When Wesley Boone writes a poem for his high school English class, some of his classmates clamor to read their poems aloud too. Soon they're having weekly poetry sessions and, one by one, the eighteen students are opening up and taking on the risky challenge of self-revelation. There's Lupe Alvarin, desperate to have a baby so she will feel loved. Raynard Patterson, hiding a secret behind his silence. Porscha Johnson, needing an outlet for her anger after her mother OD's. Through the poetry they...
Sixteen-year-old Jimmy, on probation for assault, talks about life with three old men in a Harlem barbershop and hears about the tools he can use to get what he wants.
Sparrow has always had a difficult time making friends. But when the one teacher who really understood her is killed in a freak car accident, Sparrow's world unravels and she's found on the roof of her school in an apparent suicide attempt. With the help of an insightful therapist, Sparrow finally reveals the truth of her inner life. And it's here that she discovers an outlet in Rock amp; Roll music...
Seventeen-year-old Enore Adesuwa doesn’t dive into things, she walks in carefully. So when she, her mother, and her sister move from Nigeria to America shortly after her father’s death, she wants to be extremely prepared before attending an American high school. Her cousin, Adrian, doesn’t have time to explain the ins and outs to her but, luckily, he recommends the perfect research tool: teen movies. Still dealing with grief but armed with a set of rules of survival gathered from these movies (...
Living your dreams is the hard part . . . Sunday Tolliver has a mega-smash album up for major awards--and her first few months as a college freshman are everything she hoped for. But juggling all this and her long-distance romance with boyfriend Sam is taking drama to mad-crazy levels. Hot up-and-coming video star DeShawn isn't letting Sunday's relationship keep him from getting close. And relentless online gossip is seriously shaking Sunday's trust in Sam. On top of that, her jealous diva co...
Raisin Stackhouse doesn't mind doing odd jobs for old Miss Effie Pfluggins, but when Miss Effie talks her into cleaning up the old church cemetery, she has no idea what trouble she might dig up. Mama says Miss Effie talks much too much, but Raisin loves hearing her remember the old days--especially when one of her stories puts Raisin smack in the middle of real-life mystery. When Raisin is grounded for sneaking a night out, she not only misses her chance to compete in the Miss Ebony Pageant, bu...
An Instant New York Times Bestseller! Get Out meets Holly Jackson in this YA social thriller where survival is not a guarantee. Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can't decide what's worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up w...
A witch and a non-magical girl get stuck in an endless cycle of meet-cutes and breakups in this heart-stopping romantic young adult fantasy. "A seamless, mind-bending exploration of love and identity that manages to completely re-invent the time-loop story....You’ll never read a book quite like this again." —Mark Oshiro, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Into the Light Luna is a powerful witch. Known for her skills and feared for her temper, she’s set to preserve her family’s legacy by b...
*Instant New York Times Bestseller* The Davenports delivers a totally escapist, swoon-worthy romance while offering a glimpse into a period of African American history often overlooked. "The perfect read for fans of escapist historical fiction.” —NBC’s TODAY The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Co...
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s nam...
Fighting Felicia (Beautifully Unbroken, #8)
by Michelle St Claire
At the prestigious Harlem Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, students are destined to realize their uptown dreams--as long as friends, haters, and crushes don't trip them up. . . La-La Nolan's killer voice could make her a superstar, but she's more focused on scoring the attention of Ziggy Phillip--the cute Jamaican boy in her class. But a singing competition against her arch rival could cost her both Ziggy and her spot at the Academy. . . The daughter of the school's director and vo...
The saga of the Logan family--made famous in the Newbery Medal-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry--concludes in a long-awaited and deeply fulfilling story. In her tenth book, Mildred Taylor completes her sweeping saga about the Logan family of Mississippi, which is also the story of the civil rights movement in America of the 20th century. Cassie Logan, first met in Song of the Trees and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, is a young woman now, searching for her place in the world, a journey that t...
With major industry success and a year of college under her belt, Sunday Tolliver is ready to take her singer-songwriter talents to the next level. But new opportunities also mean totally unexpected drama. Her flirtationship with hot video star DeShawn is turning into much more - but the unfinished business between her and ex-boyfriend Sam won't go away. An explosive campus hazing scandal puts her friends up against a powerful sorority - and Sunday's skills on the line. And reluctantly helping h...