The Crossover: An Instructional Guide for Literature provides lesson plans and activities for this award-winning literary work. This valuable resource helps teachers add more rigor to their instruction with complex literature. Text-dependent questions help students analyze the text with higher-order thinking skills, with lessons focused on story elements, vocabulary, and more. Close reading activities throughout the literature units encourage students to use textual evidence as they revisit passages to respond more critically about the text. With various methods of assessing comprehension, this instructional guide offers strategies for cross-curricular activities as students build a greater understanding of this great literary work.

There's a sweet, sweet smell in the air as two young girls sneak out of their house, down the street, and across town to where men and women are gathered, ready to march for freedom and justice. Inspired by countless children and young adults who took a stand, two Coretta Scott King honorees offer a heart-lifting glimpse of children's roles in the civil rights movement.

The story goes...

Grandmama could hit the ball a mile,

catch anything that was thrown,

and do everything else --

just like Josh Gibson.

But unfortunately, no matter how well a girl growing up in the 1940s played the game of baseball, she would have faced tremendous challenges. These challenges are not unlike those met by the legendary Josh Gibson, arguably the best Negro-League player to never make it into the majors.

In a poignant tribute to anyone who's had a dream deferred, two-time Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Angela Johnson and celebrated artist Beth Peck offer up this reminder -- that the small steps made by each of us inspire us all.

Experience the joy of Juneteenth in this celebration of freedom from the award-winning team of Angela Johnson and E.B. Lewis.
Through the eyes of one little girl, "All Different Now "tells the story of the first Juneteenth, the day freedom finally came to the last of the slaves in the South. Since then, the observance of June 19 as African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. This stunning picture book includes notes from the author and illustrator, a timeline of important dates, and a glossary of relevant terms.
Told in Angela Johnson's signature melodic style and brought to life by E.B. Lewis's striking paintings, "All Different Now "is a joyous portrait of the dawn breaking on the darkest time in our nation's history.

From the days she banged her rattle in the crib, Violet has been looking for friends to share her love of music.

Papa says
it's the sound of leaving
that speaks to my soul...

The poignant words of two-time Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Angela Johnson and striking images from fine artist Loren Long join forces in this heartbreaking yet uplifting picture book about a boy, his love for trains, and his adulation of one legendary engineer.

It's the story of a hero lost and a hero discovered, of a dream crushed then reawakened, but mostly it is a story of the force that sustains the human spirit -- hope.