Fourteen contributions by Smith (library and information studies, Queens College) and other scholars discuss African-American young adult literature. A sampling of topics includes periodical literature for African-American young adults, supernatural African themes in horror literature, and positive images of African-American fathers in young adult literature. The volume concludes with a study analyzing trends in the publication of contemporary African-American young adult literature. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Features educational strategies that help African American adolescent boys use writing as a tool for learning and personal development.

A teen girl hiding the scars of a past relationship finds home and healing in the words of strong Black writers. A beautiful sophomore novel from a critically acclaimed author and poet that explores how words have the power to shape and uplift our world even in the midst of pain. "A true embodiment of the term Black Girl Magic.” –Booklist When Darius told Angel he loved her, she believed him. But five weeks after the incident, Angel finds herself in Brooklyn, far from her family, from him, and from the California life she has known. Angel feels out of sync with her new neighborhood. At school, she can’t shake the feeling everyone knows what happened—and that it was her fault. The only place that makes sense is Ms. G’s class. There, Angel’s classmates share their own stories of pain, joy, and fortitude. And as Angel becomes immersed in her revolutionary literature course, the words from Black writers like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Zora NEale Hurston speak to her and begin to heal the wounds of her past. This stunning novel weaves together prose, poems, and vignettes to tell the story of Angel, a young woman whose past was shaped by domestic violence but whose love of language and music and the gift of community grant her the chance to find herself again.

A striking debut novel about a college freshman grappling with the challenges of attending an elite university with a disturbing racist history, which may not be as distant as it seems. "A searing debut.” –Entertainment Weekly Savannah Howard thought everyone followed the same checklist to get into Wooddale University: Take the hardest classes Get perfect grades Give up a social life to score a full ride to a top school But now that she’s on campus, it’s clear there’s a different rule book. Take student body president, campus royalty, and racist jerk Lucas Cunningham. It’s no secret money bought his acceptance letter. And he’s not the only one. Savannah tries to keep to head down, but when the statue of the university’s first Black president is vandalized, how can she look away? Someone has to put a stop to the injustice. But will telling the truth about Wooddale’s racist past cost Savannah her own future? First-time novelist Kristen R. Lee delivers a page-turning, thought-provoking story that exposes racism and hypocrisy on college campuses, and champions those who refuse to let it continue.

Just Us Girls: The Contemporary African American Young Adult Novel is a welcome addition to the literary criticism in a field that deserves more critical study - African American children's and young adult literature. This book is a close-reading textual study of major issues and themes in contemporary (i.e., post-Civil Rights era) young adult novels written by both well-known and lesser-known African American women writers, written primarily from an African American perspective and primarily, but not exclusively, for an African American female audience. Representative works by Candy Dawson Boyd, Rita Williams-Garcia, Deborah Gregory, Rosa Guy, Virginia Hamilton, Mildred Pitts Walter, and Jacqueline Woodson are analyzed. Each chapter investigates cultural, social, and/or psychological issues examined by the writers that are prevalent in the actual lives of African American girls.

This volume focuses on a group of authors who began writing in the late 1980s. This group consists of eight authors who expanded the foundation and built a critical reputation that garnered a variety of nominations and awards. These authors are: Rita Williams-Garcia, Jacqueline Woodson, Angela Johnson, Nikki Grimes, Sharon Draper, Christopher Paul Curtis, and Sharon G. Flake, and Jewel Parker Rhodes. This volume has a chapter for each of these eight authors that focuses on their critical reception as authors, then discusses in some detail a single representative work, and, finally offers classroom activities for individual, small group, and whole class activities that will engage students in the work discussed.