Stones into School

The saga continues. Mortenson recounts the efforts of the Central Asia Institute in Pakistan and Asia during earthquake relief and military initiatives.

Fallen Angels

Rotting feet. Sticky forehead, arms, legs, and back. Haunting screams. Devastating visions. Walter Dean Meyers brings the Vietnam war into the present in the this tale about a young Black man's service. I tasted, felt, heard, and smelled the battle when I first read Fallen Angels. Well chosen words convey the bitterness of war more profoundly than any movie ever could.


Reading Level from Lexile: 650L

Let the Circle Be Unbroken

Times are hard for everyone during the Great Depression, but Black share-croppers suffer uniquely under economic oppression. The Logans face more pressure than ever before to sell their land. But Papa will never let the family land change hands, no matter what the cost. As Mama and Papa labor to keep the family afloat, Cassie and her brothers struggle to navigate the world as young adults. Being a young woman means that Cassie doesn't get to do everything with the guys as she's always done. Becoming a young man puts Cassie's older brother at odds with his parents – to the point of running away from home. The Logans fight to keep hold their family together as internal division and external pressure threaten to rip their fragile relationships apart. Cassie learns that it is worth the effort, because family is all that matters in the end.

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is the Newbery Medal-winning first installment. Readers become acquainted with the main characters: protagonist Cassie, her three brothers and their mischievous friends, Mama – a school teacher, and Papa – an itenerant worker who is often away from home. Taylor paints a picture of segregation's inequalities from the first chapter. Readers feel the humiliation of the Logans as a bus full of white children splatters Cassie and siblings with mud the first day of school. The intensity of race relations culminates in a family friend – a Black youth's trial for murder of a white man.  

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

As provocative as this title sounds today, James Weldon Johnson's raw memoir must have sparked even more controversy when first published in 1912.  This is a commentary on race-relations in turn of the century New York. Johnson was the first black executive secretary o f the NAACP; his conversational voice invites the reader into his experience as comrades do over coffee in the corner of a city cafe.