Jewell Parker Rhodes

Twelve-year-old Donte is the darker-skinned brother of Trey, which in his racist, mostly-white school has earned him the nickname Black Brother. When the captain of the school fencing team successfully frames him for something he didn't do, Donte is arrested and suspended from school. Joining a local youth center, Donte meets former Olympic fencer Arden Jones and begins training to defeat his school bully and find courage to confront the racist system...

"While learning about September 11th, fifth grader Dèja (born after the attacks) realizes how much the events still color her world"--

Addy's parents were killed in a tragic fire years ago, and she still carries the trauma of this loss with her wherever she goes. When her grandmother sends her to a summer wilderness program in California, Addy finds herself learning to live in the forest with five other Black city kids. But those survival skills are soon put to the test when a forest fire erupts in the woods where they are camping.

In New Orleans' Ninth Ward, twelve-year-old Lanesha, who can see spirits, and her adopted grandmother have no choice but to stay and weather the storm as Hurricane Katrina bears down upon them.

A fictionalized account based on the true story of a white woman who accused a black man of rape in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921, in order to avoid a forced marriage to the farmhand who actually raped her. The resulting riots pitted the National Guard against the community of Greenwood, known as the "Negro Wall Street," and resulted in the complete destruction of that town.