Drew Lawson knows basketball is taking him places. It has to, because his grades certainly aren't. But lately his plan has run squarely into a pick. Coach's new offense has made another player a star, and Drew won't let anyone disrespect his game. Just as his team makes the playoffs, Drew must come up with something big to save his fading college prospects. It's all up to Drew to find out just how deep his game really is.

Wanted: One low-lifed, sniveling scoundrel

Artemis Bonner wants to set the record straight. He's just arrived in Tombstone, Arizona, to avenge the murder of his uncle Ugly Ned Bonner. And if he happens to stumble across the gold mine his uncle described on his deathbed, then would be just fine, too.

The murderous scalawag Catfish Grimes and his equally odious campaignion Lucy Featherdip are on the loose. They're desperate to find the gold mine and claim it for themselves as Artemis and his sidekick, Frolic, chase the pair from Mexico to the Alaskan Territory and back again....

Your first love is totally wrong for you.
Do you follow your heart?
Or do you run away?

Junice

What am I doing? He'll take one quick look
And wish he was anywhere else but here
I'm already ashamed of what I think
He will think of me, of the life I lead

Damien

Yes, she is the fruit that will
Sustain me and yes, she brings
A rain that I know can chill
But it is a rain so sweet and sings
A song my soul insists
That I follow, if I would exist
As more than I have ever, ever been
If my mother calls it evil,...

Jimmy and Kevin could really use a guide to life.

Their activities almost land them in juvenile detention until Duke employs them in his Harlem barbershop. Duke has rules for everything. But is he offering good advice or just more aggravation?

In the groundbreaking tradition of the award-winning Monster and Bad Boy: A Memoir, Walter Dean Myers fashions a complex, layered novel about the rules for success. Handbook for Boys is the book that he wishes he could have read while growing up. It is also the book young people need to read today.

Ages 10+

The breakthrough modern sports novel The Contender shows readers the true meaning of being a hero.

This acclaimed novel by celebrated sportswriter Robert Lipsyte, the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in YA fiction, is the story of a young boxer in Harlem who overcomes hardships and finds hope in the ring on his path to becoming a contender.

Alfred Brooks is scared. He's a high-school dropout and his grocery store job is leading nowhere. His best friend is sinking further and further into drug addiction. Some street...

Life in Harlem isn't easy, but Tippy and his grandmother are doing okay. Then Grandma Carrie gets sick, and Tippy goes to live with Lonnie, his father. Lonnie's got his own thing going on, and he doesn't have much room in his life for a son he barely knows -- unless, that is, Tippy is willing to walk the far side of the fine line between right and wrong. Grandma Carrie always said if he had Jesus in his heart there wasn't anything to worry about, but sometimes it's not that simple. When the chips are down, will Tippy be able to call for help -- and is there anyone out there who will...

A tough and funny project girl manages to make that chill wind blow away

The good life, according to Aisha Ingram, is easy. It's hanging with friends, dancing, listening to music, whatever . . . but it doesn't include worrying about the future. Chilling out is her mantra until she receives a sixty-day termination-of-welfare-benefits notice. Without her monthly food stamps and assistance checks and with no help from the father of her two children, Aisha's life threatens to become a little too "chilly." The clock is ticking and she doesn't have many options, but one thing she...

"I didn't know what letters was, not what they meant, but I thought it might be something I wanted to know. To learn." -- Sarny

Sarny, a female slave at the Waller plantation, first sees Nightjohn when he is brought there with a rope around his neck, his body covered in scars.

He had escaped north to freedom, but he came back--came back to teach...

From the Hardcover edition.

Phyllisia Cathy--She is fourteen. Her problems seem overwhelming: New York, after life on her sunlit West Indies island, is cold, cruel and filthy. She is insulted daily and is beaten up by classmates. What Phyllisia needs, God not being interested, is a friend.

Edith Jackson--She is fifteen. Her clothes are unpressed, her stockings bagging with big holes. Her knowledge of school is zero. She has no parents, she swears and she steals. But she is kind and offers her friendship and protection to Phyllisia. "And so begins the struggle...

Tigers don't cry--or do they? After the death of his longtime friend and fellow Hazelwood Tiger in a car accident, Andy, the driver, blames himself and cannot get past his guilt and pain. While his other friends have managed to work through their grief and move on, Andy allows death to become the focus of his life. In the months that follow the accident, the lives of Andy and his friends are traced through a series of letters,...

As a teenager, Gerald finds success as...

Beaten, branded, and dragged onto a slave ship, Amari is forced to witness horrors worse than any nightmare and endure humiliations she had never...

In her senior year, things are finally looking a little brighter for Keisha. Still haunted by the suicide of her ex-boyfriend, Andy, she finds comfort in the attentions of the new track coach, twenty-three-year-old Jonathan Hathaway, the principal's son. How can Keisha not be swept off her feet by a tall, dark, handsome "lemon drop wrapped in licorice" who treats her like a woman, not a girl?

But suddenly this intoxicating relationship takes a frightening turn, and Keisha is once again plunged into the darkness she's fought so hard to escape....