"In her rural Appalachian holler, ten-year-old Misty's closest friends are the crawdads. Misty can speak to them, to the birds, to the creek, to everything outside, and she understands how they think. She knows that if she could just speak to her parents in the same way, she could stop all the fighting. But it's too hard. When her only friend William takes their friendship too far, Misty doesn't know how to get help. This is the story of one tough-as-nails...

"'Education is the new buffalo' is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, 'Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never...

"Fables and Spells is a vibrant selection of visionary works, both previously published and brand new. Included here is brown’s most beloved story, 'The River,' as well as the two sequel tales of her Water Trio. The remaining sixty-seven pieces explore moments of beauty, conflict, and transformation that also weave deep, radical lessons. With narrative 'fables' of speculative fiction and 'spells' that play with the lines between poetry, instruction,...