Maverick feels strongly about family ties, making choices he feels necessary to help support his mom while his King father serves time, and leaves him literally holding his son in a doctor's waiting room after he gets paternity test results back and his babymomma ghosts. Now the child he's raising is impacting the lives of his family and his girlfriend, and the gang life he led to support them all financially could leave them all bearing his responsibilities...

"In Kenny Wright's active imagination he's a world famous superhero, but in the real world he's a sixth grade "Grandma's Boy" whose struggles to fit in at his Washington D.C. inner city school will put his grades and family loyalty to the test"--

When sixteen-year-old Bri, an aspiring rapper, pours her anger and frustration into her first song, she finds herself at the center of a controversy.

Incarcerated teen Quan Banks writes letters to Justyce McCallister, with whom he bonded years before over family issues, about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system.

Born a free man in New York, Solomon Northup was abducted in Washington, D.C., in 1841 and spent the next twelve years in captivity as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, he published this detailed account of slave life. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognized for its unusual insight and eloquence.

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, and was raised by his grandmother, who told him many stories of the Black American experience and taught him to be proud of his race from a young age. With her guidance, Langston became a talented writer in high school, creating dramatic plays, poetry, and articles for the school paper. His career as a writer would continue to blossom. Langston pioneered jazz poetry and published nearly twenty poetry books...

Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seventeen-year-old college-bound Justyce McAllister struggles to face the reality of race relations today and how they are shaping him.