african american teenagers

"It's 2002 in Silicon Valley. 9/11's still fresh, the dot-com bubble has burst, and holy calamity is raining down on 14-year-old Chad Loudermilk. His father is about to lose his job, his mother isn't the same since Chad's grandma died, and as one of the few black kids at tony Palo Alto High School, Chad's starting to wonder about his birth parents. Next door lives dot-com mogul Scot MacAvoy, with his luxury SUV and his gardeners and his beautiful wife and his time to play video games with Chad, all making the Loudermilk family's struggle to stay afloat seem that much harder . . . It's a place where the working class, blended Loudermilk family grapple with issues of race and inequality, all while trying to keep a smile on their faces"--Publisher.

With a highly rated Insurgency Alert Desk that surveils and harasses his neighborhood in the name if anti-terrorism, Copeland Cane V, entrapped in a reality that chews up his past and obscures his future, finds himself caught in the flood of history after a protest rally against police violence.

"Through the course of a historic year of civil unrest and the emergence of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, thirty teen writers from Frank W. Ballou High School in Washington, DC came together to take part in this national conversation about race, inequality, violence, and justice. Through their . . . personal stories these writers intend to Change the Narrative about youth of color. We are not thugs, they say. We are not victims. We are big sisters and sports stars, academic strivers and everyday heroes. We speak out for justice. We dream big dreams. These writers want more for themselves, more for their community, more for their generation. And they are challenging their readers to listen, and to recognize in each story a common humanity worthy of dignity, support, and respect"--Back cover.

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. The story that I thought was my life didn't start on the day I was born. Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. "Boys just being boys" turns out to be true only when those boys are white. The story that I think will be my life starts today. Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal's bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it' With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.

"Follows the experiences of two African-American teenagers at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida"--OCLC.

"When Chloe's mom forbids her to apply for a spot at the dance conservatory of her dreams, she devises a secret plan to drive two hundred miles from Philadelphia to New York, the nearest audition. When annoying neighbor Eli insists upon hitching a ride, he threatens to tell Chloe's mom if she leaves without him and his smelly dog, Geezer. Now Chloe's chasing her ballet dreams down the east coast, with two unwanted (but kinda cute) passengers in her car, butterflies in her stomach, and a really dope playlist on repeat"--OCLC.

A guide for encouraging adolescent African-American males to write.

When DJ ParSec (Paris Secord), rising star of the local music scene, is found dead over her turntables, the two girls who found her, Kya (her pre-fame best friend) and Fuse (her current chief groupie) are torn between grief for Paris and hatred for each other--but when the lack of obvious suspects stalls the investigation, and the police seem to lose interest, despite pressure from social media and ParSec's loyal fans, the two girls unite, determined to find out who murdered their friend.

Zsa-Zsa, a confident and independent seventeen-year-old girl, stays with her boyfriend Ameen even though he sometimes takes his anger out on her, but when her first love Malachi comes back into her life, Zsa-Zsa does not know what to do.

Fifteen-year-old Angela Jenkins accepts Shayla Mercer's offer to make sure Angela wins the holiday fashion show competition, but she soon learns that the price of instant popularity can be very high.