Jenna and Jeremy knew their parents' marriage was in trouble. But no one could have predicted what would come next. Now with Mom dead and Dad in jail, Jenna and Jeremy must re-create a family of their own. But each guards a secret that could send their fragile new lives into a tailspin.
Newbery Honor winner Julius Lester paints a dramatic portrait of a family forced to confront the unimaginable.
Reader's guide included.

An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s electrifying novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.

A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE.

Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he?

As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator?

Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.

And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator.

Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.

Newly arrived from Kazakhstan, twelve-year-old Maya Alazova resents the way her mother babies her brother, but when she leaves her English Language Learner program for mainstream classes and has to deal with a boy, a bully, and conflict at home, she finds her brother can help with their new culture in ways their parents can't.

"In here, out there " - When the neighbor complains, Ruby teases and the kindergarten teacher keeps nagging, Joseph couldn't care less. Luckily, you have two ears: one for in and one for out. There is only one person in the world that Joseph listens to ...

Albert is not only the runt of his herd, he was born with an extra long trunk - a trunk that makes him feel ashamed and ostracized, so Albert runs away to the city. Unfortunately, his troubles continue as people and other animals tease and humiliate him. Then one morning Albert has the opportunity to turn his "disability" into a very special "ability." Will Albert finally find the friends and respect he craves? Trey Martin's Albert the Elephant delivers a powerful message about being different and finding one's special talents in that difference. His book is a personal triumph over being differently-abled in our public education system. Albert the Elephant is a tender, informative, must-read book for all school-age children (and parents, too).

The roar came closer. Headlights turned the corner from the highway onto the street where Lakeesha and Nancy stood. They looked at each other and then turned in unison to look toward the headlights. Nancy saw a long stick emerge from the window of the oncoming car. The engine roared, and the car leaped forward. Nancy froze in space and time. Her mind floated somewhere just above her motionless body. "Broom handle," Nancy thought calmly, watching it move in exquisite slow motion toward Lakeesha. That second stretched out like a rubber band, hours long. A brilliant flash of light made Nancy duck and blink. Then the broom handle hit Lakeesha with an awful crack. Nancy heard it even over the growling car that sped toward her and the ugly shouting from inside it. The stick disappeared inside the window. Another flash of light came from somewhere behind her. The car swerved. Nancy came back to life and jumped away as it shot past her