chicago

"Robbed on the train platform as soon as he arrives in the city, eleven-year-old Oscar Starling soon finds himself in the middle of the Great Chicago Fire when he chases after his thief, who is herself in need of rescue." --.

When eleven-year-old Langston's father moves them from their home in Alabama to Chicago's Bronzeville district, it feels like he's giving up everything he loves. It's 1946. Langston's mother has just died, and now they're leaving the rest of his family and friends. He misses everything -- Grandma's Sunday suppers, the red dirt roads, and the magnolia trees his mother loved. In the city, they live in a small apartment surrounded by noise and chaos. It doesn't feel like a new start, or a better life. At home he's lonely, his father always busy at work; at school he's bullied for being a country boy. But Langston's new home has one fantastic thing. Unlike the whites-only library in Alabama, the Chicago Public Library welcomes everyone. There, hiding out after school, Langston discovers another Langston -- a poet whom he learns inspired his mother enough to name her only son after him.

Preface / Javon Johnson and Kevin Coval -- Intro / Javon Johnson -- Welcome to Chiraq -- On hearing King Louie / Andrew Barber -- When King Louie first heard the word Chiraq / Kevin Coval -- To live and die in "Chiraq" / Mariame Kaba -- Rome wasn't built in a day / Malcolm London -- Memories / Aneko Jackson -- Windowpain : Bryce Thomas / Nile Lansa -- My grandmother tells me and my cousins why she hates the word Chiraq . . . / Demetrius Amparan -- Do we even need to be understood to get free? / Page May -- 9 of disks / Fatimah Ashgar -- Frank Bradely : interview / by Aneko Jackson -- How America loves Chicago's ghosts more than the people still living in the city : an erasure poem / Jacqui Germain -- A tale of two & many cities -- I am Windy City / Patricia Frazier -- If you aren't from Chicago / Tim "Toaster" Henderson -- Concrete flowers / Aneko Jackson -- Chicago is the world's Harold's Chicken box / Kara Jackson -- When asked about Chicago : a confession / Alfonzo Kahlil -- History, as written by the victors / Krista Franklin -- Ye though I walk through Chi / Naudia j. Williams -- Ghazal for White Hen Pantry / Jamila Woods -- Holy hermosa / Sara Geiger -- Corn man on every corner / Sammy Ortega -- Into a white neighborhood / Melinda Hernandez -- Poem for Cal City : confession / Jose Olivarez -- In the Bridgeport row house / Natalie Richardson -- I'm from Chicago, but not really / Michael Cuaresma -- Daughter / Claire DeRosa -- Damon / Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep Louder Than a Bomb Team.

FBI agent Will Brody remembers the explosion, then waking without a scratch. Welcome to the afterlife. But the line between life and death is narrower than we suspect, and all that matters to Will is getting back to Claire.

Third-grader Anna has had trouble making friends since her family moved from a small town in New York to Chicago, but a group project at school leads to new opportunities, including friendships, a club, and a garden she can work in, just like in her last home.