Liz Lighty has always done her best to avoid the spotlight in her small, wealthy, and prom-obsessed midwestern high school, after all, her family is black and rather poor, especially since her mother died; instead she has concentrated on her grades and her musical ability in the hopes that it will win her a scholarship to elite Pennington College and their famous orchestra where she plans to study medicine--but when that scholarship falls through...

Enduring a hardscrabble existence as the children of alcoholic and absent parents, four siblings from a coastal Mississippi town prepare their meager stores for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina while struggling with such challenges as a teen pregnancy and a dying litter of prize pups.

When August, an anthropologist who has studied the funeral traditions of different cultures, revisits her old neighborhood after her father's death, her reunion with a brother and a chance encounter with an old friend bring back a flood of childhood memories. Flashbacks depict the isolation she felt moving from rural Tennessee to New York and show how her later years were influenced by the black power movement, nearby street violence, her father's...

Much of what twenty-first century culture tells black girls is not pretty: Don't wear this; don't smile at that. Don't have an opinion; don't dream big. And most of all, don't love yourself. In response to such destructive ideas, internationally recognized poet Mahogany Browne challenges the conditioning of society by crafting an anthem of strength and magic undeniable in its bloom for all beautiful Black girls.--Provided by Publisher.

Three days. Two girls. One life-changing music festival. Toni is reeling in the wake of the loss of her roadie father and desperate to figure out where her life will go from here -- so she's heading back to the festival that taught her to love music in a last ditch effort to rediscover her passion. Olivia is a hopeless romantic whose heart has just taken a beating (again), and is beginning to believe that someone like her may never find "the one"...

"Sixteen-year-old Bri hopes to become a great rapper, and after her first song goes viral for all the wrong reasons, must decide whether to sell out or face eviction with her widowed mother"--Provided by publisher.

Darcy's plans for a great summer seem to be evaporating when she finds herself traumatized over an earlier incident with Brian, and with her boyfriend in Detroit, her grandmother recently deceased, and her parents and friends all hiding secrets of their own, she does not know where to turn for help.

In L. L. McKinney's A Dream So Dark, the thrilling sequel to A Blade So Black, Alice goes deeper into a dark version of Wonderland. Still reeling from her recent battle (and grounded until she graduates high school), Alice must cross the Veil to rescue her friends and stop the Black Knight once and for all. But the deeper she ventures into Wonderland, the more topsy-turvy everything becomes. It's not until she's at her wits end that she realizes--Wonderland...

"Yaminah Okar left Obsidian and the wreckage of her family years ago. She and her father have made lives for themselves in Brooklyn. She thinks she's moved on to bigger and better things. She thinks she's finally left behind that city she would rather forget. But when a Facebook message about her estranged mother pierces Yaminah's new bubble, memories of everything that happened before her parents' divorce come roaring back. Now, Yaminah must finally...

"When legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots Enchanted Jones at an audition, her dreams of being a famous singer take flight. Until Enchanted wakes up with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night. Who killed Korey Fields? Before there was a dead body, Enchanted's dreams had turned into a nightmare. Because behind Korey's charm and star power was a controlling dark side. Now he's dead, the police are at the door, and all signs point...