Peter Francis James
Author
Language
English
Description
Introducing Socrates Fortlow, an ex-con struggling to find his place in the world after 27 years in jail. Living in an abandoned apartment building in South-Central L.A., Socrates is one step away from the streets. He bags groceries at the supermarket, recycles bottles and cans for pennies, and feels himself slipping toward invisibility—until he meets 11-year-old Darryl, who is perilously close to a life of violence and bloodshed. Socrates'...
2) Monster
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Awesome YA Books by Black Authors
Banned & Challenged Books: YA
High School Project Lit Titles
More Lists...
Banned & Challenged Books: YA
High School Project Lit Titles
More Lists...
Description
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.
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Banned Books That Shaped America
Juneteenth for All Ages
Nashville Reads 2023: Celebrating Our Freedom to Read!
Juneteenth for All Ages
Nashville Reads 2023: Celebrating Our Freedom to Read!
Description
In the course of his wanderings from a Southern college to New York's Harlem, an American Black man becomes involved in a series of adventures. Introduction explains circumstances under which the book was written. Ellison won the National Book Award for this searing record of a Black man's journey through contemporary America. Unquestionably, Ellison's book is a work of extraordinary intensity -- powerfully imagined and written with a savage, wryly...
4) Old Yeller
Author
Language
English
Description
In the late 1860s in the Texas hill country, a big yellow dog and a fourteen-year-old boy form a close, loving relationship.
5) Native son
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's novel is just as powerful today as when it was written -- in its reflection of poverty and hopelessness, and what...
6) Run
Author
Language
English
Description
Struggling with single parenthood and a scandal that cost him his political career, Bernard Doyle fights his disappointment with his adopted sons' career choices before a violent event forces the members of his family to reconsider their priorities.
8) Djibouti
Author
Language
English
Description
"Elmore Leonard is in a class of one....The greatest crime writer who ever lived."
—Dennis Lehane
"Elmore Leonard is our greatest crime novelist...the best in the business."
—Washington Post
44 novels and still going strong! The incomparable Elmore Leonard—"The reigning King Daddy of crime writers" (Seattle Times)—is back with Djibouti, a gripping, twisting, playful, and always
...9) Road dogs
Author
Language
English
Description
Gentleman/banker-robber Jack Foley is back in prison doing a thirty-year sentence after a week-long escape. Brought in by Karen Sisco, US marshall, who got her man after being abducted with the escapees, Jack and Karen have a thing for each other, and Karen arrests him only after a meaningful 'time'out' together. Jack is resigning himself to doing time, lots of it, and he seems to have a friendly and easy control over the hardened criminals he is...
10) The contender
Author
Language
English
Description
A Harlem high school dropout escapes from a gang of punks into a boxing gym, where he learns that being a contender is hard and often discouraging work, but that you don't know anything until you try.
Author
Language
English
Description
Now a TV series on FOX starring Morris Chestnut, Yaya DaCosta, Nadine Ellis, and Joe Morton.
"Fascinating. . . . [Graham] has made a major contribution both to African-American studies and the larger American picture." —New York Times
Debutante cotillions. Million-dollar homes. Summers in Martha's Vineyard. Membership in the Links, Jack & Jill, Deltas, Boule, and AKAs. An obsession with the
...12) Kick
Author
Language
English
Description
Told in their separate voices, thirteen-year-old soccer star Kevin and police sergeant Brown, who knew his father, try to keep Kevin out of juvenile hall after he is arrested on very serious charges.
Author
Language
English
Description
In a small Nigerian tribe, Okonkwo has worked all his life to overcome his father's weakness and has arrived, finally, at great prosperity and even greater reputation among his fellows in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a champion wrestler, a prosperous farmer, husband to three wives and father to several children. Unfortunately, a series of tragic events tests the mettle of this strong man, and it is his fear of weakness that ultimately undoes...
16) Ruby Bridges
Language
English
Description
When bright six year old Ruby is chosen to be the first African-American to integrate her local New Orleans elementary school, she is subjected to the true ugliness of racism for the very first time.
19) Ruby Bridges
Language
English
Description
When bright six year old Ruby is chosen to be the first African-American to integrate her local New Orleans elementary school, she is subjected to the true ugliness of racism for the very first time.
Author
Language
English
Description
In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming with cheap Jim Crow labor. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, vicious Sheriff McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves. Then the Ku Klux Klan rolled into town, burning homes and chasing hundreds of blacks into the swamps. So began the chain of events that would bring Thurgood Marshall, the man known as "Mr. Civil Rights," into...