Kwame Alexander

In the summer of 1988, twelve-year-old Chuck Bell is sent to stay with his grandparents, where he discovers jazz and basketball and learns more about his family's past.

"The Newbery Award-winning author of The Crossover pens an ode to black American triumph and tribulation, with art from a two-time Caldecott Honoree"--

Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.

"You gotta know the rules to play the game. Ball is life. Take it to the hoop. Soar. What can we imagine for our lives? What if we were the star players, moving and grooving through the game of life? What if we had our own rules of the game to help us get what we want, what we aspire to, what will enrich our lives? Illustrated with photographs by Thai Neave, The Playbook is intended to provide inspiration on the court of life. Each rule contains wisdom...

Suggests a method of reading that begins with planting oneself beneath a tree and leads to a book party one hopes will never end.

"From this first stanza, readers are invited to pay attention--and to see that paying attention itself is poetry. Kwame Alexander and Deanna Nikaido's playful text and Melissa Sweet's dynamic, inventive artwork are paired together to encourage readers to listen, feel, and discover the words that dance in the world around them--poems just waiting to be written down."--

"Noah and his best friend Walt want to become cool, make the baseball team, and win over Sam, the girl Noah has loved for years. When Noah finds old love letters, Walt hatches a plan to woo Sam. But as Noah's love life and Walt's baseball career begin, the letters alter everything"--

"A picture book in verse that threads together past and present to explore the legacy of slavery during a classroom lesson"--

When athletic, flirty Omar and bookish, Harvard-bound Claudia end up thrown together after being selected to lead a social protest, the unexpected romance that blossoms between them ends up throwing both of them for a loop.

Afraid of singing in front of a large crowd, Indigo dreams about Acoustic Rooster and his band and, after a storm flattens their barn, helps organize a concert fundraiser to rebuild it.