A gripping exploration of the joys, hardships, and truths of Black students through intimate, honest dialogues and stunning photography, author of Heavy “A radical, reverential, and restorative document of community.”—Rebecca Bengal, author of Strange Hours: Photography, Memory, and the Lives of Artists When photographer Adraint Bereal graduated from the University of Texas, he self-published an impressive volume of portraits, personal statements, and interviews that explored UT's campus culture and offered an intimate look at the lives of Black students matriculating within a majority white space. Bereal's work was inspired by his first photo exhibition at the George Washington Carver Museum in Austin, entitled 1.7, that unearthed the experiences of the 925 Black men that made up just 1.7% of UT's total 52,000 student body. Now Bereal expands the scope of his original project and visits colleges nationwide, from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to predominantly white institutions to trade schools and more. Rather than dwelling on the monolith of trauma often associated with Black narratives, Bereal is dedicated to using honest dialogue to share stories of true joy and triumph amidst the hardships, prejudices, and internal struggles. Using an exciting and eclectic design approach to accompany the portraits and stories, each individual profile effectively conveys the interviewee's unique voice, tone, and background. The Black Yearbook reframes society's stereotypical perception of higher education by representing and celebrating the wide range of Black experiences on campuses.

Kids will love looking back at their copies of "My Personal Yearbook," complete with reflections about their lives, lists of favorites and hot trends, letters to their future selves, and more. Created by the editors of "Creative Kids" magazine, the fill-in pages of this book are full of color, cool graphics, and fun activities to help kids document their current passions and interests. Activities include creating a soundtrack for one's life, making a mock social media page, writing an autobiography, preparing a Twitter-style feed documenting a day in their lives, creating a photo timeline, compiling friends' advice and reflections, writing a bucket list, taking quizzes about their lives, and much more. Kids will not only enjoy filling in the many pages of this personalized yearbook, they'll love looking back at it for years to come.

On the eve of its centennial, Carol Dawson and Roger Allen Polson present almost 100 years of history and never-before-seen photographs that track the development of the Texas Highway Department. An agency originally created “to get the farmer out of the mud,” it has gone on to build the vast network of roads that now connects every corner of the state. When the Texas Highway Department (now called the Texas Department of Transportation or TxDOT) was created in 1917, there were only about 200,000 cars in Texas traveling on fewer than a thousand miles of paved roads. Today, after 100 years of the Texas Highway Department, the state boasts over 80,000 miles of paved, state-maintained roads that accommodate more than 25 million vehicles. Sure to interest history enthusiasts and casual readers alike, decades of progress and turmoil, development and disaster, and politics and corruption come together once more in these pages, which tell the remarkable story of an infrastructure 100 years in the making.

In Wild Focus, Earl Nottingham, chief photographer for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and its magazine, provides a unique perspective on Texas featuring images of the woods, waters, and wildlife of the Lone Star landscape. Nottingham’s engaging photography—landscape, nature, and wildlife; environmental portraiture of people; photojournalistic coverage of events, including natural disasters—provides a cohesive overview of biodiversity and the state of conservation in Texas. The nearly 200 stunning photographs collected here encompass the expansive mission of TPWD, presenting traditional landscape images from state and national parks as well as from vast private lands. Cultural and historic sites are included along with environmental portraits of the people associated with those sites. From the state’s wildlife, both great and small, to nature shown in not only its beauty but also its fury—wildfires, hurricanes, and floods—Earl Nottingham offers a visual compendium of events, people, places, and things that have shaped the face of natural Texas. The author logged untold miles and wore through many sets of tires to offer timely stories that would “inform, educate, entertain, and empower” readers about the outdoors. These images that capture the richness and diversity of wild Texas inspire a greater appreciation for the state’s beauty and promote a sense of stewardship for its natural treasures.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, in response to the rising epidemic of paralytic poliomyelitis (polio), Texas researchers led a wave of discoveries in virology, rehabilitative therapies, and the modern intensive care unit that transformed the field nationally. The disease threatened the lives of children and adults in the United States, especially in the South, arousing the same kind of fear more recently associated with AIDS and other dread diseases. Houston and Harris County, Texas, had the second-highest rate of infection in the nation, and the rest of the Texas Gulf Coast was particularly hard-hit by this debilitating illness. At the time, little was known, but eventually the medical responses to polio changed the medical landscape forever. Polio also had a sweeping cultural and societal effect. It engendered fearful responses from parents trying to keep children safe from its ravages and an all-out public information blitz aimed at helping a frightened population protect itself. The disease exacted a very real toll on the families, friends, healthcare resources, and social fabric of those who contracted the disease and endured its acute, convalescent, and rehabilitation phases. In The Polio Years in Texas, Heather Green Wooten draws on extensive archival research as well as interviews conducted over a five-year period with Texas polio survivors and their families. This is a detailed and intensely human account of not only the epidemics that swept Texas during the polio years, but also of the continuing aftermath of the disease for those who are still living with its effects. Public health and medical professionals, historians, and interested general readers will derive deep and lasting benefits from reading The Polio Years in Texas.

A New York Times–bestselling, in-depth exploration of the most pivotal moments in rap music from 1979 to 2014. Here’s what The Rap Year Book does: It takes readers from 1979, widely regarded as the moment rap became recognized as part of the cultural and musical landscape, and comes right up to the present, with Shea Serrano hilariously discussing, debating, and deconstructing the most important rap song year by year. Serrano also examines the most important moments that surround the history and culture of rap music—from artists’ backgrounds to issues of race, the rise of hip-hop, and the struggles among its major players—both personal and professional. Covering East Coast and West Coast, famous rapper feuds, chart toppers, and show stoppers, The Rap Year Book is an in-depth look at the most influential genre of music to come out of the last generation. Picked by Billboard as One of the 100 Greatest Music Books of All-Time Pitchfork Book Club’s first selection

The classic reference work that provides annually updated information on the countries of the world.