Walter Dean Myers
1) Monster
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Formats
Description
While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.
2) Jazz
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
Illustrations and rhyming text celebrate the roots of jazz music.
3) Lockdown
Author
Pub. Date
2010.
Language
English
Formats
Description
Teenage Reese, serving time at a juvenile detention facility, gets a lesson in making it through hard times from an unlikely friend with a harrowing past.
4) Street love
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
This story told in free verse is set against a background of street gangs and poverty in Harlem in which seventeen-year-old African American Damien takes a bold step to ensure that he and his new love will not be separated.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The summer after his absentee father is killed in a random shooting, Paul volunteers at a Harlem soup kitchen where he listens to lessons about "the social contract" from an elderly African American man, and mentors a seventeen-year-old unwed mother who wants to make it to college on a basketball scholarship.
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
Frederick Douglass was a self-educated slave in the South who grew up to become an icon. He was a leader of the abolitionist movement, a celebrated writer, an esteemed speaker, and a social reformer, proving that, as he said, "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Darius is a writer whose only escape is his alter ego, a peregrine falcon named Fury, and Twig is a middle-distance runner striving for athletic success. But they are drawn together in the struggle to overcome the obstacles that life in Harlem throws at them. The two friends must face down bullies, an abusive uncle, and the idea that they'll be stuck in the same place forever.
8) Riot
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
During a long, hot July in 1863, the worst race riots the United States has ever seen erupt in New York City. Earlier that year, desperate for more Union soldiers, President Abraham Lincoln instituted a draft–a draft that would allow the wealthy to escape serving in the army by paying a $300 waiver, more than a year’s income for the recent immigrant Irish. And on July 11, as the first drawing takes place in Lower Manhattan, the city of...
9) Shooter
Author
Language
English
Description
Written in the form of interviews, reports, and journal entries, the story of three troubled teenagers ends in a tragic school shooting.
11) Fallen angels
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.
Author
Publisher
Scholastic Press
Pub. Date
2004.
Language
English
Description
Presents a collection of black-and-white illustrated photographs and stories that examines the various expeditions to Antarctica including those led by James Cook in 1773, Roald Amundsen in 1911, and Admiral Byrd's successful undertaking to the South Pole after World War Two.
16) Looking like me
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Jeremy sets out to discover all of the different "people" that make him who he is, including brother, son, writer, and runner.
Author
Publisher
Scholastic
Pub. Date
2001.
Language
English
Description
Teenager Biddy Owens' 1948 journal about working for the Birmingham Black Barons includes the games and the players, racism the team faces from New Orleans to Chicago, and his family's resistance to his becoming a professional baseball player. Includes a historical note about the evolution of the Negro Leagues.
18) Kick
Author
Publisher
HarperTeen
Pub. Date
[2011]
Language
English
Description
Told in their separate voices, thirteen-year-old soccer star Kevin and police sergeant Brown, who knew his father, try to keep Kevin out of juvenile hall after he is arrested on very serious charges.
Author
Series
Cruisers volume 2
Publisher
Scholastic
Pub. Date
2011.
Language
English
Description
Four middle-schoolers who publish an alternative newspaper at their Harlem academy for gifted students investigate why a classmate--one of the best chess players in New York City--was caught trying to buy drugs.
20) A star is born
Author
Series
Cruisers volume 3
Publisher
Scholastic
Pub. Date
2012.
Language
English
Description
Zander's play, Act Six, brings Da Vinci Academy into the spotlight, especially when LaShonda's costume designs win her an opportunity she can accept only if she is willing to leave her autistic brother and their group home behind.
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