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Author
Language
English
Description
The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parents' death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society.
The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parent's death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society.
2) Dough boys
Author
Language
English
Description
Told in two voices, thirteen-year-old best friends Simp and Rollie play on a basketball team in their housing project, but Rollie dreams of being a drummer and Simp, to impress the gang leader, Coach Tez.
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Ten-year-old Beans Curry, a member of the Keepsies, the best marble playing gang in Depression-era Key West, Florida, engages in various schemes to earn money while "New Dealers" from Washington, D.C., arrive to turn run down Key West into a tourist resort.
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
6th Grade Reading
Children's and Middle Grade Novels in Spanish and English/Novelas juveniles en español e inglés
Middle School Project Lit Titles
Project Lit - Full List
Children's and Middle Grade Novels in Spanish and English/Novelas juveniles en español e inglés
Middle School Project Lit Titles
Project Lit - Full List
Description
Unable to celebrate the holidays in the wake of his older brother's death in a gang-related shooting, Lolly Rachpaul struggles to avoid being forced into a gang himself while constructing a fantastically creative LEGO city at the Harlem community center.
Author
Language
English
Description
With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In 1984, in the barrios of Newark, Beatriz Mendez is looking forward to dancing at her fifteenth birthday, because dancing is her true passion in life, but when her brother Juni, gang-leader of the Puerto Rican gang the Diablos, is killed by the rival Haitian Macoute gang, she finds herself thrust into the role of gang-leader and drug dealer--until she meets Nassar, a dorky Haitian boy who shares and reignites her passion for dancing.
7) In darkness
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, fifteen-year-old Shorty, a poor gang member from the slums of Site Soleil, is trapped in the rubble of a ruined hospital, and as he grows weaker he has visions and memories of his life of violence, his lost twin sister, and of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who liberated Haiti from French rule in the 1804.
8) Benched
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
When Cody and his friends are approached by gang members with whom the older brother he still mourns was involved, stealing a park bench seems like a harmless prank, until he learns he may have risked his chance to write for the school paper.
10) Nowhere special
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English
Formats
Description
Twelve-year-old Stan and Elpidia find hope in an unexpected friendship as they navigate challenging family circumstances and a dangerous local gang in the desolate Southern California desert.
11) Chopped
Author
Language
English
Description
Robin is suspicious of a new auto repair business that constantly brings in new cars but never lets any leave.
12) See no evil
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Shawn and Daniel are scared after they witness a gang beating behind the mall.
14) Robinson's hood
Author
Language
English
Description
Robin Paige is pushed to the brink when the community center where he spends his free time is in danger of closing, his grandmother is shaken down by thugs, and he is forced into doing a bully's homework.
17) City of orphans
Author
Language
English
Description
In 1893 New York, thirteen-year-old Maks, a newsboy, teams up with Willa, a homeless girl, to clear his older sister, Emma, from charges that she stole from the brand new Waldorf Hotel, where she works. Includes historical notes.
18) Unchained
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
After two years in a loving home, TJ's mother got him back. She was clean. No pot. No meth. His chest felt like it was burning. His heart was racing. Trapped. He felt trapped. He didn't have a say. Everything he had come to care about was gone. And the brutal life he'd escaped quickly reclaimed him. Kaden Cruz didn't run after him. Instead his voice boomed, You owe us.; TJ didn't look back. But he knew this wasn't the end of Kaden Cruz. He could still...