Sweet hour of prayer: four new books highlight African-descended spiritual traditions of prayer, ritual, study--and laughter.

Standing in the Need of Prayer: A Celebration of Black Prayer

by The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture/The New York Public Library Free Press, November 2003 $27.50, ISBN 0-743-23466-9

This superb collection of profound prayers and poignant photographs is compelling evidence of the faith that has sustained generations of African people throughout the Diaspora--in their darkest hours and in their shining moments of triumph. The Schomburg has excavated a treasure chest of the history and deftly included prayers and images from a variety of religious traditions and belief systems, including Buddhism, Christianity, Haitian Vodou, Islam, Judaism, and Yoruba worship.

Standing in the Need of Prayer includes a foreword by Coretta Scott King, familiar Scripture, and beloved hymns, spirituals, as well as gospel songs including "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" by Thomas Dorsey.

Highlights of the book include inspring excerpts of literature and prayers of deliverance, thanksgiving, praise, healing, mercy, liberation, and affirmations by Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marian Wright Edelman, and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. among many others are amplified by photographs of historical icons, children, and people of faith--all engaged in the sacred act of prayer. Hands raised to Heaven, lying prostrate before the altar, kneeling to the East, the worshippers pictured in the images offer a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of humanity in communion with the Holy. The power of prayer pulsates from each page.

--Reviewed by Alvelyn J. Sanders

The End Is Just the Beginning: Lessons in Grieving for African Americans

by the Reverend Arlene Churn, Ph.D. Harlem Moon/Broadway Books, January 2003 $12.95, ISBN 0-767-91015-X

A certified grief-counsel specialist and an ordained Baptist minister, asserts that African Americans have particular rituals and beliefs about grieving, and provides a helpful lamppost on the journey through grieving. The book's greatest strength is the collection of hymns, beautiful poems and comforting scriptures in each chapter; its weakness, however, is that Churn draws too much of her material from her specific counseling encounters and it can be difficult to relate Churn's examples to one's own experience.

--Reviewed by Beatrice Perry Stanley Beatrice Perry Stanley is an educator and poet in New Orleans.

The Sisters' Guide to In-Depth Bible Study

by Victoria L. Johnson InterVarsity Press, May 2003 $12.00, ISBN 0-830-82049-3.

A revised edition of Bible Study for Busy Women.

Sister Betty! God's Calling You, Again!

by Pat G'orge-Walker Kensington Publishing Corp., July 2003 $22.00, ISBN 0-758-20876-4

The latest project from the comedienne credited with creating a new genre of fiction, "Gospel Comedy," is seven short stories about the shenanigans of Rev. Knott Enuff Money and his spiritually challenged congregation at the Ain't Nobody Else Right But Us--All Others Going to Hell Church.

--Reviewed by Tracey D. Weaver Tracey D. Weaver is a freelance writer living in Washington, D.C.