A portrait of one of the world's greatest boxers chronicles his childhood, his rise as a champion, his politics, and his battle against Parkinsons' disease.

Product Description: A runaway junkyard dog makes a name for himself playing blues guitar.

A biography of the civil rights leader offers an in-depth look at his life and includes quotes from speeches.

A visit to his Harlem neighborhood and the discovery that the girl he loves is using drugs give sixteen-year-old Anthony Witherspoon a new perspective both on his home and on his life at a Connecticut prep school.

Product Description: An award-winning author presents a riveting account of the extraordinary career and accomplishments of boxer Muhammad Ali. This biography chronicles Ali's impact on race relations inside and outside the sports world.

Product Description: FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Celebrates the people of Harlem with first-person poems in the voices of the residents who make up the legendary neighborhood, including basketball players, teachers, mail carriers, jazz artists, maids, nannies, and students.

The itch starts when things get too heavy for Lil J. Skin popping or stealing pain pills from his mom help him relax. But Lil J's focus is wandering because money is short, and his man Rico knows a way to make some quick cash. It's supposed to be an easy deal, but it isn't so simple when the buyer is an undercover cop.With a gunshot wound to the arm, Rico in jail, and a police officer clinging to life, Lil J is starting to get dope sick. He'd do anything to change the last twenty-four hours, and when he stumbles into an abandoned crack house, it actually might be possible. . . .Walter Dean Myers weaves elements of magical realism into a harrowing story about drug use, violence, alternate perceptions of reality, and second chances.

Product Description: Eighth grade is hard enough, but when you're a Cruiser, you're really put to the test. The launch of a new middle-grade series from bestselling award-winner Walter Dean Myers.Zander and his friends, Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi start their own newspaper, The Cruiser, as a means for speaking out, keeping the peace, and expressing what they believe...read more

Product Description: FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Lockdown explores an unlikely friendship between 14 -year-old Progress inmate Reese and a man he meets through his work program at a local senior citizens' home. When Mr. Hooft is finally able to open up about his harrowing past, he gives Reese a way to reenvision his own future...read more

Product Description: Into the summer heat of New York’s Spanish Harlem strides Carmen, a chica who is as hot as the sizzling city streets. When she first meets José, she falls for him hard. He’s not like the gansta types she knows—tipo duros who are tough, who think they are players...read more

The Civil War is raging and in a desperate effort to find more recruits, the Union begins a draft - a draft with a difference. The wealthy can pay $300 to be released from their obligation, but the poor must go and fight and die. In New York City, the recently arrived Irish are the hardest hit by the draft and during the long hot days of July the city explodes in a rash of arson, marches, attacks, and lynchings, with the immigrant Irish taking out their anger on the black inhabitants of the city. Fourteen-year-old Claire, the daughter of an Irish mother and a black father, has never had to choose between the two sides of the family - she has never had reason to consider her own identity. When she learns that a friend of hers is in danger, she decides to go to her aid, but by venturing out on the streets, she puts her own life at risk.        Myers's use of the screenplay format allows his readers a birds-eye view of the four hot days in July when New York City burned, using multiple points of view from both sides of the conflict.

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 New York explodes in rage and fire. Stores are looted, buildings set on fire, and black Americans are attacked, beaten, and murdered. The police cannot hold out against the rioters, and finally, battle-hardened soldiers are ordered back from the fields of Gettysburg to put down the insurrection, which they do–brutally. Fifteen-year-old Claire, the beloved daughter of a black father and Irish mother, finds herself torn between the two warring sides. Faced with the breakdown of the city–the home–she has loved, Claire must discover the strength and resilience to address the new world in which she finds herself, and to begin the hard journey of remaking herself and her identity.

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. A 17 year-old soldier from central Virginia records his experiences in a journal as his regiment takes part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and subsequent battles to liberate France.

Product Description: In the best-selling tradition of This is New York and My New York, this delightful book-length poem spreads the wonder and joy that is New York, as told through the words of its children. As part of an unprecedented series of workshops, New York City public school students were challenged to write about what it was like to live, learn, and play in New York City...read more