Introduces children's author, Jacqueline Woodson, including her early life, books, and legacy.

"The summer before seventh grade, as the constant threat of housefires looms over her Brooklyn neighborhood, basketball-loving Sage is trying to figure out her place in her circle of friends, when a new kid named Freddy moves in."--

"Two familes from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier,...

When August, an anthropologist who has studied the funeral traditions of different cultures, revisits her old neighborhood after her father's death, her reunion with a brother and a chance encounter with an old friend bring back a flood of childhood memories. Flashbacks depict the isolation she felt moving from rural Tennessee to New York and show how her later years were influenced by the black power movement, nearby street violence, her father's...

"When six students are chosen to participate in a weekly talk with no adults allowed, they discover that when they're together, it's safe to share the hopes and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world"--

"By heeding their wise grandmother's advice, a brother and sister discover the ability to lift themselves up and imagine a better world"--

Margaret and Maizon are back together on Madison Street, but their friendship is different now. Margaret needs more time alone, and it's not just the two of them any more-their new neighbor and classmate, Caroline, has become part of their lives. But that seems minor next to what is about to happen to Maizon. . . .
"Woodson's candid assessments of relations between blacks and whites are as searching as ever, and her characters just as commanding."...

In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life, after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school.

A rope passed down through the generations frames an African American family's story as they journey north during the time of the Great Migration.

When Mama's pregnancy draws attention away from Gia, she worries that the special bond they share will disappear forever once the baby is born.