"Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and...

Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child it produces. In 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming-of-age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the soundtrack of Prince, she wears a special, custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress...

There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you. There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it's how you look or talk, or where you're from; maybe it's what you eat, or something just as random. It's not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it. Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael López's dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders...

Two girls, one white and one African-American, gradually get to know each other as they sit on the fence that divides their town.

"When six students are chosen to participate in a weekly talk with no adults allowed, they discover that when they're together, it's safe to share the hopes and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world"-- Six kids discover the power of sharing their secrets and their stories ... It all starts when six kids are sent to a room for a weekly chat - by themselves, with no adults to listen in. At first they fear this new unfamiliar and wonder...

After Mama takes a job in Chicago during World War II, Ada Ruth stays with Grandma but misses her mother who loves her more than rain and snow. Has a timeless quality that will appeal to all who wait and hope.

Twelve-year-old Lonnie is finally feeling at home with his foster family. But because he's living apart from his little sister, Lili, he decides it's his job to be the 'rememberer' and write down everything that happens while they're growing up. Lonnie's reflections in his letters to Lili are bittersweet. He's happy that they both have good foster families, but while his new family brings him joy, it also brings new worries.

Twelve-year-old Toswiah finds her life changed when her family enters the witness protection program.

When fourteen-year-old Staggerlee, the daughter of a racially mixed marriage, spends a summer with her cousin Trout, she begins to question her sexuality to Trout and catches a glimpse of her possible future self.

"A young girl uses crystal meth to escape the pain of losing her mother and grandmother in Hurricane Katrina, and then struggles to get over her addiction"--