Walter Dean Myers
1) Monster
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Banned Books - Teens
Freedom to Read: Books Unite Us
GPLD Best Mystery/Thrillers for Teens
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Freedom to Read: Books Unite Us
GPLD Best Mystery/Thrillers for Teens
More Lists...
Description
While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.
3) Game
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
If Harlem high school senior Drew Lawson is going to realize his dream of playing college, then professional, basketball, he will have to improve at being coached and being a team player, especially after a new--white--student threatens to take the scouts' attention away from him.
Author
Language
English
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Description
Few men in American history are as controversial as Malcolm X. In this provocative biography, Myers, winner of a Newbery Honor and four-time Coretta Scott King Award winner, presents a forthright portrait of a complex man whose life reflected the major events of our times.
8) Juba!
Author
Language
English
Description
In Five Points, New York, in the 1840s, African American teenager William Henry "Juba" Lane works hard to achieve his dream of becoming a professional dancer but his real break comes when he is invited to perform in England. Based on the life of Master Juba; includes historical note.
9) Scorpions
Author
Language
English
Description
After reluctantly taking on the leadership of the Harlem gang, the Scorpions, Jamal finds that his enemies treat him with respect when he acquires a gun--until a tragedy occurs.
10) Shooter
Author
Language
English
Description
Written in the form of interviews, reports, and journal entries, the story of three troubled teenagers ends in a tragic school shooting.
11) Lockdown
Author
Language
English
Description
Teenage Reese, serving time at a juvenile detention facility, gets a lesson in making it through hard times from an unlikely friend with a harrowing past.
12) Riot
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
In 1863, fifteen-year-old Claire, the daughter of an Irish mother and a black father, faces ugly truths and great danger when Irish immigrants, enraged by the Civil War and a federal draft, lash out against blacks and wealthy "swells" of New York City.
13) Dope sick
Author
Language
English
Description
Seeing no way out of his difficult life in Harlem, seventeen-year-old Jeremy "Lil J" Dance flees into a house after a drug deal goes awry and meets a weird man who shows different turning points in Lil J's life when he could have made better choices.
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
The summer after his absentee father is killed in a random shooting, Paul works at a Harlem soup kitchen, where he listens to lessons about "the social contract" from an elderly African American man and mentors a seventeen-year-old unwed mother who wants to make it to college on a basketball scholarship.
15) Kick
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Told in their separate voices, thirteen-year-old soccer star Kevin and police sergeant Brown, who knew his father, try to keep Kevin out of juvenile hall after he is arrested on very serious charges.
18) Street love
Author
Language
English
Description
This story told in free verse is set against a background of street gangs and poverty in Harlem in which seventeen-year-old African American Damien takes a bold step to ensure that he and his new love will not be separated.
19) Looking like me
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Jeremy sets out to discover all of the different "people" that make him who he is, including brother, son, writer, and runner.
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Acclaimed writer Walter Dean Myers celebrates the people of Harlem with these powerful and soulful first-person poems in the voices of the residents who make up the legendary neighborhood: basketball players, teachers, mail carriers, jazz artists, maids, veterans, nannies, students, and more. Exhilarating and electric, these poems capture the energy and resilience of a neighborhood and a people.