Books like Beastgirl & other origin myths by Elizabeth Acevedo

Sandra Cisneros’ celebrated coming‑of‑age tale follows Esperanza Cordero as she grows up in Chicago’s Mexican-American community, exploring identity through poetic vignettes.

In Harlem, Xiomara Batista learns to use her voice and verse to fight for herself and her dreams, turning lyrical poetry into her most powerful tool.

A half‑Persian teenager struggling with depression finds belonging in Iran when a new friend shows him what it means to be truly understood.

A reimagined retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale, in which vanity and arrogance transform a prince into a beast who is changed by a maiden’s compassion.

A collection of Maya Angelou's poetry celebrating life, strength, love, and remembrance.

After his brother Khalid’s death, twelve‑year‑old Kingston James learns to cope with grief while confronting secrets about his friendship with Sandy and the hidden life of his deceased brother, all set in a small Louisiana town by the bayou.

High‑school senior Emoni Santiago balances teenage motherhood, family responsibilities, and a love of cooking, discovering her culinary talent while navigating the challenges of a single‑parent household.

A bold exploration of pregnancy, childbirth, and artistic expression through verse, prose, and dialogue.

Marina Warner looks at storytelling, at its practitioners and images in art, legend, and history - from the prophesying enchantresses who lure men to a false paradise to jolly Mother Goose, with her masqueraders in the real world, from sibyls and the Queen of Sheba to Angela Carter. The storytellers are frequently women (or were until men like Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen started writing down the women's stories), and Marina Warner asks how changing prejudices about women affect the status of fairy tales: are they sources of wisdom and moral guidance, or temptations encouraging indulgence in romantic and vengeful fantasies? From the Beast to the Blonde considers old wives' tales in all their luxuriant detail and with a strong sense of the historical contexts in which they developed. Ms. Warner's fresh new interpretations show us how the real-life themes in these famous stories evolved: rivalry and hatred between women ("Cinderella" and "The Sleeping Beauty"), the ways of men and marriage ("Bluebeard" and "Beauty and the Beast"), not to mention neglect, incest, death in childbirth, murder, and racial prejudice. As she suggests in her superb closing chapter, happy endings come only after stumbles and falls; yet in some sense the story of tale-telling is never done.

Alice Notley's Alma, or The Dead Women is a cross-genre book, poem/novel, poetry/prose, comedy/tragedy, that submits to no discipline but its own and was conceived by the author in a state of personal, national and planetary grief. In this book, Alma, the true god of our world, is a foul-mouthed middle-aged working-class woman, a junkie who injects heroin into the center of her forehead and dreams and suffers our nightmares with us. With the Dead Women, a community of spirits she attracts before but especially after September 11, 2001, Alma surveys with disbelief and horror the actions of the United States government as it perpetrates one war and prepares for another.

Princess Isra of the domed city Yuan is bound to become a sacrificial offering, while Gem, a mutant beast from the desert, fights for his starving people. When they meet, Isra must decide between her duty and the love she feels for Gem, uncovering long‑hidden truths about her sight and her city’s secrets.

Marilyn Hacker's Selected Poems: A Poetic Legacy from Feminism to Maturation