Young Readers (9 - 13)

Lil Hardin and her man, Louis Armstrong, were musical royalty--inventing a new kind of sound--makin' jazz. Believe it, baby! This is the true story of Lil Hardin Armstrong: pianist, composer, and bandleader in the early days of jazz. Ahead of her time,...

One of the most popular series ever published for young Americans, these classics have been praised alike by parents, teachers, and librarians. With these lively, inspiring, fictionalized biographies -- easily read by children of eight and up -- today's...

On point historical photographs combined with strong narration bring the saga of the Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins in the early 1960s to life. Readers will learn about the four brave college students who started it all, as well as the many who came...

From an author Amy Tan calls "a gem," this is a witty, highly acclaimed novel that's "part Mean Girls, part Lord of the Flies" (The Bulletin, Starred review) about navigating life in private school while remaining true to yourself. Lucy is a bit of a...

When Lonnie was seven years old, his parents died in a fire. Now he's eleven, and he still misses them terribly. And he misses his little sister, Lili, who was put into a different foster home because not a lot of people want boys-not foster boys that...

Auma loves to run. In her small Kenyan village, she's a track star with big dreams. A track scholarship could allow her to attend high school and maybe even become a doctor. But a strange new sickness called AIDS is ravaging the village, and when her...

No discussion of the Civil Rights Movement is complete without the story of Rosa Parks. But what was this activist like as a child? Following young Rosa from a fishing creek to a one-room schoolhouse, from her wearing homemade clothes to wondering what...

CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book Finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award ILA Young Adults' Choices "A provocative, sensitive, and oh-so-timely read." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Ambitious, thought-provoking, and very readable."...

The Girl from Felony Bay is a fresh, vibrant, funny, and heartwarming debut in the vein of Sheila Turnage's Three Times Lucky and Clare Vanderpool's Moon over Manifest. Set on a southern plantation, it's about a young girl named Abbey, her best friend,...

For fans of Linda Sue Park and A Long Way Gone, two young boys must escape a life of slavery in modern-day Ivory CoastFifteen-year-old Amadou counts the things that matter. For two years what has mattered are the number of cacao pods he and his younger...

A young, sickly Phillis Wheatley was brought to Massachusetts as a slave. She grew up in two worlds treated well and educated but still enslaved. In her short life she wrote nearly 150 poems and became the first African-American poet to publish a book...

Fourteen-year-old Jordan lives for basketball. Wyatt calls her Jordan the Jock. The players on her team want their new uniforms to be short, tight and sexy, rather than being functional. Her best friend is more concerned with how she looks. Jordan thinks...