Maleeka Madison is a dark skinned African-American girl. She feels uncomfortable and wishes she had lighter skin. When her teacher, Miss Saunders, who suffers from a rare skin condition, shows that there is more to people than the color of their skin, Maleeka learns to appreciate and accept who she truly is.

In The Skin I'm In, listeners saw into the life of Maleeka Madison, a teen who suffered from the ridicule she received because of her dark skin color. For decades fans have wanted to know the fate of the bully who made Maleeka's life miserable, Char. Now in Sharon Flake's latest and unflinching novel, The Life I'm In, we follow Charlese Jones, who, with her raw, blistering voice speaks the truths many girls face, offering insight to some of the causes and conditions that make a bully.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.

Octobia May is a girl filled with questions. Her heart condition makes her special - and, some folks would argue, gives this ten-year-old powers that make her a "wise soul." Thank goodness for Auntie, who convinces Octobia's parents to let her live in her boarding house that is filled with old folks. That's when trouble, and excitement, and wonder begin.

For the first time, Gucci Mane tells his story in his own words. It is the captivating life of an artist who forged an unlikely path to stardom and personal rebirth. Gucci Mane began writing his memoir in a maximum-security federal prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive - a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past. Born in rural Bessemer, Alabama, Radric Delantic Davis became Gucci Mane in East Atlanta, where the rap scene is as vibrant as the dope game.

After a traffic stop turns violent at the hands of the police, a young Black teen grapples with racism—and what it means for his future. Critically acclaimed author Nic Stone boldly tackles America’s troubled history with race relations in her gripping debut novel. Justyce is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs without cause. When faced with injustice, Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore?

Katherine and Michael are in love, and Katherine knows it's forever - especially after she loses her virginity to him. But when they're separated for the summer, she begins to have feelings for another boy. What does this say about her love for Michael? And what does "forever" mean, anyway? Is this the love of a lifetime, or the very beginning of a lifetime of love?

It’s 1936, in Flint Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him. 1. He has his own suitcase full of special things. 2. He’s the author of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! Bud’s got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father.

When the Watson family—ten-year-old Kenny, Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron—sets out on a trip south to visit Grandma in Birmingham, Alabama, they don’t realize that they’re heading toward one of the darkest moments in America’s history. The Watsons’ journey reminds us that even in the hardest times, laughter and family can help us get through anything.

In late 2003, in his column in Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King called The Memory of Running "the best novel you won't read this year." This glowing endorsement of the audiobook resulted in Ron McLarty receiving a $2 million two-book deal from Viking Penguin. Also, Warner Brothers has shelled out big bucks for the movie rights to The Memory of Running, for which McLarty will write the script.

In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years, and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.

A moving tale of the unshakable bond between two brothers set against a backdrop of family secrets, loyalty, and small town life. Earl "Earwig" Gunderman is sixteen-years-old when the world is thrust into war and his older brother Jimmy is shipped out to the Pacific theater. Being what they used to call simple-minded, Earwig must cope without the protection of his revered older brother as he strikes out towards independence and adulthood.

They are five kids with five different fathers and an alcoholic mother who leaves them to fend for themselves for weeks at a time. Yet through it all, they have each other. Rosie, the youngest, is fawned over and shielded by her older sister, Regina. Their mother, Cookie, blows in and out of their lives "like a hurricane, blind and uncaring to everything in her path". But when Regina emancipates herself as a minor and escapes, her siblings are separated.

Fourteen-year-old Stark McClellan (nicknamed Stick because he’s tall and thin) is bullied for being "deformed" - he was born with only one ear. His older brother, Bosten, is always there to defend Stick. But the boys can’t defend each other from their abusive parents. When Stick realizes Bosten is gay, he knows that to survive his father's anger, Bosten must leave home. Stick has to find his brother, or he will never feel whole again. In his search, he will encounter good people, bad people, and people who are simply indifferent to kids from the wrong side of the tracks. But he never loses hope of finding love - and his brother.

Guys and girls get together, get played, and get real. Who Am I Without Him? is a Booklist Top 10 Romance Novel for Teens and is "breaking new and necessary ground" in 12 short stories about guys and girls falling in and out of love and relationships, testing out ways to communicate with one another, respect each other - and respect themselves. This is a complex, often humorous, and always on-point exploration of today's teens determined to find love and self-worth...any way they know how.