We Could Be Brothers
10 best books like We Could Be Brothers (Derrick Barnes): Island's End, We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, My Name Is Sally Little Song, Striped Ice Cream, The Crossing, Space Station Seventh Grade, Rhythm Ride: A Road Trip Through the Motown Sound, Dark Sons, Friction, The Search for Belle Prater
| Author | Padma Venkatraman |
| ISBN | 0399250999 |
From the acclaimed author of Climbing the Stairs comes a fascinating story set on a remote island untouched by time. Uido is ecstatic about becoming her tribe's spiritual leader, but her new position brings her older brother's jealousy and her best friend's mistrust. And looming above these troubles...
| Author | Kadir Nelson |
| ISBN | 0786808322 |
Rube Foster was the founder of the Negro National League. Said he of his men, "We are the ship: all else the sea." As long as there has been baseball in America there have been African-American ballplayers. Men like Sol White and Bud Fowler. Before Rube Foster, however, there was no organized professional...
Sally Harrison and her family are slaves on a plantation in Georgia. But when Master decides to sell Sally and her brother, the family escapes to seek shelter with a tribe of Seminoles who are rumored to adopt runaway slaves. After a perilous journey, Sally’s family finds and joins the tribe. But while...
| Author | Joan M. Lexau |
| ISBN | 0397310471 |
Becky's hard-working mama and four older brothers and sisters try to surprise her on her eighth birthday. ‘An exceedingly warm and satisfying story of a [African-American] city family that is true to childhood.' 'NYT.
"Mama --" Becky said and waited. "My birthday's coming pretty soon....
| Author | Gary Paulsen |
| ISBN | 0439786614 |
A critically acclaimed tearjerker from a master storyteller: On one side of the border is brutality and heartache; on the other side--a new life.
14yo Manny is an orphan in Juarez, Mexico. He competes with his bigger, meaner rivals for the coins American tourists throw off the bridge between...
| Author | Jerry Spinelli |
| ISBN | 0316806056 |
I like this book so much I can hardly stand it. I'm not even exaggerating that much. This was one of my very very favorites growing up, and I totally remember why. How cliche is the whole "I laughed. I cried!" review? Well.....it made me laugh. Out loud. I laughed when I first read it (at probably age 11)...
| Author | Andrea Davis Pinkney |
| ISBN | 1596439734 |
From award-winning author Andrea Davis Pinkney comes the story of the music that defined a generation and a movement that changed the world.
Berry Gordy began Motown in 1959 with an $800 loan from his family. He converted the garage of a residential house into a studio and recruited teenagers...
| Author | Nikki Grimes |
| ISBN | 1423102517 |
Sam can't believe it when his father leaves the family to marry another woman--and a white woman, at that. The betrayal cuts deep--Sam had been so close to his dad, he idolized him. Now who can he turn to, who can he trust? Even God seems to have ditched him.
Ishmael is his father's first son, the...
| Author | E.R. Frank |
| ISBN | 0689853858 |
Most well-known for her devastatingly poignant teen tales of urban desperation and redemption, renowned young adult author E. R. Frank switches gears and narrows her focus to the pivotal events of one 8th grade classroom.
The progressive petri dish of Forest Alternative's middle school...
| Author | Ruth White |
| ISBN | 0440421640 |
Belle Prater is missing. Since she inexplicably disappeared about a year ago, her son, Woodrow, has been living with his grandparents, next door to his cousin Gypsy. The two are best friends, joined by their adventurous sprits and shared love of stories and magic. One night they receive a puzzling phone...
| Author | Walter Dean Myers |
| ISBN | 0060582944 |
Drew Lawson knows basketball is taking him places. It has to, because his grades certainly aren't. But lately his plan has run squarely into a pick. Coach's new offense has made another player a star, and Drew won't let anyone disrespect his game. Just as his team makes the playoffs, Drew must come up with...
| Author | Sundee T. Frazier |
| ISBN | 0385734395 |
Ten-year-old Tae Kwon Do blue belt and budding rock hound Brendan Buckley keeps a "Confidential" notebook for his top-secret scientific discoveries. And he's found something totally top secret. The grandpa he's never met, who his mom refuses to talk about or see, is an expert mineral collector and...
| Author | Ron Koertge |
| ISBN | 0763644358 |
Fielding his social life is a bigger challenge for Kevin than hitting a fastball in Ron Koertge’s funny, insightful sequel to SHAKESPEARE BATS CLEANUP.
Fourteen-year-old Kevin Boland has a passion for playing baseball, a
knack for writing poetry — and a cute girlfriend named Mira...
| Author | Ebony Joy Wilkins |
| ISBN | 0545109280 |
It is a summer that will change everything . . . .
NaTasha has a wonderful life in affluent Park Adams. She fits in, she has friends, and she's a member of the all-white ballet troupe. Being nearly the only African American in her school doesn't bother NaTasha. But it bothers Tilly, NaTasha's spitfire...
| Author | Gennifer Choldenko |
| ISBN | 0152057536 |
Two worlds collide in one compelling story set in a suburban American middle-school. Kirsten's world is crumbling. Her parents are barely speaking to one another and her best friend has come under the spell of the queen bee Brianna. Walker's goal is to survive the new very white private school his mom...
Based on a true story, All of the Above is the delightful and suspenseful story of four inner city students and their quest to build the world's largest tetrahedron. Weaving together the different personal stories of the kids, their teacher, and the community that surrounds them, award-winning author...
| Author | G. Neri |
| ISBN | 0763649228 |
A street-smart tale about a displaced teen who learns to defend what's right-the Cowboy Way.
Twelve-year-old Cole's behavior causes his mother to drive him from Detroit to Philadelphia to live with a father he has never known, but who soon has Cole involved with a group of African-American...
| Author | Herbie Brennan |
| ISBN | 0061756474 |
When the CIA created a program to research time travel in the 1940s, they never imagined it could lead to a global pandemic decades later. But after an undercover agent, code name Cobra, exploits the time-travel operation to send the black plague into the twenty-first century, the supernatural teen...
| Author | Wendy Phillips |
| ISBN | 1550504118 |
Teen violence, bullying and the burning quest to fit in are presented in the poems of four unforgettable high school students: Natalie, Kyle, Tricia, Miguel. Their stories unfold in this explosive new book told in free verse. A story of teen angst like no other, it is based on fictional characters but...
| Author | Ann M. Martin |
| ISBN | 0439098246 |
Newbery Honor author Ann M. Martin's gripping, widely acclaimed novel of a girl confronting the perils of friendship and the conflicts of community.
Belle Teal's life isn't easy, but she gets by. She lives with her mother and grandmother far out in the country. They don't have much money, but...
| Author | Chris L. Terry |
| ISBN | 0988480433 |
i'm not sure who the target audience for this book is - i think it is YA, but it is one of those rare gems that manages to simultaneously skew both younger and older. i could see a ten-year-old boy loving this, and i - an old lady, found it completely charming. and i am not one usually swayed by "charm."
and,...
| Author | Michael Morpurgo |
| ISBN | 1406306487 |
This is one of those books that could be an adult or a children's book. It opens with a reporter interviewing a violinist, and feels like an adult book. But when the violinist begins to speak of his boyhood, it feels like a children's book. Either way, it's good. I like the addition of full-page and double-page...
John Roy Lynch spent most of his childhood as a slave in Mississippi, but all of that changed with the Emancipation Proclamation. Suddenly people like John Roy could have paying jobs and attend school. While many people in the South were unhappy with the social change, John Roy thrived in the new era....
