Janet McDonald

Fifteen-year-old Cameron living with her single-mother in Brooklyn finds her search for identify further challenged when she discovers that she is the product of a biracial relationship.

Eric "Hustle" Samson, a smart and street-wise seventeen-year-old dropout from Harlem, aspires to rap stardom, a dream he naively believes is about to come true.

Sixteen-year-old Nate, an academically gifted student who attends an exclusive private boarding school, straddles two cultures as he returns home for occasional visits to see his family and "gangsta crew" in Harlem, New York.

This collection of eighteen stories introduces young readers to the best in both classic and contemporary fantasy. Featuring extracts from enduring classics such as Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis's The Silver Chair, and Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, this anthology provides the perfect sample of a very popular genre. Carefully selected by Diana Wynne Jones, each story is sure to delight, enchant, and entice youngsters into the imaginative world of fantasy fiction.

Project Girl is the powerful account of a young woman's struggle to realize her dreams while remaining true to who she was and where she came from, before the Ivy League schools and impressive diplomas. It tells of the spectacular failures and unlikely comebacks of a ghetto kid whose academic talent opens doors onto a world of private schools, rich classmates, and plum jobs but who back home confronts a neighborhood of growing poverty, drug abuse, and crime. Project Girl is McDonald's story of her divided life and terrible battle to reconcile opposing worlds. The price she pays is high - police troubles of her own, self-destructive brushes with violence, and an undertow of inner turmoil that threatens to engulf her. Only through brains, willpower, and the support of family and friends is she able repeatedly to rebound from disaster and ultimately regain control of her life.

Short stories of mystery, adventure, crime, and humor.

Afraid that she will have no where to go when her welfare checks are stopped, nineteen-year-old high school dropout Aisha tries to figure out how she can support herself and her two young children in New York City.