The Crystal Pumpkin is an upbeat, uplifting, compelling story which takes the reader on an emotional, historical journey through eighteen years in the life of the author. The book captures the essence of the culture, experiences, struggles, music, entertainment, art, poetry, religion, charm, and nuances of Black life, Black love, and Black survival. Importantly, the author provides a riveting portrayal of events in local and national history as seen through the lens of a young Black girl who grows into adulthood in Chicago. The characters are real, and their lives, like their stories, are unforgettable. The lessons provided are universal, and the messages are moving and memorable. This delightful semi-autobiography has adventure, mystery, intrigue, shock, comedy, crime, drama, tragedy, and a scintillating love story. It provides a factual account of an era that featured struggles for individual and collective identity, purpose, and social justice during an earlier and simpler time. The stories unfold as the book, divided into three parts, explodes with historical developments and personal triumphs born of tragedies. The author explores the dawning of her identity amid self-doubt, family secrets, childhood fantasies, the specter of racism, and her educational and professional challenges as a public-school teacher and university faculty. Her pursuit of education and her explorations of social justice, civil rights, and antiwar endeavors are chronicled in her experiences of a "new day" when she comes of age during a tumultuous time. Her activism, high school and college experiences, and travels to the Bahamas and Western Europe mold her dedication before shocking and tragic developments alter the trajectory of her life. The reader will experience the educational, social, and personal challenges, struggles, setbacks, and victories of main characters during an unforgettable era. The treasured stories and sentiments shared are unique and timeless.

A young boy describes how he picked out his Halloween pumpkin and carved it and compares his experience to God's love for him.

Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard. Harder when your whole life is on fire, though. A NEW ENGLAND BOOK AWARD WINNER! Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat. People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it's hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn't help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter. But there's one person who's always in Charlie's corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing--he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? Because it's time people did. A sensitive, funny, and painfully honest coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves. An NPR Best Book of the Year! Named to the TAYSHAS Reading List A POPSUGAR Best New YA Novel! A Cosmopolitan Best New Book! A Bustle Most Anticipated Debut!

The Halloween tradition of pumpkin carving is used as a metaphor for the gospel message to show how God cleans out all of the yucky stuff and puts a light within believers to shine for Him. Shaped like a pumpkin, this book also features glow-in-the-dark ink throughout.

You should know, right now, that I'm a liar. They're usually little lies. Tiny lies. Baby lies. Not so much lies as lie adjacent. But they're still lies... Golden-haired Max Monroe has it all: beauty, friends, and tons of followers. Her picture-perfect existence seems eminently enviable. Except it's all fake. "Max" is actually Kat Sanchez, a quiet and sarcastic 17-year-old living in drab Bakersfield, California. Nothing glamorous about her existence—just bad house parties, a crap school year, and the awkwardness of dealing with best friend Hari's unrequited love. But while Kat's life is far from perfect, she thrives as Max: doling out advice, sharing beautiful photos, networking with fans, even finding a real friend (or more?—Is Kat into girls!?) in a gorgeous Fat follower named Elena. But the closer Elena and "Max" get, the more Kat feels she has to keep up the façade. "Max" is the first time people have really listened to what Kat has to say—and after a lifetime of invisibility (including ice-cold indifference from her parents) can she really give that up? But when one of Kat's posts goes viral and gets back to the girl she's been stealing photos from, her entire world—real and fake—comes crashing down around her. Can she escape the web of lies she's woven without hurting the people she loves? This insightful, provocative novel—hilarious and raw by turns—is the second book from Crystal Maldonado, author of smash-hit New England Book Award Winner Fat Chance, Charlie Vega. Brilliantly plotted, deeply sensitive, and rich in voice, No Filter and Other Lies deftly addresses FOMO, first love, one-sided love, frayed family ties, raced exclusion on social media, queer awakenings, and learning to live with—and love—yourself. Because the most powerful lies are the lies we tell ourselves. Named to the ALA Rainbow Roundtable's Rainbow Book List! A POPSUGAR Best YA • A Seventeen Best YA • A Good Housekeeping Best YA Novel of the Year • A Latina Media Most Anticipated Latina Book of the Year • A Nerdist Most Anticipated Book • A School Library Journal Not-to-Miss Latinx Book • A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection "Ultrasmart."—Publishers Weekly, starred review "Stunning."—Nerdist "Brings me to tears."—Latinxs in Kid Lit

On the Way to BrightLand Is the first book in a series of stories that follow Ellie and Pumpkin’s Adventures to and from their home in BrightLand to the Land-Where-the-Children-Live where they visit Sam and Rosie every year. In Book One, you will go on a treasure hunt, help Ellie and Pumpkin solve a mystery, and meet some of their friends: the frogs who live in the pond by the waterfall, the ponies who live in the apple orchard, Ruby and Gemma who live in the mountains, and Roger-the-Squirrel and Bonnie Bluebird. Ellie loves to have fun and play games and he is always ready to help his friends. Soon you will think of Ellie as your friend too!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In her first cookbook, Bon Appétit and YouTube star of the show Gourmet Makes offers wisdom, problem-solving strategies, and more than 100 meticulously tested, creative, and inspiring recipes. IACP AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Bon Appétit • NPR • The Atlanta Journal-Constitution • Salon • Epicurious “There are no ‘just cooks’ out there, only bakers who haven't yet been converted. I am a dessert person, and we are all dessert people.”—Claire Saffitz Claire Saffitz is a baking hero for a new generation. In Dessert Person, fans will find Claire’s signature spin on sweet and savory recipes like Babkallah (a babka-Challah mashup), Apple and Concord Grape Crumble Pie, Strawberry-Cornmeal Layer Cake, Crispy Mushroom Galette, and Malted Forever Brownies. She outlines the problems and solutions for each recipe—like what to do if your pie dough for Sour Cherry Pie cracks (patch it with dough or a quiche flour paste!)—as well as practical do’s and don’ts, skill level, prep and bake time, step-by-step photography, and foundational know-how. With her trademark warmth and superpower ability to explain anything baking related, Claire is ready to make everyone a dessert person.

Kelly lives the life of a typical teen in the suburbs of Southern California with her football star boyfriend and loyal best friend. It's her senior year, and she's looking forward to her eighteenth birthday. But her life totally changes when she's abducted by her birth family, a family she didn't even know existed. Meeting her mother and two sisters for the first time is almost too much for her to handle. Kelly learns she is a witch born from a coven of witches with special powers. She's called back to help her family fight the evil, power-hungry witch, Victoria, and the Wizard Council, who want to destroy all that Kelly's family holds dear before the Immortality Ceremony, a ceremony that will seal the girls' fate and powers for all eternity. To make things even more complicated, Kelly falls in love with an Indian named Max White Bear. But because of a longstanding tradition, their relationship is a hard sell to the chief of the Indian tribe. With the war between good and evil looming, Kelly must find the strength to harness her magical powers and summon The Crystal Princess inside her. Kimberly Norton lives in the foothills of California, with her husband and two young children. She volunteers at her children's school, and her spare time is devoted to her passion for writing.

A warm, spellbinding tale about a witch and the secrets her coven has been keeping from her, with echoes of the classic Hades and Persephone story, in the tradition of Practical Magic and Witch of Wild Things. Hecate Goodwin, Kate to her friends, has curated the perfect life as a hedge witch, living in a secluded cottage with only a black cat for company. She spends her days foraging herbs from the Ipswich forest, gardening, and creating tinctures to sell at the apothecary she owns. Most evenings pass without her speaking to another human being, an arrangement she quite prefers. Kate’s solitude is thrown into disarray when her older sister, Miranda, reaches out and asks her to host their coven’s annual Halloween gathering. The day marks the beginning of the new year for witches and is also Kate’s birthday. The pressure from her coven to make the evening memorable mounts as the event draws near. To complicate things further, a handsome man from Kate’s past turns up at her cottage, asking for sanctuary. It is Kate’s duty as a hedge witch to honor this request, much to her dismay. Matthew Cypher is no ordinary lost soul–he’s a practitioner of forbidden magic who’s tricked Kate once before, and her guard is up. As she juggles Matthew’s arrival and the preparations for Halloween, Kate comes across an old tome shrouded in dark magic. She is horrified when she realizes the blood-red inscription is written in familiar handwriting: her recently deceased mother’s. Afraid to even touch the dark magic her mother secretly studied, Kate can turn only to Matthew for help. Her idealized memory of her mother begins to distort, and as she and Matthew grow closer, Kate has to reevaluate whom she can really trust. A Dark and Secret Magic is a celebration of the Halloween season and a love letter to anyone who drinks pumpkin spice in August and carries the spirit of a witch inside their heart all year long.

Why do so many Americans drive for miles each autumn to buy a vegetable that they are unlikely to eat? While most people around the world eat pumpkin throughout the year, North Americans reserve it for holiday pies and other desserts that celebrate the harvest season and the rural past. They decorate their houses with pumpkins every autumn and welcome Halloween trick-or-treaters with elaborately carved jack-o'-lanterns. Towns hold annual pumpkin festivals featuring giant pumpkins and carving contests, even though few have any historic ties to the crop. In this fascinating cultural and natural history, Cindy Ott tells the story of the pumpkin. Beginning with the myth of the first Thanksgiving, she shows how Americans have used the pumpkin to fulfull their desire to maintain connections to nature and to the family farm of lore, and, ironically, how small farms and rural communities have been revitalized in the process. And while the pumpkin has inspired American myths and traditions, the pumpkin itself has changed because of the ways people have perceived, valued, and used it. Pumpkin is a smart and lively study of the deep meanings hidden in common things and their power to make profound changes in the world around us.