Peter Francis James
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The Planet of Junior Brown is an extraordinary story of heroism, and survival, that will appeal to young and older readers alike. The only thing Junior Brown and Buddy Clark really have is the small solar system they had built in the hidden cellar room of the school. Ostracized from his classmates Junior, a 300 pound musical and artistic prodigy, depends on his imagination for companionship. Buddy is used to depending on no one but himself. Homeless,...
23) Monster
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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.
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Phillip Martin was a powerful man in the small urban community of St. Adrienne. The minister, a handsome darkbrown-skinned man, just over six feet tall, cut an imposing figure in the pulpit and in his position as leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the parish. When the long-barred doors on his former life begin to strain, his guilty past bursts forth, sending Martin into an emotional whirlwind that threatens to destroy his family, his parish and...
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Children and adults alike will cheer for this funny, uplifting story of a troublemaker who joins the school newspaper and discovers the power of words-and uses that power to make a positive difference in his community. Darnell Rock is an especially meaningful hero for African American boys who confront many of the same pressures that Darnell faces.
26) Dirty Work
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This gripping novel is not only one of the best books written about Vietnam; it is also one of the most powerful anti-war novels in American literature. Walter James has no face. Braiden Chaney has no arms or legs. They lost them 22 years ago, in Vietnam. Now, in the course of one long night in a V.A. hospital, these two soldiers-one black, the other white-reveal how they came to be where they are and what they can only hope to become.
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Generations of American history students have grown up believing that enslaved people accepted their lot and became attached to their enslavers, that rebellion was rare, and that liberation from slavery happened thanks to the enslavers.
Celebrated historian and children's book author, William Loren Katz offers a thoroughly researched look at the lives of enslaved people in the United States in Breaking the Chains. From their African abductions...
28) Red at the bone
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"Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier,...
29) Bull Run
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Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction * ALA Best Book for Young Adults * ALA Notable Children's BookIn this brilliant fictional tour de force, which the New York Times called "a deft, poignant novel," Newbery Medal-winning author Paul Fleischman re-creates the first great battle of the Civil War from the points of view of sixteen participants. Northern and Southern, male and female, white and black. Here are voices that tell of the...
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When fate brings college student Jazmine and gangsta rapper X-Man together, they have nothing in common but a dream to make it in the music business. Suddenly Black Tie Records discovers them both, and they discover each other. Can their passionate love survive a world scarred with street violence and cut-throat ambition? Sheneska Jackson captures the gritty language and ambiance of the 'hood.
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Stirring, heroic, and wonderfully laced with the musical languages of the Bayou, Ernest J. Gaines - the foremost voice in contemporary African American literature - adds another breathtaking saga to his canon with A Gathering of Old Men. When Sheriff Mapes is summoned to a sugarcane plantation to find a dead Cajun farmer, he knows who committed the crime. Mapes finds himself powerless, however, when nearly 20 elderly black men confess to the murder....
32) Kick
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Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award, New York Times best-selling author Walter Dean Myers is critically acclaimed for his cutting-edge fiction for young people. In Kick, Myers teams up with Ross Workman for a tale that's sure to hit the mark. All the talent and finesse in the world are of little value unless one has the endurance and determination to make that final kick.