Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

Caleb Franklin and his big brother, Bobby Gene, spend an extraordinary summer with their new, older neighbor, Styx Malone, a foster boy from the city.

Two lonely characters, one black and one white, meet on the street and become friends.

Four black children growing up in rural Mississippi during the Depression experience racial antagonisms and hard times, but learn from their parents the pride and self-respect they need to survive.

Biracial twin sisters--one who presents as black and the other as white--are determined to put the ghosts of the past to rest and to uncover the truth behind their parents' murders in the Jim Crow South.

A man known as the "Trashcan Wizard" sings and dances his way through the French Quarter in New Orleans, keeping his beloved city clean, until Hurricane Katrina's devastation nearly causes him to lose his spirit.

After a wonderful seven weeks at Ainsley International School, twelve-year-old Caprice has been offered a full scholarship and she should be delighted, but instead she is full of doubts because what happened at the last night dance has brought back the memory of being sexually abused by her uncle as a four-year-old; worse, her maternal grandmother is ill, and that means going back to the house in Baltimore where it all happened--Caprice has never...

"When catastrophe strikes their beloved upstairs neighbors, the Vanderbeeker children set out to build the best, most magical healing garden in Harlem--in spite of a locked fence, thistles and trash, and the conflicting plans of a wealthy real estate developer"--

"A newbie to the track team, Patina "Patty" Jones must learn to rely on her family and teammates as she tries to outrun her personal demons"--

In her mother's eyes, Amanda Lynne's baby brother is a perfect angel, but to Amanda the baby doesn't always seem so angelic.