CHILDREN'S
Released: May 1, 2011
"Stunning. (Picture book/poetry. 8 & up)"
The Myers team shares their heartfelt and stirring vision of an America flawed but filled with promises and dreams.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: April 26, 2011
"A perfect match with Jen Bryant's The Fortune of Carmen Navarro (2010), a prose refresh of the same classic tale, and a great choice for high-school theater productions. (Drama. 13 & up)"
As he did with Swan Lake in Amiri & Odette (2009), Myers takes a classic story and gives it a new twist and fresh voice.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Feb. 1, 2011
The police spot a Ford Taurus with no headlights on weaving down a street, and when the officer puts his lights on, the driver of the Ford brakes, speeds up and drives into a light pole.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Aug. 1, 2010
"A serious issue and a group of smart, likable protagonists make this an enjoyable inaugural volume, and readers will look forward to further tales of Zander and his friends as they navigate the high seas—or Cs, in Zander's case—of middle-school life. (Fiction. 9-13)"
In the first volume of a planned quartet, Myers introduces eighth graders Zander, LaShonda, Bobbi and Kambui, students at Da Vinci Academy, a middle school for the gifted and talented in Harlem, and staff of The Cruiser, an alternative to the school newspaper.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Feb. 1, 2010
"He offers no easy answers, but roots salvation in a few helping hands along the way and in personal moral decisions; Reese comes to realize that home and the streets are not where it's at: "I know I got to start with me." (Fiction. 12 & up)"
Fourteen-year-old Reese Anderson has already spent 22 months at the oxymoronically named Progress Center, and his prison world is delineated in painstaking detail—eternal stasis, a non-life, ever vulnerable to random violence and the threat of detention, added time and being sent upstate.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Jan. 1, 2010
"Despite its arresting visuals, it does not replace other such treatments as Jim Haskins's Champion, illustrated by Eric Velasquez (2002), or Tonya Bolden's The Champ, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (2004). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)"
Muhammad Ali's life story is interwoven with significant historical events of the latter half of the 20th century—the American civil-rights movement, the war in Vietnam and the growth of the Nation of Islam—and Myers shows how he used his star status to make the case for the rights of African-Americans, conscientious objection and religious freedom as well as boosting his own athleticism.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 13, 2009
"This vibrant synthesis of poetry and pictures is a natural for classrooms and family sharing. (Picture book. 4-8)"
The Myerses—father and son—reunite for a poetic celebration of self that blends a sort of Whitman-esque hip-hop with '70s-vibe visuals.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Sept. 22, 2009
"Another innovative work by an author constantly stretching the boundaries of what fiction can be, and a natural for readers' theater in the classroom. (Historical fiction. 11 & up)"
In a screenplay format similar to his groundbreaking Monster (2000), Myers tells the story of the Civil War Draft Riots in New York City.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Feb. 1, 2009
"In his most recent urban young adult title since Street Love (2007), Myers delivers a solid tale, but misses the nuances. (Fiction. YA)"
CHILDREN'S
Released: Jan. 1, 2009
"His Odette is truly luminous. (Picture book/poetry. 12 & up)"
The acclaimed author uproots the 19th-century classical ballet Swan Lake from its enchanted world of mist-filled lakes and palaces and plunks it solidly down into the dark, danger-filled Swan Lake Projects.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Nov. 1, 2008
"The design sets the staunch advocate's quotations off from Myers's accessible account, printing them in a typeface as bold as their speaker. (Picture book/biography. 7-10)"
In spite of adversity, or because of it, Ida B. Wells served as a catalyst in the civil-rights movement.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: May 1, 2008
"Robin's eventual understanding that his experience was not about winning or losing the war but about "reaching for the highest idea of life" makes this a worthy successor to Myers's Coretta Scott King Award–winning classic. (Fiction. 12+)"
In 2003, in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, young Robin Perry already wonders about "an enemy we can't identify and friends we're not sure about."
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Feb. 1, 2008
"A good match with Myers's Monster (1999) and Slam (1996). (Fiction. 11+)"
CHILDREN'S
Released: Sept. 11, 2007
"Gently told, beautifully modulated, these stories go straight to the heart. (Short stories. YA)"
A companion cycle to 145th Street: Short Stories (2000) examines love in its many forms in one Harlem neighborhood.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: March 1, 2007
"Peppered with hilarious dialogue and serving up an exuberant meld of fact and fiction, this works equally well as a stellar addition to the Harlem Renaissance curriculum and a just-for-fun read. (Historical fiction. 12-16)"
Set in 1925 New York, this tour de force features walk-ons by a bevy of Harlem Renaissance notables.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 31, 2006
"This quasi-Romeo and Juliet will easily find its place alongside Sharon Mills Draper's Romiette and Julio (1999), Myers's short story, "Kitty and Mack: a Love Story," West Side Story and of course, the Shakespearean play itself. (Fiction. YA)"
Adult and young-adult aficionados of Myers's work will find this new offering revisits issues close to the author's heart: place (Harlem with all its love and squalor), race and the court system (you've got trouble if you're black and poor and in front of a judge), values for boys of color (street crime or achievement) and love of the community.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Sept. 30, 2006
"This offering stands as a welcome addition to the literature of jazz: In a genre all too often done poorly for children, it stands out as one of the few excellent treatments. (Picture book/poetry. 8+)"
A cycle of 15 poems and vivid, expressive paintings celebrate that most American genre of music: jazz.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Aug. 1, 2005
"Though the story is starkly realistic, there is always hope in the gifts of Jesse the artist and C. J. the musician, of schools and churches and of caring parents. (Fiction. 12+)"
Jesse and his friend C.J. are trying to come to terms with "the violence that blows through our community like the winds of winter."
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Jan. 1, 2005
"The whole reads like a second draft, with clunky transitions and a diffusion of focus that drag down what could have been an enormously inspiring tale. (Nonfiction. 9-12)"
A history of Harlem's all-black regiment and its exploits in France during the Great War is marred by uneven storytelling and inadequate documentation.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Nov. 1, 2004
"Sure to be a classic. (Poetry. 12+)"
In this Whitman-esque ode to time and the city, the "crazy quilt patterns" of Harlem are reflected in the voices of the neighborhood's "big-time people and its struggling folk," of little girls and blind old veterans, poets and mechanics, boxers and nannies, ballplayers and blues singers, laborers and jazz artists.
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