Rita Williams-Garcia

Clayton feels most alive when he's with his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd, and the band of Bluesmen--he can't wait to join them, just as soon as he has a blues song of his own. But then the unthinkable happens. Cool Papa Byrd dies, and Clayton's mother forbids Clayton from playing the blues. And Clayton knows that's no way to live. Armed with his grandfather's brown porkpie hat and his harmonica, he runs away from home in search of the Bluesmen, hoping...

The Gaither sisters return to Brooklyn, where they adapt to new feelings of independence while managing changes large and small, from Pa's new girlfriend to a very different Uncle Darnell's return from Vietnam.

"A chapter book biography of Florence Griffith Joyner, part of the She Persisted series"--

In this groundbreaking novel, Coretta Scott King Award winner Rita Williams-Garcia uses her vividly realistic voice to highlight an often taboo practice that affects millions of girls around the world every year, and to explore a perspective not often depicted in YA fiction. Readers will identify with headstrong, outspoken Akilah, whose struggle to understand what's happened to her best friend reveals a painful truth in an honest and accessible way....

Black is... sisters navigating their relationship at summer camp in Portland, Oregon, as written by Renée Watson. Black is... three friends walking back from the community pool talking about nothing and everything, in a story by Jason Reynolds. Black is... Nic Stone's high-class beauty dating a boy her momma would never approve of. Black is... two girls kissing in Justina Ireland's story set in Maryland. Black is urban and rural, wealthy and poor,...

A collection of short stories by diverse authors that explores acts of bravery by heroes trying to make the world a better place.