Books published by publisher Pelican Publishing, 2005

Red beans and good reads for every kitchen! From the 1960s to 1983, Buster Holmes cooked up classic Creole food, ending his career in the restaurant that bore his name at 721 Burgundy Street. The restaurant, at the center of a thriving New Orleans cultural community, offered unlimited servings of its famous red beans and rice for a modest price alongside shrimp, gumbo, butter beans, and local game. Fans hungry for Holmes’ flavors can use his very own recipes and, while a pot of beans simmers, walk down memory lane with historic photographs, facts, and anecdotes about the restaurant and its beloved owner introduced by a new foreword from award-winning food historian Poppy Tooker. Host and executive producer of her own weekly show, award-winning author Poppy Tooker is passionate about food and the people who bring it to the table. She provides weekly restaurant commentary on Steppin’ Out (WYES TV), and her popular cooking classes focus on preserving the history and cultural tradition of food. Tooker is just as talented in the kitchen and holds the distinct honor of having beaten Bobby Flay with her seafood gumbo when she competed on Throwdown with Bobby Flay.

More than twenty-five years after its first appearance, Cajun Night Before Christmas® has become a modern classic that has sold more than 1,000,000 copies and has served as the model for Pelican’s ongoing, best-selling Night Before Christmas Series.The formula that started this success story is surprisingly simple: take the classic story of jolly old St. Nicholas, place it in a Louisiana bayou, dress Santa Claus in muskrat “from his head to his toes,” pile his skiff high with toys, and hitch it to eight friendly alligators. The result is a delightful twist on an old and familiar tale. It is Christmas on the bayou.

To escape racism in America, James Baldwin fled to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, in 1970, where he lived in self-imposed exile until his death in 1987. This book focuses on this seventeen-year period of his life and literature. Author Jules B. Farber presents “life with Jimmy” through more than seventy interviews of personal reminisces with well-known literary figures, musicians, artists, and celebrities, such as Sidney Poitier, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Bill Wyman, Harry Belafonte, Jr., George Wein, and many others. Farber also reached out to locals in Saint-Paul-de-Vence who adopted Baldwin into their village. Baldwin’s oeuvre and lifestyle during this time was concentrated in this Provençal setting. These personal, and sometimes intimate, recollections provide an overview of the diversity of Baldwin’s writing, the details of his social interactions, the magnitude of his literary relevance, and a first-time examination of his integration as the first black man in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

"Vivid paintings illustrate this story. The story, . . . the notion of a lifetime of unrequited love, may seem old-fashioned, but perhaps romance never truly goes out of style." --Children's LiteratureIn the shadow of enemy British ships, Evangeline and Gabriel invite all the Acadian villagers to come dance and celebrate young love at the couple's engagement party. Instead of wedding toasts, the British shout out a proclamation saying, Because you refused to honor your new ruler, the King of England, His Majesty commands that all of your possessions be taken from you and that you be sent far away to distant lands.Shouting soldiers rip children from their mothers' arms, and Gabriel and Evangeline are pushed onto separate ships. Evangeline spends years searching and praying for a safe reunion with her one true love, Gabriel. She follows Indianguides and smoke trails only to find she has again missed Gabriel by a few days. And while her youth and beauty gradually faded, her love for Gabriel never died. Read Evangeline for Children to see how these Acadian souls are finally united as one.

What became known as the Tuskegee Experience began in 1931 with a letter from the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to the War Department asking that blacks be allowed to join the military. The efforts of early African American aviators, the struggle of organizations and individuals against the military's segregation policies, and the hard work of thousands of young men and women, military and civilian, black and white, all combined to make the Tuskegee Airmen an important but often overlooked part of America's military history. Through fascinating interviews with veterans and historical photographs, Black Knights is the story of the men and women who served in the training program at Tuskegee Army Air Field from 1941 to 1946. The pilots' stories are here, but so are the experiences of the mechanics, band members, armorers, staff officers, nurses, and more that proved that they had courage and perseverance, not only in war, but in peacetime as well.