Eleven-year-old Woody dreams of a better life, as well as his absent mother. He looks to his uncle, Vincent, as the father he never had. A street hustler and former drug dealer, Vincent's fresh off an eight-year stint in prison and wants a new direction. When Vincent passes his nephew's school one day, he offers to show the boy how a man handles his business. Woody jumps at the chance, but soon his uncle's past life comes back to the forefront.

The devastating loss of their twin daughters in a flash flood turns the lives of Terry and Laura Sheldon upside down as their marriage is tested by grief, Terry's brief love affair, and their growing relationship with their foster child, a ten-year-old African American boy.

On her tenth birthday Alice meets two visitors to her quiet town: Theo, the African American grandson of her father's best friend, and Kenneth, an artist who has come home to convalesce. Theo forms an instant bond with Alice that will indelibly change them both. The pair in turn befriend Kenneth, and decide to build a “rope walk” through the woods for him, allowing to make his way through the outdoor world he has always loved. But their good intentions...

In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life, after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school.

Told in rhyming text, a young African American boy, stuck inside on a rainy day, uses his imagination to create a rocket ship out of a rocking chair and takes off on an trip to a distant planet.

"Brandon Nelson is an African-American 12-year old boy who was taken out of his experience of living in several foster homes in the mid-west to a new world of family and caring. He is an athletic, intelligent youngster who never had an opportunity to start developing his real potential until being adopted by an Air Force officer and his wife. Soon after the adoption, Brandon’s new father was transferred overseas for a year causing more instability...

"Ten-year-old Anthony Joplin has made it to double digits! Which means he's finally old enough to play in the spades tournament every Joplin Man before him seems to have won. So while Ant's friends are stressing about fifth grade homework and girls, Ant only has one thing on his mind: how he'll measure up to his father's expectations at the card table. Then Ant's best friend gets grounded, and he's forced to find another spades partner. And Shirley,...

When Nick decides to teach his cats to read, Verne is very much interested, especially in books about mice and fish, but Stevenson wants nothing to do with the project--or does he?

Twelve-year-old Kingston James is sure his brother Khalid has turned into a dragonfly. When Khalid unexpectedly passed away, he shed what was his first skin for another to live down by the bayou in their small Louisiana town. Khalid still visits in dreams, and King must keep these secrets to himself as he watches grief transform his family. It would be easier if King could talk with his best friend, Sandy Sanders. But just days before he died, Khalid...