of current trans experiences and give readers a deeper sense of the diversity of trans people, a group numbering in the millions. Extensive source notes provide further resources.
Ginseng Roots
by Craig Thompson
Ginseng Roots follows Craig Thompson and his siblings-who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms for one dollar an hour-and interweaves this lost youth with the three-hundred-year history of the global ginseng trade and the many lives it has tied together.
Insectopolis: A Natural History
by Peter Kuper
This visually immersive work of graphic nonfiction dives into a world where ants, cicadas, bees, and butterflies visit a library exhibition that displays their stories and humanity’s connection to them throughout the ages. Kuper also illuminates pioneering naturalists.