When you look like us—brown skin, brown eyes, black braids or fades—everyone else thinks you’re trouble. No one even blinks twice over a missing black girl from public housing because she must’ve brought whatever happened to her upon herself. I, Jay Murphy, can admit that, for a minute, I thought my sister Nicole just got caught up with her boyfriend—a drug dealer—and his friends. But she’s been gone too long. Nic, where are you? If...

Emily Bird is an African American high school senior in Washington D.C., member of a privileged medical family, on the verge of college and the edge of the drug culture, and not really sure which way she will go--then one day she wakes up in the hospital with no memory of what happened.

Henri "Halti" Haltiwanger can charm just about anyone. But his easy smiles mask a burning ambition to attend his dream college, Columbia University. There is only one person who seems immune to Henri's charms: his "intense" classmate and neighbor Corinne Troy. When she uncovers Henri's less-than-honest dog-walking scheme, she blackmails him into helping her change her image at school. Henri agrees, seeing a potential upside for himself. Soon what...

"Monique is a preacher's daughter who detests the impossible rules of her religion. Everyone expects her to wait until marriage, so she has no one to turn to when she discovers that she physically can't have sex. After two years of trying and failing, her boyfriend breaks up with her. To win him back, Monique teams up with straight-laced church girl Sasha--who is surprisingly knowledgeable about Monique's condition--as well as Reggie, the misunderstood...

Back at high school Jayd Jackson is looking for a new boyfriend and finds one in Jeremy Weiner, a half-Jewish white boy from Palos Verdes whose parents are rich.

"When Winnie is crowned Summer Queen in the small town of Misty Haven, she has to balance her new responsibilities with her friendships, a new romance, and her job at her granny's diner..." -- Winnie is all set to attend college in the fall, but first she's spending her summer days working at her granny's diner and spending her midnights with Dallas, the boy she loves to hate and hates that she likes. In a small town like Misty Haven, secrets are...

"Delilah always keeps her messy, gooey insides hidden behind a wall of shrugs and yeah, whatevers. She goes with the flow--which is how she ends up singing in her friends' punk band as a favor, even though she'd prefer to hide at the merch table. Reggie is a D&D Dungeon Master and self-declared Blerd. He spends his free time leading quests and writing essays critiquing the game under a pseudonym, keeping it all under wraps from his disapproving family....

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

Years ago Nia lost her father to the violence plaguing her small Indiana city, but when the five-year-old boy she babysits for is killed in a drive-by shooting, she and her friends decide enough is enough and set out to find the murderer--never anticipating how close to home that investigation will lead.

A teenage basketball player from Harlem is befriended by a former professional player who, after being forced to quit because of a point shaving scandal, hopes to prevent other young athletes from repeating his mistake. Lonnie plays basketball in spite of his coach, a has-been named Cal. Followed by The Outside Shot (1987). All eyes are on seventeen-year-old Lonnie Jackson while he practices with his team for a city-wide basketball Tournament of Champions....