Channie Waites

The story of one family's journey north during the Great Migration starts with a little girl in South Carolina who finds a rope under a tree one summer. She has no idea the rope will become part of her family's history. But for three generations, that rope is passed down, used for everything from jump rope games to tying suitcases onto a car for the big move north to New York City, and even for a family reunion where that first little girl is now...

It is 1983 and Vanessa Martin, a thirteen-year-old African American girl in Newark's public housing, dreams of following in the footsteps of the first black Miss America, Vanessa Williams; but the odds are against her until a new teacher at school organizes a beauty pageant and encourages Vanessa to enter.

Twelve-year-old Neva and her older brother Clayton have been left with their grandparents for the summer, and she is having a difficult time dealing with change: the changes to her body, changes with her relationships with her brother who is becoming involved with social activism and their multicultural community (and with Michelle, the sexy girl across the street), and with her best friend, Jamila, whose father is from Ghana--Neva is growing up and...

Lola meets new friends and tries many new things on her fun but exhausting first day of school.

Lola loves to hear Daddy read a new library book each night, an activity that spurs her imagination and results in inventive play the next day.

Eleven-year-old Ruby, a Black girl who loves studying insects, accidentally captures an alien bug, but when the creature escapes and starts wreaking havoc around the neighborhood, it is up to Ruby and her rag-tag group of friends to find this new invasive species before the feds do.

A fictionalized account of Zora Neale Hurston's childhood with her best friend Carrie, in Eatonville, Florida, as they learn about life, death, and the differences between truth, lies, and pretending. Includes an annotated bibliography of the works of Zora Neale Hurston, a short biography of the author, and information about Eatonville, Florida.

More than anything Lola would like a cat, but first she must learn how to care for it.

The story of one family's journey north during the Great Migration starts with a little girl in South Carolina who finds a rope under a tree one summer. She has no idea the rope will become part of her family's history. But for three generations, that rope is passed down, used for everything from jump rope games to tying suitcases onto a car for the big move north to New York City, and even for a family reunion where that first little girl is now...

A powerful fictionalized account of Zora Neale Hurston's childhood adventures explores the idea of collective memory and the lingering effects of slavery.
"History ain't in a book, especially when it comes to folks like us. History is in the lives we lived and the stories we tell each other about those lives."
When Zora Neale Hurston and her best friend, Carrie Brown, discover that the town mute can speak after all, they think

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