Two Et Alia Books Selected for the 2024 Arkansas Gems Poster by The Arkansas Center for the Book

Arkansas Gems is an annual publication of the Arkansas Center for the Book at the Arkansas State Library. Arkansas Gems posters and bookmarks feature approximately twenty new works about Arkansas or by authors with a connection to the Natural State. This project is one of the ways the Arkansas Center for the Book fulfills the mission of encouraging reading, writing, and literacy in the state.

This year, the 2024 Great Read for Youth is the Et Alia picture book Cypress Knees and Tupelo Trees: Discovering Plants and Animals of the Swamp, written and illustrated by Cathy Melvin. 2024 Arkansas Center for the Book “Great Reads” selections will our state at the 2024 National Book Festival in Washington DC next weekend. The 2024 Festival theme is “Books Build Us Up.” Cypress Knees and Tupelo Trees is featured at the top of the poster along with the 2024 Great Read for Adults, the novel Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime, 2023).

Also included in the poster is the Et Alia book One True Scrapper: A Memoir of Childhood Cancer, Good Eyeliner, and a Fighting Spirit by Kaden Peebles.

Inclusion in the poster is based on the work’s literary or artistic merit, originality, and potential for local and regional interest. Titles with registered copyrights published within the current calendar year or previous calendar year will be considered. Arkansas Gems posters and bookmarks are introduced each year at the National Book Festival, and they help to highlight recent regional literature to a national audience.

Three Et Alia Books Among 2021 "Arkansas Gems"

Arkansas Gems is an annual publication of the Arkansas Center for the Book. The just-released 2021 poster features three Et Alia books.

Arkansas Gems posters and bookmarks are published annually to highlight new works about Arkansas or by authors from the Natural State and are introduced each year at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Congratulations on selection to author Crystal C. Mercer, photographer Arshia Khan, author/photographer Ashley Murphy, author Tracy Peterson, illustrator Lindsay Witting, and Sloane LaFrance.

This marks the fourth consecutive year that Et Alia books have been selected as gems.

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Crystal C. Mercer

Arshia Khan

It’s Wash Day! But Elise doesn’t want to wash her hair. Will a visit from her favorite Auntie CC, encouragement from her big sister, Gisele, a poem laced with magic, and a special gift passed down from the women who came before her be enough to change her mind?

Sprinkled with #BlackGirlMagic and an ode to cultural beauty, From Cotton to Silk encourages girls everywhere to appreciate their hair in its natural state and love themselves just the way they are. Its enchanting pages reveal 467 hours of hand-stitching poured into textile renderings that blend cloth, culture, and the superpowers of the kinky, curly coif.

8.5 x 11 Hardback, 36 Pages. ISBN: 978-1-944528-24-9

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Tracy Peterson

Lindsey Witting

Cartwheels is a great story for opening conversations and explaining the basics of dyslexia to children.

Lively Sloane loves to make up dances, put on shows, and do art. But as she heads into first grade, nothing frustrates her more than reading. In math, the numbers go together right in her brain, but no matter how hard she looks at letters, and no matter how many times her teacher and parents say “focus,” she would much rather do cartwheels. She feels sad that she isn’t keeping up with her class and isn’t reading the “right way.” Then, she finds out that she has dyslexia. Join Sloane on her journey to learn to read, gain confidence, and find her own special kind of smart.

Based on the real-life teacher/student relationship between veteran first-grade teacher, author Tracy Peterson, and student Sloane LaFrance.

Available in 8.5 x 8.5 Hardback ($18.95, ISBN: 978-1-944528-12-6 ) or Paperback ($11.95, ISBN: 978-1-944528-13-3). 34 pages

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Ashley Murphy

This is not about a virus. This is about us. 

The Masked Project presents 100 portraits taken by photographer Ashley Murphy during the spring 2020 surge of COVID-19. From behind cotton and polypropylene, stars and grommets, leather and paisley, feathers and studs, eyes unmask worlds about personhood and pandemic life. The collection and flash reflections from Murphy’s brief portrait sessions are moving reminders that alongside fear of the unknown stands the refusal to shrink and the unrelenting drive for self-expression. From a safe distance, we emerge bold and brave, known and remembered.

This signed coffee table edition offers intimate encounters with each subject, including full-bleed images extending edge to edge. This book will be printed in small print runs and availability will vary. 8.5 x 11 hardcover coffee table book with premium black & white images. 216 pages. ISBN: 978-1944528102

Two Titles Selected Among 2020 Arkansas Gems by Arkansas Center for the Book

Et Alia titles have been selected among the 2020 Arkansas Gems by Arkansas Center for the Book at the Arkansas State Library!

Selected this year were:

• Rooted: Central Arkansas Farm & Table by Lacey Thacker and Sara Mitchell

• The Hospice Doctor’s Widow: A Journal by Jennifer A. O’Brien

This is the third consecutive year that Et Alia titles have been chosen. Last year, gems included Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives by Erin Wood and What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags, 1900-1999 by Anita Davis, the official book of ESSE Museum & Store. In 2019, Home Sweet Home: Arkansas Rescue Dogs & Their Stories by Grace Vest was selected.