Education bestsellers

Winner of the 2020 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award

Drawing on personal stories, research, and historical events, an esteemed educator offers a vision of educational justice inspired by the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists.

Drawing on her life’s work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Bettina Love... Read more »

First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. Paulo Freire's work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and... Read more »

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction

To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now.

In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on... Read more »

People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows... Read more »

This program includes a prologue and epilogue read by the author.

From New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff, comes the definitive audiobook biography of Robin Williams – a compelling portrait of one of America’s most beloved and misunderstood entertainers.

From his rapid-fire stand-up comedy riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy... Read more »

Banish math anxiety and give students of all ages a clear roadmap to success Mathematical Mindsets provides practical strategies and activities to help teachers and parents show all children, even those who are convinced that they are bad at math, that they can enjoy and succeed in math. Jo Boaler—Stanford researcher, professor of math... Read more »

If we hope to interrupt educational inequities and create schools in which every child thrives, we must open our hearts to purposeful conversation and hone our skills to make those conversations effective. With characteristic honesty and wisdom, Elena Aguilar inspires us to commit to transforming our classrooms, lays bare the hidden obstacles to... Read more »

As a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation's brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively, and how to find a sense of purpose. Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with... Read more »

Do you know why… …a mortgage is literally a death pledge? …why guns have girls’ names? …why salt is related to soldier? You’re about to find out… The Etymologicon (e-t?-‘mä-lä-ji-kän) is: *Witty (wi-te\): Full of clever humor *Erudite (er-?-dit): Showing knowledge *Ribald (ri-b?ld): Crude, offensive The Etymologicon is a completely... Read more »

The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering classroom communities. Award-winning educator Felicia Rose Chavez exposes the invisible politics of power and privilege that have silenced writers of color for far too long. It's more urgent than ever that we consciously work against traditions of dominance... Read more »

"In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks–writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual–writes about a new kind of education, educations as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to “transgress” against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher’s most important goal.

Bell hooks... Read more »

In this instant New York Times bestseller, Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent, but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.” “Inspiration for non-geniuses everywhere” (People).

The daughter of a scientist who frequently noted her lack of “genius,” Angela... Read more »

This program is read by the author.

The mental wellbeing of our children is shockingly poor. Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel, knows why. And he knows what we can do.

"We have a crisis on our hands, and its victims are our children."

Marc Brackett is a professor in Yale University’s Child Study Center and founding director of the Yale... Read more »

Across America, universities have become big businesses—and our cities their company towns. But there is a cost to those who live in their shadow.
 
Urban universities play an outsized role in America’s cities. They bring diverse ideas and people together and they generate new innovations. But they also gentrify neighborhoods and exacerbate... Read more »

Debby Irving is an emerging voice in the national racial justice community. Combining her organization development skills, classroom teaching experience, and understanding of systemic racism, Irving educates and consults with individuals and organizations seeking to create racial equity at both the personal and institutional level.
Irving grew up... Read more »

In the spirit of Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s Nurture Shock, New York Times “Your Money” columnist Ron Lieber delivers a taboo-shattering manifesto that explains how talking openly to children about money can help parents raise modest, patient, grounded young adults who are financially wise... Read more »

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) has quickly become a controversial topic in recent years. Whereas other books on the subject describe the condition as inherited, Dr. Gabor Maté believes that our social and emotional environments play a key role in both the cause of and cure for this condition. In Scattered, he describes the painful realities of... Read more »

An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice.

The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist... Read more »

Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning empowers educators to harness rigorous research on how students learn and unleash it in their classrooms. In this book, cognitive scientist Pooja K. Agarwal, PhD, and veteran K–12 teacher Patrice M. Bain, EdS, decipher cognitive science research and illustrate ways to successfully apply the... Read more »

Absolutely new to Japanese? Don't know where to start?
Welcome to Introduction to Japanese, Volume 1

Before you take that trip to Japan, get a solid foundation of Japanese first!
Master the basics of Japanese conversation the fun, fast and easy way!

Start speaking Japanese in minutes, and learn key vocabulary, phrases, and grammar in just minutes... Read more »

“Instead of trusting kids with choices . . . many parents insist on micromanaging everything from homework to friendships. For these parents, Stixrud and Johnson have a simple message: Stop.” —NPR

“This humane, thoughtful book turns the latest brain science into valuable practical advice for parents.” —Paul Tough, New York Times bestselling... Read more »

A leading expert in childhood development makes the case for why self-directed learning -- "unschooling" -- is the best way to get kids to learn.

In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in today's constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning... Read more »

Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller!

Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn’t practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only white people can be racist? Are... Read more »

Zarathustra" is my brother's most personal work; it is the history of his most individual experiences, of his friendships, ideals, raptures, bitterest disappointments and sorrows. Above it all, however, there soars, transfiguring it, the image of his greatest hopes and remotest aims. My brother had the figure of Zarathustra in his mind from his... Read more »

With his trademark acerbic wit, incisive humor, and infectious paranoia, one of our foremost comedians and most politically engaged civil rights activists looks back at 100 key events from the complicated history of black America.

A friend of luminaries including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Medgar Evers, and the forebear of today’s popular... Read more »

In the tradition of The Power of Habit and Thinking, Fast and Slow comes a practical, playful, and endlessly fascinating guide to what we really know about learning and memory today—and how we can apply it to our own lives.

From an early age, it is drilled into our heads: Restlessness, distraction, and ignorance are the enemies of success. We’re... Read more »

A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy 

It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that social and economic rewards should follow achievement... Read more »

Winner of an American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award and Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic Book Award, and voted one of Teacher Magazine's "great books," Other People's Children has sold over 150,000 copies since its original hardcover publication. This edition features a new introduction by Delpit as well as new... Read more »

This program is read by the author.

Confessional and often hilarious, in Normal Sucks a neuro-diverse writer, advocate, and father meditates on his life, offering the radical message that we should stop trying to fix people and start empowering them to succeed.

Jonathan Mooney blends anecdote, expertise, and memoir to present a new mode of... Read more »

The hugely popular New York Times “Your Money” columnist and author of the bestselling The Opposite of Spoiled offers a deeply reported and emotionally honest approach to the biggest financial decision families will ever make: what to pay for college. 

Sending a teenager to a flagship state university for four years of on-campus living costs more... Read more »

How do other countries create "smarter" kids? In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they've never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy.

What is it like to be a child in the world's new education superpowers?

In a global... Read more »

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020

From award-winning higher education journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Selingo comes a revealing look from inside the admissions office—one that identifies surprising strategies that will aid in the college search.

Getting into a top-ranked college has never seemed more impossible, with... Read more »

Most educators want to cultivate an antibias and antiracist classroom and school community, but they often struggle with where and how to get started. Liz helps us set ourselves up for success and prepare for the mistakes we’ll make along the way. 

Each chapter in Start Here, Start Now addresses many of the questions and challenges educators have... Read more »

An eye-opening exploration of race in America

In this deeply inspiring audiobook, Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi recount their experiences talking to people from all walks of life about race and identity on a cross-country tour of America. Spurred by the realization that they had nearly completed high school without hearing any substantive... Read more »

FORBES TOP 10 HIGHER EDUCATION BOOKS OF 2020 

The riveting true story behind the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, a cautionary tale of parenting gone wrong, the system that enabled families to veer so far off course, and the mastermind who made it all happen.

When federal prosecutors dropped the bombshell of Operation Varsity Blues, it... Read more »

Do you feel prepared to initiate and facilitate meaningful, productive dialogues about race in your classroom? Are you looking for practical strategies to engage with your students? Inspired by Frederick Douglass's abolitionist call to action, "it is not light that is needed, but fire" Matthew Kay has spent his career learning how to lead... Read more »

Marvel at the neuroscientific reasons why smart teens make dumb decisions!

Behold the mind-controlling power of executive function!

Thrill to a vision of a better school for the teenage brain!

Whether you're a parent interacting with one adolescent or a teacher interacting with many, you know teens can be hard to parent and even harder... Read more »

Publishers Weekly bestseller · A joyful and accessible homeschool guide to making learning a part of everyday life

Parents who are deeply invested in their children's education can be hard on themselves and their kids. When exhausted parents are living the day-to-day grind, it can seem impossible to muster enough energy to make learning fun or... Read more »

From distinguished researcher/clinician Russell A. Barkley, this treasured parent resource gives you the science-based information you need about attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and its treatment. It also presents a proven eight-step behavior management plan specifically designed for 6- to 18-year-olds with ADHD. Offering... Read more »

Allow your children to experience the adventure, freedom, and wonder of childhood with this practical guide that provides all the information, inspiration, and advice you need for creating a modern, quality homeschool education.

Inspired by the spirit of Henry David Thoreau—”All good things are wild and free”—mother of five Ainsley Arment founded... Read more »

“Big ideas that just might save the world”—The Guardian

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

In these times of deep division and deeper despair, if there is a... Read more »

Getting in is only half the battle. The Privileged Poor reveals how—and why—disadvantaged students struggle at elite colleges, and explains what schools can do differently if these students are to thrive. The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors—and their coffers—to support... Read more »

In Robot-Proof, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun proposes a way to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover—to fill needs in society that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence agent cannot. A "robot-proof" education, Aoun argues, is not concerned solely with topping up... Read more »

As MacArthur award–winning educator Lisa Delpit reminds us—and as all research shows—there is no achievement gap at birth. In her long-awaited second book, Delpit presents a striking picture of the elements of contemporary public education that conspire against the prospects for poor children of color, creating a persistent gap in achievement... Read more »

More than two million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges, from the small family-run operations to the behemoths brandished on billboards, subway ads, and late-night commercials. These schools have been around just as long as their bucolic not-for-profit counterparts, yet shockingly little is known about why they have expanded so... Read more »

New York Times bestselling author and award-winning educator Ron Clark applies his successful leadership principles to the business world in this effective and accessible guidebook, perfect for any manager looking to inspire and motivate his or her team. Includes a foreword by bestselling author and FranklinCovey executive Sean Covey.

Teamwork is... Read more »