Urban Teen Fiction

Tyrell lives with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter and just needs money to get them out. Will he end up in jail, like his father?

Like Shakespeare's famous star-crossed lovers, Romiette Cappelle and Julio Montague face strong opposition to their budding romance. In their case, a dangerous gang's disapproval of their interracial relationship puts the two in mortal peril.

Seven teens facing such problems as pregnancy, closeted homosexuality, and abuse each describe in poetic forms what caused them to leave home and where they found home again.

In a mix of poetry and prose Grimes gives voice to 18 urban teens, all looking for ways to survive and even thrive in a challenging world.

Patrice isn't used to her new Chicago neighborhood and wants to escape the drugs and the gangs... but her options are limited since her mother's in jail.

Nate Whitely's life at a prestigious prep school in upstate New York takes him far from his Harlem home, but not so far as to sever the strong bond he has to his neighborhood. But complications from one life keep intruding on the other.

Raven, a teenage mother and high school dropout living in a housing project, decides, with the help and sometime interference of her best friend Aisha, to study for a spelling bee which could lead to a college preparatory program and four-year scholarship.

As Jesse fills his sketchbook with pictures of his best friend Rise, he realizes that Rise is becoming someone he doesn't know anymore.

For Precious Jones, sixteen and pregnant with her father's child, miraculous hope appears when a courageous, determined teacher inspires her to learn to read.

Emako Blue, a girl from South Central L.A., is destined to be a star -- until everything changes in one horrific instant.