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.
Friends Zander, Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi, caught in the middle of a mock Civil War at DaVinci Academy, learn the true cost of freedom of speech when they use their alternative newspaper, The Cruiser, to try to make peace.
Brenda tells her cousin Tiffany that she has a pair of ballet shoes autographed by the famous ballerina, Camilla Freeman, even though she doesn't and now she'll need the help of her Sugar Plum Sisters to get out of the mess!.
When Epatha tries to spice up the choreography of the new ballet in Harlem, the rest of the Sugar Plum Ballerinas encourage her to keep her toes in line, in chapter-book format.
Super sleuths Shelby Holmes and John Watson must survive an overnight Halloween stakeout while investigating a local apartment building, where residents hear an unearthly dog's howl at night.
