Catalog Search Results
1) Monster
Author
Language
English
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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
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Awesome YA Books by Black Authors
Formidable Females in YA
High School Project Lit Titles
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Formidable Females in YA
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Description
Sixteen-year-old Bri hopes to become a great rapper, and after her first song goes viral for all the wrong reasons, she must decide whether to sell out or face eviction with her widowed mother.
3) Dear Martin
Author
Language
English
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High School Project Lit Titles
Project Lit - Full List
Short YA Fiction
YA Contemporary Fiction Classics
Project Lit - Full List
Short YA Fiction
YA Contemporary Fiction Classics
Description
"Justyce McAllister 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. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then...
Author
Language
English
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Description
Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking,...
Author
Language
English
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High School Project Lit Titles
Nashville Reads 2024 | The Works of Jason Reynolds
Project Lit - Full List
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Nashville Reads 2024 | The Works of Jason Reynolds
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Description
When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.
6) Dear Justyce
Author
Language
English
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Description
Incarcerated teen Quan Banks writes letters to Justyce McCallister, with whom he bonded years before over family issues, about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system.
7) Why we fly
Author
Language
English
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Description
Told from alternating points of view, Chanel and Eleanor's rocky start to senior year gets more complex when the cheerleading team kneels for the national anthem and each girl grapples with the consequences.
9) Legendborn
Author
Language
English
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Description
Sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or her home in rural North Carolina after her mother dies. The residential program for high schoolers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is the perfect escape, until Bree sees a demon attack the night before school starts. A teenage mage who calls himself a "Merlin" tries to wipe her memory of the attack, but fails and Bree manages to stumble upon a society of...
10) Rebound
Author
Language
English
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Description
In the summer of 1988, twelve-year-old Chuck Bell is sent to stay with his grandparents, where he discovers jazz and basketball and learns more about his family's past.
Author
Language
English
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7th-8th Grade Reading List
High School Project Lit Titles
Project Lit - Full List
YA Books for Juneteenth
High School Project Lit Titles
Project Lit - Full List
YA Books for Juneteenth
Description
"High school junior Del Rainey unwittingly joins a Purity Pledge class at church, hoping to get closer to his long-term crush, Kiera"--Provided by publisher.
Author
Language
English
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Description
This novel in verse describes the relationship between two unnamed Black girls, that began as a friendship, grew into a sisterhood, and changed into a romantic relationship. The emotional fire between the two girls culminates in a pivotal moment when they decide to set fire to the dumpster behind their school. Like the effects of the dumpster flames, their passion is intense, but the substance of their relationship changes and then fizzles out, leading...
Author
Language
English
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Description
Ali lives in Bed-Stuy, a Brooklyn neighborhood known for guns and drugs, but he and his sister, Jazz, and their neighbors, Needles and Noodles, stay out of trouble until they go to the wrong party, where one gets badly hurt and another leaves with a target on his back.
Author
Language
English
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Description
A black teenager named Echo believes she is a wizard and uses her magical abilities to cope and rise up out of her crime-infested and poverty-stricken east Cleveland neighborhood, and reach beyond her dysfunctional family's drug addiction. She meets wise female wizards along the way who teach her to use magic and uses a portal that transports her to a rich, mostly white school on the west side of town where she meets Elena, a Muslim teen whom she...
Author
Language
English
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9th-10th Grade Reading
High School Project Lit Titles
Not your average high-school (book display)
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High School Project Lit Titles
Not your average high-school (book display)
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Description
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...
17) Concrete rose
Author
Language
English
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Description
Maverick feels strongly about family ties, making choices he feels necessary to help support his mom while his King father serves time, and leave him literally holding his son in a doctor's waiting room after he gets paternity test results back and his babymomma ghosts. Now the child he's raising is impacting the lives of his family and his girlfriend, and the gang life he led to support them all financially could leave them all bearing his responsibilities...
18) Nigeria Jones
Author
Language
English
Description
Warrior Princess. That's what Nigeria's father calls her. He's raised her as part of the Movement, a Black separatist group based in Philadelphia. Nigeria is homeschooled and vegan and participates in traditional rituals that connect her and other kids from the group to their ancestors. But when her mother--the perfect matriarch to their Movement--disappears, Nigeria's world is upended. She finds herself taking care of her baby brother and stepping...
19) Light it up
Author
Language
English
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Formats
Description
Told from multiple viewpoints, Shae Tatum, an unarmed, thirteen-year-old black girl, is shot by a white police officer, throwing their community into upheaval and making it a target of demonstrators.
A girl walks home from school. She's tall for her age. She's wearing her winter coat. Her headphones are in. She never makes it home. In the aftermath, while law enforcement tries to justify the response, one fact remains: a police officer has shot and...