As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M. C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.

A Harlem high school dropout escapes from a gang of punks into a boxing gym, where he learns that being a contender is hard and often discouraging work, but that you don't know anything until you try.

A black boy and an emotionally troubled white boy in North Carolina form a precarious friendship. Brooks' fine first novel has a basketball theme and plenty of action, but sport is merely the vehicle for delivering a serious story of friendship and madness. Brilliant sportswriting and a trenchant examination of the friendship between (the) narrator and a white boy in trouble.

Twelve-year-old Jesse leaves his home on Maryland's Eastern Shore to help a young runaway slave find a safe haven in the early days of the Civil War.

Troubled fourteen-year-old Gayle is sent down South to live with her uncle and aunt, where her life begins to change as she experiences the healing power of the family. At 14, Gayle is pregnant. Again. The first time she kept the baby. This time her mother drags Gayle to have an abortion and then sends her away from the projects in Jamaica, New York, on a one-way ticket to family in Georgia. For Gayle, it's like being "sold to slavery." She's never...

"Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. In a...

Follows a family's two hundred forty-one year history, from the capture of an African boy in the 1750s through the lives of his descendants, as their dreams and circumstances lead them away from and back to the small plot of land in South Carolina that they call the Glory Field.

Darius Jones is living the good life. He's got a chance to become the league's MVP, he's crazy in love with his wife, and his relationship with his mom has never been better. Then a drunk driver slams into his car, leaving his wife in a coma; and the mother of his son files for and is granted custody. Heartbroken, Darius lets a stalker groupie convince him to escape his sorrows for just one night. Now Darius must gamble all he's worked for to save...

When orphaned Dave is sent to the Hebrew Home for Boys where he is treated cruelly, he sneaks out at night and is welcomed into the music- and culture-filled world of the Harlem Renaissance.

Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face and makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like.