"When catastrophe strikes their beloved upstairs neighbors, the Vanderbeeker children set out to build the best, most magical healing garden in Harlem--in spite of a locked fence, thistles and trash, and the conflicting plans of a wealthy real estate developer. While Isa is off at sleepaway orchestra camp, Jessie, Oliver, Hyacinth, and Laney are stuck at home in the brownstone with nothing to do but get on one another's nerves. But when catastrophe...

"Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing. Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that...

One hilarious Harlem family is on a mission to find the perfect way to celebrate their Papa's fortieth birthday while discovering more about their mysterious grandparents in this heartfelt romp and latest installment to the New York Times best-selling series, perfect for fans of the Penderwicks. It's summer on 141st Street, and the Vanderbeekers are looking forward to Papa's surprise fortieth birthday party. But then Papa must leave town to help his...

"It s 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It s strictly the straight-and-narrow for him until he needs...

During the holiday season, a family of three, missing someone very dear to them, find their house filling up with unexpected guests, making Christmas memories to last a lifetime. After their mother's death on Christmas Day five years ago, Will and Ella Sullivan, and their father, Henry, come to a family agreement: Christmas is a holiday for other people. At their brownstone in Harlem, stockings go unstuffed, tinsel unstrewn, gifts unbought, mistletoe...

"In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, "desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world." During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American...

"Mountain, " Baldwin said, "is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else." Go Tell It on the Mountain, originally published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery one Saturday...

In this fictional biography, Pura Belpré breaks the rules of storytime by telling unpublished stories from her homeland of Puerto Rico. Includes author's note.

"The Street follows the spirited Lutie Johnson, a newly single mother whose efforts to claim a share of the American Dream for herself and her young son meet frustration at every turn in 1940s Harlem. Opening a fresh perspective on the realities and challenges of black, female, working-class life, The Street became the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies"--

In this new adventure in the New York Times bestselling series, the Vanderbeekers depart Harlem to celebrate their dad's birthday. But their surprise road trip turns rocky when the younger kids try to keep their family from ever facing change. Our beloved Harlem family is putting the VAN in Vanderbeekers as they hit the highway to give their dad the best birthday surprise EVER! Re-creating a road trip Papa never got the chance to take with his own...