Award-winning works include the following:
- Fallen Angels – 1989 Coretta Scott King Author Award
- Now is Your Time: The African-American Struggle for Freedom – 1992 Coretta Scott King Author Award
- Slam! – 1997 Coretta Scott King Author Award
- Scorpions – 1989 John Newbery Honor Award
- Somewhere in the Darkness – 1993 John Newbery Honor Award
- Monster – 2000 Michael L. Printz Award, 1999 National Book Award Finalist, 2000 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award
- Patrol – 2003 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award
- Jazz – 2007 Golden Kite Award
- Autobiography of My Dead Brother – 2005 National Book Award Finalist
- Lockdown – 2010 National Book Award Finalist and 2011 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award
- Darius and Twig – 2014 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award
- Fast Sam, Cool Clyde and Stuff – 1976 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award
- The Young Landlords – 1980 Coretta Scott King Author Award
- Motown and Didi – 1985 Coretta Scott King Author Award
- Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary – 1994 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award
Fallen Angels – A coming-of-age tale for young adults set in the trenches of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, this is the story of Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why black troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the U.S. is even there at all. |
Now is Your time: the African-American Struggle for Freedom – Since they were first brought as captives to Virginia, the people who would become African Americans have struggled for freedom. Thousands fought for the rights of all Americans during the Revolutionary War, and for their own rights during the Civil War. On the battlefield, through education, and through their creative genius, they have worked toward one goal: that the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be denied no one. Fired by the legacy of men and women like Abd al Rahman Ibrahima, Ida B. Wells, and George Latimer, the struggle continues today. Here is African-American history, told through the stories of the people whose experiences have shaped and continue to shape the America in which we live. |
Slam! – Seventeen-year-old Greg "Slam" Harris can do it all on the basketball court. He's seen ballplayers come and go, and he knows he could be one of the lucky ones. Maybe he'll make it to the top. Or maybe he'll stumble along the way. Slam's grades aren't that hot. And when his teachers jam his troubles in his face, he blows up. Slam never doubted himself on the court until he found himself going one-on-one with his own future, and he didn't have the ball |
Scorpions – The Scorpions are a gun-toting Harlem gang, and Jamal Hicks is about to become tragically involved with them in this authentic tale of the sacrifice of innocence and the struggle to steer clear of violence. This Newbery Honor Book will challenge young men to consider their own decisions as they come of age in a complex and often frustrating society. Pushed by a bully to fight and nagged by his principal, Jamal is having a difficult time staying in school. His home life is not much better, with his mother working her fingers to the bone to try to earn the money for an appeal for Jamal's jailed older brother, Randy. Jamal wants to do the right thing and help earn the money to free his brother by working, but he's afraid to go against the Scorpions. Jamal eventually pulls free of the gang's bad influence, but only through the narrowest of escapes. |
Somewhere in the Darkness – Jimmy hasn't seen his father in nine years. But one day he comes back - on the run from the law. Together, the two of them travel across the country - where Jimmy's dad will find the man who can exonerate him of the crime for which he was convicted. Along the way, Jimmy discovers a lot about his father and himself - and that while things can't always be fixed, sometimes they can be understood and forgiven. |
Monster – This New York Times bestselling novel from acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers tells the story of Steve Harmon, a teenage boy in juvenile detention and on trial. Presented as a screenplay of Steve's own imagination, and peppered with journal entries, the book shows how one single decision can change our whole lives. (We also have Monster as a graphic novel.) |
Patrol: An American Soldier in Vietnam – A young American soldier waits for his enemy, rifle in hand, finger on the trigger. He is afraid to move and yet afraid not to move. Gunshots crackle in the still air. The soldier fires blindly into the distant trees at an unseen enemy. He crouches and waits -- heart pounding, tense and trembling, biting back tears. When will it all be over? Walter Dean Myers joined the army on his seventeeth birthday, at the onset of American involvement in Vietnam, but it was the death of his brother in 1968 that forever changed his mind about war. |
Jazz – Fifteen poems, infused with the rhythm and wordplay of jazz music, are paired with bold, stylized illustrations of performers and dancers to convey the history and breadth of this unique musical style. From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie, and every style in between, Jazz takes readers on a musical journey from jazz's beginnings to the present day. Created by a celebrated father-son team, Jazz is a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and a Kirkus Best Children's Books Editor's Choice. In addition to its colorful and lyrical celebration, the book includes a brief introductory essay about the history and form of jazz, as well as a timeline and glossary of jazz terms. |
Autobiography of My Dead Brother – The thing was that me and Rise were blood brothers, but sometimes I really didn't know him. . . . As Jesse fills his sketchbook with drawings and portraits of Rise, he tries to make sense of the complexities of friendship, loyalty, and loss in a neighborhood plagued by drive-bys, vicious gangs, and abusive cops. |
Lockdown – Walter Dean Myers enjoys speaking with kids in schools and juvenile detention facilities about writing and making positive decisions. He says, "I have enormous faith in young people." What's it like in juvie jail? Enter the world of fourteen-year-old Reese, who's locked up at Progress juvenile detention facility. Can he get a second chance? |
Darius and Twig – Darius and Twig are an unlikely pair: Darius is a writer whose only escape is his alter ego, a peregrine falcon named Fury, and Twig is a middle-distance runner striving for athletic success. But they are drawn together in the struggle to overcome the obstacles that life in Harlem throws at them. The two friends must face down bullies, an abusive uncle, and the idea that they'll be stuck in the same place forever. |
Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff – Stuff doesn't know anyone when he first moves to 116th Street. All of that changes when he meets Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Gloria. Stuff and the gang grow close that eventful year, and nothing is ever like it again. That's the year modern science gets them all in jail; Stuff falls in love and is unfaithful; and Cool Clyde and Fast Sam win the dance contest-almost. |
The Young Landlords – If you were looking for a real ghetto dump, you couldn’t beat The Stratford Arms. There was Askia Ben Kenobi throwing karate chops upstairs, Petey Darden making booze downstairs, and Mrs. Brown grieving for Jack Johnson, who’d died for the third time in a month—and not a rent payer in the bunch. Still, when Paul Williams and the Action Group got the Arms for one dollar, they thought they had it made. But when their friend Chris was arrested for stealing stereos and Dean’s dog started biting fire hydrants and Gloria started kissing, being a landlord turned out to be a lot more work than being a kid. |
Motown and Didi – Motown lives in a burned-out building one floor above the rats, searching out jobs every day, working his muscles every night, keeping strong, surviving. Didi lives in her cool dream bubble, untouched by the Harlem heat that beats down on her brother until only drugs can soothe him. Didi escapes, without needles, in her tidy plans and stainless visions, etchings of ivy-covered colleges where her true life will begin. Didi can survive inside her own safe mind, until Motown steps into her real world and makes it bearable. Together they can stand the often brutal present. What about the future? |
Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary – As a 14-year-old he was Malcolm Little, the president of his class and a top student. At 16 he was hustling tips at a Boston nightclub. At 20 "Detroit Red" was in prison. It was there Malcolm Little started the journey that would lead him to adopt the name Malcolm X, and develop his beliefs about what being black means in America: beliefs that shook America then, and still shake America today. His significant role in the Nation of Islam and eventual split from it, along with his journey to Mecca, followed by his assassination in Harlem are chronicled in this fascinating portrait. |