Way Past Cool was the first -- perhaps the only -- novel of urban American black life in the early 1990's: the era of collapsed structures, lost dreams, dashed hopes, agonizing violence, and a level of rage that for white America is simply unfathomable. But, have things gotten any better? Way Past Cool is the story of 13-year-old boys who live alone in abandoned buildings, of 16-year-old single mothers, and of lives that make kids old by the time they graduate from junior high... if they live that long. This novel stars Gordon, who at the age of 13, leads his gang through the deadly streets...

Petite Orphelin Isle, a tiny Caribbean island near Haiti, where the descendants of African slaves, survivors of an ancient shipwreck, have lived not only in harmony, but also in prosperity for over three-hundred years. Although they might not seem prosperous to the "civilized" world, having no electricity, television or wireless phones, and the only vehicle on the island is a 1904 steam tractor, to Donte Manuxet, age thirteen, proficient in mechanical skills as well as seafaring knowledge, there is no place on earth he would rather live; a sentiment shared by his closest friends, Timothy and...

Evil always lingers in a land where men have enslaved other men. Such evil is discovered by Kodi Carver, a thirteen-year-old African-American boy who spends his summers in the Old French Quarter of New Orleans. There, with the help of Raney Douglas, his alligator-wrestling, bayou cousin, he assists his magical Aunt Simone with Voodoo ceremonies for tourists in the courtyard of his aunt's haunted house. By day, Kodi and Raney roam the steamy streets of the Quarter, where other kids sell Voodoo charms and vampire teeth, or dance and sweat for money. By night, Kodi and Raney become Voodoo-boys...

Meet Jerry Mathers, who, though resembling the middle-aged "Beaver," bears no other relation, having been born in the 1970s when that illusion of American life was almost a decade dead. His mother, widowed by the Vietnam War, endured many years as a Woolworth's clerk to bring Jerry up in a "nice neighborhood," enabling him to go to college and fulfill his dreams of being an artist... at least thus far sufficient enough to still believe in them. However, the present is 2013, and Jerry finds himself 39, still only an underpaid teacher of Art at a private school in Oakland, California, his...

13-year-old Jarett Ross has been no more than a ghost for months, a lonely ghost crying in the darkness where no one can see or hear him. A drug dealer put moves on his mom, got her addicted, and now rules their tiny apartment in a ancient West Oakland Victorian house. Jarett's only refuge has been his room, its door locked with a skeleton key. But one rainy night even that protection fails him when the man breaks open the door. In a fight for Jarret's life the man falls down a stairwell. Jarett, battered and bleeding, knows the cops will never believe the man's death was accidental and...

For thirteen-year-old Dante and his friends, life in Babylon isn't about having choices but only trying to stay alive. Dante, born to a crack-addicted mother, needs a heart operation if he hopes to live to reach thirty; Pook seemingly has no hope of going to medical school and becoming a doctor; Wyatt's biggest handicap is being smart in an ignorant place - a disadvantage shared by his little brother, Cheo - Jinx is trying to get off crack, and Radgi is homeless out on the streets. But when the boys find a package of pure coke dumped by a drug-dealer running from cops, it suddenly seems that...