Woodson, Jacqueline

After meeting at their private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah, who is black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white and whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with people's reactions.

In the New York City borough of Queens in 1996, three girls bond over their shared love of Tupac Shakur's music, as together they try to make sense of the unpredictable world in which they live.

Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother.

Through letters to his little sister, who is living in a different foster home, sixth-grader Lonnie, also known as "Locomotion," keeps a record of their lives while they are apart, describing his own foster family, including his foster brother who returns home after losing a leg in the Iraq War.

Eleven-year-old Margaret tries to accept the inevitable changes that come one summer when her father dies and her best friend Maizon goes away to a private boarding school.

When Margaret's best friend Maizon returns from boarding school and joins her in the eighth grade, they try to resume their friendship while dealing with personal problems and watching their Brooklyn neighborhood undergo changes.

"The author shares her childhood memories and reveals the first sparks that ignited her writing career in free-verse poems about growing up in the North and South"--Provided by publisher.

After winning a scholarship to an academically challenging boarding school, Maizon finds herself one of only five African Americans there and wonders if she will ever fit in.

"The author shares her childhood memories and reveals the first sparks that ignited her writing career in free-verse poems about growing up in the North and South"--Provided by the publisher.

Marie, the black girl in the eighth grade willing to befriend her white classmate Lena, discovers that Lena's father is doing horrible things to her in private.