Number Forty-Seven, a fourteen-year-old slave boy growing up under the watchful eye of a brutal master in 1832, meets the mysterious Tall John, who introduces him to a magical science and also teaches him the meaning of freedom.

During World War II, a light-skinned African American girl "passes" for white in order to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

Drew Lawson, counting on basketball to get him into college and out of Harlem, struggles to keep his cool when the coach brings in two white players and puts them in positions that clearly threaten Drew's game.

After reluctantly taking on the leadership of the Harlem gang, the Scorpions, Jamal finds that his enemies treat him with respect when he acquires a gun--until a tragedy occurs.

Thirteen-year-old Rain, who struggles with low self-esteem, must overcome sadness after her older brother Xander is severely beaten up at a frat party, but through the help of an after-school circle group, Rain finds the courage to help herself and her family heal.

Following her grandfather's death in rural North Carolina in 1947, twelve-year-old Pattie Mae learns more about her family after reading her grandmother's collection of obituaries and traveling to Harlem, New York, to find her uncle who has escaped from the Ku Klux Klan.

Samuel and his younger brother, Joshua, are free black boys living in an orphanage during the Civil War, but when Samuel takes the blame for his brother's prank, he is sent South, given a new name, and sold into slavery--and somehow he must survive both captivity and the war, to find his way back to his brother.

Pierce Butler has a big slave auction to pay debts and his family is very sad because Emma, a slave who raised the children, may be sold.

Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face and makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like.

Fourteen-year-old Sparrow Cooke of Brooklyn has always been the kind of child who prefers reading books to playing with friends (not that she has many of those) and since fifth grade the one person who seemed to understand her was the school librarian--so when Mrs. Wexler was killed in an accident Sparrow's world came apart, and when she was found on the edge of the school roof everyone assumed that it was a suicide attempt, which Sparrow denies,...