Woodson, Jacqueline

Thirteen-year-old Melanin Sun's comfortable, quiet life is shattered when his mother reveals she has fallen in love with a woman.

When Margaret's best friend Maizon returns from boarding school and joins her in the eighth grade, they try to resume their friendship while dealing with personal problems and watching their Brooklyn neighborhood undergo changes.

Laurel Daneau, having lost her mother, grandmother, and home in Hurricane Katrina, thinks things are going well with her new life as a cheerleader and the girlfriend of basketball star T-Boom, but after T-Boom introduces her to meth and she finds the drug helps her deal with her past, Laurel must rely on the help of an artist named Moses and her friend Kaylee to overcome the addiction.

Twelve-year-old Feni has to adjust when the pregnant young daughter of an old friend of her mother's comes to stay with them.

Eleven-year-old Margaret tries to accept the inevitable changes that come one summer when her father dies and her best friend Maizon goes away to a private boarding school.

Thirteen-year-old Lena and her younger sister Dion mourn the death of their mother as they hitchhike from Ohio to Kentucky while running away from their abusive father.

Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother.

After fifteen-year-old Jeremiah is mistakenly shot by police, the people who love him struggle to cope with their loss as they recall his life and death, unaware that 'Miah is watching over them.

After winning a scholarship to an academically challenging boarding school, Maizon finds herself one of only five African Americans there and wonders if she will ever fit in.

Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother.