Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War.
From the moment of her birth in a rural black hospital in Georgia,
Lena McPherson is recognized as a special child, with the power to see
ghosts and predict the future.
A black star basketball player and a white baseball player forge a
friendship that carries them through family disturbances arising from
racial discrimination.
Seventeen-year-old Antonio and his 16-year-old girlfriend Natashsa have their world turned upside down when Antonio finds himself in jail, accused of a shocking crime. This powerful story is told through letters.
Handsome and popular Jason tries to come to terms with his often absent father and his growing attraction to the studious Kyra, when they are paired up for a class project.
Fifteen-year-old Amari is branded, beaten, dragged on to a slave ship, and forced to endure humiliations– including being sold to a plantation owner in the Carolinas who gives her to his 15-year-old son as his birthday present.
America is a mixed-race teenager who was born to a crack-addicted mother. He is a survivor of sexual abuse and the victim of an incompetent foster-care system. This powerful story begins with America in a treatment facility after a suicide attempt.
Track and field is the main bond between Talley, a black student, and
her white friend Didi, until Talley falls for David, a white boy from
Didi's neighborhood.
Laetitia leaves behind her beloved home and grandmother in the rural
Caribbean to live with her father in the city so she might further her
education. How wise is her choice?
Wealthy and beautiful African American twins both face boyfriend problems as they continue to delve into a mystery that somehow involves both their father and stepfather.
When 17-year-old Denny, who is black, falls in love with his
white stepsister and her father throws him out, he finds himself on the
road searching for his black heritage.
This story follows five generations of an African-American family from
Africa to a South Carolina plantation through the Civil War, the end of
segregation and beyond.
While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, 16-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script.
Didi confronts a local pusher who is selling drugs to her brother, and when the pusher responds to the challenge with violence, Motown comes to the rescue.
Damien is a straight straight-A student headed for Brown University when he falls in love with Junice, a girl whose mother has just been incarcerated for selling drugs. Will his direction now change?
Tasha, a 15-year-old-African American unwed mother, lives in a part of town where gunshots and drug dealers are standard parts of the background. She has strength, intelligence, loves her small daughter tremendously, and is determined to be a good mother.
Joyce finds herself and the full measure of her self-esteem when she
joins an African dance group after she is dropped from a traditional
ballet class.
The popular young adult author gives a fascinating account of his oft-troubled childhood, from gang warfare and racism to the dark secret his father kept for years.
He sees his uncle murdered for being a successful business man. He
cannot use a public library simply because he is black, yet he refuses to
let the white South break his spirit.
Malcolm Little, who became Muslim Malcolm X, evolved from being the
unrelenting enemy of all white men to a black leader who understood the
real barriers that kept the races apart.
Maya goes against her better judgement when she and a popular, but somewhat disreputable boy, start a school-wide cheating ring in order to save her family's Thai restaurant.
Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India, discovers that she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the Americans. She sees her beautiful, manipulative best friend taking possession of her heritage and the boy she likes.
After social rebels convince the headman of a small village in
northern Thailand to resist the land rent, his 17-year-old daughter Jinda finds herself caught up in the student uprising in Bangkok.
The Ganguli family from India finds it difficult to blend into an American way of life. Gogul Ganguli struggles first with his unusual name and then with the traditions his parents insist on upholding.
As she tries to enjoy her senior year and choose which college she
will attend, Korean American Ellen Sung must deal with the prejudice of
some of her classmates and pressure from her parents to get into Harvard.
Two teens find each other surrounded by the destruction left in the wake of the most devastating tsunami the world has ever seen. Ruslan is a native of Aceh and is in search of his missing father. Sarah is an American girl who has already lost her mother and is now struggling to find medical treatment for her sick brother.
When she is tricked by her stepfather and sold into prostitution, 13-year-old Lakshmi becomes submerged in a nightmare where her only comfort is the friendship she forms with the other girls.
Two sisters, Mina and Suna, grow up in a Korean household with a demanding mother, a quiet father, and expectations that are nearly impossible to meet.
Fifteen-year-old Sabine’s comfortable life is torn apart on August 6, 1972, the day that Idi Amin issued his expulsion order for all Indians in Uganda.
As the Japanese military invades Manchuria in the 1930s, a young girl plays the game of go with strangers in a public square. Unbeknownst to the girl, her most worthy and frequent opponent is a Japanese soldier in disguise. Captivated by the girl’s beauty, the soldier finds his loyalties challenged.
In India in the 1940's, 13-year-old Leela's happy, spoiled childhood ends when her husband since age nine dies, leaving her a widow whose only hope of happiness could come from Mahatma Ghandi's social and political reforms.
Having relented to the ways of her people in Pakistan and married the rich older man against her will, Shabanu is now the victim of his family’s blood feud and the malice of his others wives. Sequel to Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind.
Eleven-year old Shabanu, the daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert in Pakistan, is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to the family. She must either accept the decision, as is the custom, or risk the consequences of defying her father's wishes.
Concerned that their 15-year-old daughter Maya may have fallen under the bad influence of her New York friends, Maya's parents send her to live with their extended family in India for the summer, where she gains new insight into her past, her family, and her heritage.
Fifteen-year-old Terri Mizuno’s family falls apart in anger and grief over the tragic death of her brother and her small town erupts into hatred, bigotry and vigilantism.
As World War II ends, an 11-year-old Japanese girl and her family, who
had been living in North Korea, become refugees, in deadly danger from the
soldiers of the new regime.
Eighteen-year-old Kwok Wong desperately wants to play soccer and
attend the university in order to break away from his Chinese family's
traditions and their dirt-poor farm.
After a criminal gang attacks his caravan and he loses his identity as a Brahmin, Arjun resigns himself to his new life as a soldier, becomes an elephant driver, and searches for his kidnapped sister.
Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India, discovers that
she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the
Americans.
This multigenerational story is about the Ganguli family, who arrive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Calcutta in the 1960s. Over forty years, the reader follows the arranged marriage of Western-oriented Ashoke and his traditional wife, Ashima, and the efforts of their children to live both American and Indian lives.
From the moment of her birth, Parvati seems to be capable of a mystical power that manifests itself in her inspired classical Indian dance. This talented dancer sacrifices family and friends for her art.
Bound by her cultural and religious obligations, thirteen-year-old Koly is first married to a sickly husband and then subjected to the brutal life of a Hindu widow.
Sofi Mendoza lies to her parents and crosses the border into Mexico for a weekend party. She had no idea that she would get stuck in a Mexican village with a family she has never met before, unable to return to the United States.
Fifteen-year-old Alex embarks on a magical realism quest through the Amazon with his adventuring magazine-reporter grandmother seeking mythical beasts.
This novelization, set during the days of the Trujilo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, tells the story of the Mirabal sisters who were assassinated after visting their jailed husbands.
Celaya Reyes, called LaLa, is the youngest and the only girl among seven siblings. Based on the author's life, the book follows LaLa from infancy to adolescence as she grows up in a noisy, disputatious, and loving clan of Mexican Americans.
At sixteen, Robert Lomos has lost his family, except for his worn-down grandmother. His plan is to duck trouble, save his money, and head to California to put his family back together . The trouble is, no one believes a delinquent Mexican-American kid has a chance -- least of all, Robert himself.
Sixteen-year-old Danny, half Mexican, half white, has conflicts to overcome due to his biracial heritage. He feels he's too brown to fit in at his at his mostly-white prep school, and too pale when he visits the Mexican side of his family.
It’s 1969 and Sammy Santos is a graduating high school senior in the unglamorous town Hollywood, New Mexico. Sammy faces the challenges of “gringo” racism, unpopular dress codes, the Vietnam War, barrio violence, and poverty.
Growing up with her large Mexican American family in San Diego in the late 1960s, 14-year-old Yolanda tries to help her brother who has returned from the war in Vietnam and is suffering emotional problems.
After unexpectedly falling in love with a "nerdy" boy, fourteen-year-old Marisa works to change her life by transferring to another school, altering some of her behavior, and losing weight.
Having tried for years to deny her psychic abilities, high school sophomore Paski has disturbing visions about the popular girl at her new high school in Orange County, California.
Junior wants more from life than what the reservation has to offer him so he transfers to an all-white high school in town where he is stunned and amazed by this strange and affluent new world.
This painful and poignant account captures the determination of people struggling to survive the bleak environment of life on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
The story intertwines three generations of American Indian women, depicting the hardships they faced and the coming of age of the youngest girl, Rayona.
Having left the Indian reservation for the streets of New York,
17-year-old boxer Sonny Bear tries to harness his inner rage by
training with a policeman who is a former boxer. Sequel to The
Contender.
