Showing results by narrator "Sisi Johnson" in All Categories

Departures, from Adrienne Bellamy, has been compared to such classics as The Women of Brewster Place. This novel is the tale of 10-year-old Amber, whose mother has all but abandoned her and her sisters in an effort to find a man to curl up with at night. Despite her abusive home situation, Amber still has other role models in her Philadelphia neighborhood.

Frannie doesn't know what to make of the poem she's reading in school. She hasn't thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more "holy". And there is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy.

Things are changing in the Gaither household. After soaking up a "power to the people" mind-set over the summer, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern return to Brooklyn with a newfound streak of independence. Pa has a girlfriend. Uncle Darnell is home from Vietnam, but he's not the same. And a new singing group called the Jackson Five has the girls seeing stars. But the one thing that doesn't change? Big Ma still expects Delphine to keep everything together.

Adrienne Bellamy’s debut novel Departures received rave reviews for depicting strong, independent women and delivering unpredictable dialogue. Bellamy brings these spunky ladies together again in Connecting - a story packed with unexpected plot twists and turns. Their reunion is sweet, but life has plenty of new surprises in store for Sheila, Emily and Amber. No matter what obstacles are thrown their way, these indomitable Philly gals prove to be unstoppable.

Maleeka Madison is a dark skinned African-American girl. She feels uncomfortable and wishes she had lighter skin. When her teacher, Miss Saunders, who suffers from a rare skin condition, shows that there is more to people than the color of their skin, Maleeka learns to appreciate and accept who she truly is.

Frankie Sparks can't wait to enter the town-wide sled design contest. With the help of a team, she must design and build a sled using only cardboard and duct tape. And there are PRIZES!

What's a Brooklyn girl to do when her best friend is away for the whole summer? Aimless and unhappy with her new foster mother, Kate falls into the hands of a stylish It Chick who whips her into fashionable shape. Armed with new confidence and a game plan to get her man, Kate quickly falls under her new bestie's bad influence. Told through Kate's witty, fearless point of view, this two-in-one edition of Hot Girl and Bad Boy present powerful stories from an important voice in young-adult fiction.

This comical companion to Ross Burach's The Very Impatient Caterpillar pays loving homage to every child's struggle to persist through challenges while also delivering a lighthearted lesson on butterfly migration. Remember, if at first you don't succeed, fly, fly again!

Ross Burach's hilarious, tongue-in-cheek exploration of metamorphosis will make you flutter with glee, while also providing real facts about how caterpillars transform into butterflies.

When rising star Paris Secord (aka DJ ParSec) is found dead on her turntables, it sends the local music scene reeling. No one is feeling that grief more than her shunned pre-fame best friend, Kya, and ParSec's chief groupie, Fuse - two sworn enemies who happened to be the ones who discovered her body. The police have few leads, and when the trail quickly turns cold, the authorities don't seem to be pushing too hard to investigate further. Only no one counted on Paris's deeply loyal fans, ParSec Nation, or the outrage that would drive Fuse and Kya to work together.

Jilly thinks she's figured out how life works. But when her sister Emma is born deaf, she realizes how much she still has to learn. A big fantasy reader, Jilly connects with another fan, Derek, who is African American and a deaf ASL user. She goes to Derek for advice but doesn't always know the best way to ask for it and makes some mistakes along the way. Jilly has to step back to learn to be an ally, a sister, and a friend, understanding that life works in different ways for different people, and that being open to change can make you change in the best possible ways.

Ever since she was little, Leah Vernon was told what to believe and how to act. There wasn’t any room for imperfection. "Good" Muslim girls listened more than they spoke. They didn’t have a missing father or a mother with a mental disability. They didn’t have fat bodies or grow up wishing they could be like the white characters they saw on TV. They didn’t have husbands who abused and cheated on them. They certainly didn’t have secret abortions.

It's 1944, and in a small Southern town, 11-year-old Ella spends her summers running wild with her cousins and friends. But life isn't always so sunny. The deep racial tension that simmers beneath their town's peaceful facade never quite goes away, and Ella misses her mama - a beautiful jazz singer who lives in Boston.

Eleven-year-old Jenae doesn’t have any friends - and she’s just fine with that. She’s so good at being invisible in school, it’s almost like she has a superpower, like her idol, Astrid Dane. At home, Jenae has plenty of company, like her no-nonsense mama; her older brother, Malcolm, who is home from college after a basketball injury; and her beloved grandpa, Gee. Then a new student shows up at school - a boy named Aubrey with fiery red hair and a smile that won’t quit. Jenae can’t figure out why he keeps popping up everywhere she goes.

Things have changed in the Tibbs house, and Mya isn’t happy about it. She’s stuck in the middle between an exceptionally cute baby sister and an exceptionally smart older brother. And her tired parents seem to only notice the "exceptional" kids in the house. So when a class project lassoes Mya into starting her own school newspaper, she’s sure this will earn her the star status she wants from her parents. But the same project also gives Mya’s archenemy, Naomi Jackson, a chance to prove she is a better friend to the twins, Skye and Starr, than Mya is.

From budgeting to spending, from good deals to bad value, this new early chapter book series, Dollars to Doughnuts, tackles and explains big financial topics for kids!

NEW YORK CITY, 2000 Twins Trey and Tai are not like other high schoolers. Trey struggles to suppress his surging magical abilities, which continually impede his dream of making first chair cello in orchestra. A budding photographer, Tai just wants to take pictures and maybe find someone to take them with. But disturbing images keep appearing in Tai’s camera lens, reigniting the twins’ search for their mother, who mysteriously disappeared ten years earlier.

"HEY! What are you guys doing?" "We're going to metamorphosize." "Meta-WHAT-now?" "Transform into butterflies." "Right. Right. I knew that... WAIT?! You're telling me I can become a BUTTERFLY?" "Yes." "With wings?" "Yes." "Wait for ME!!"​​​​​​​ Ross Burach's hilarious, tongue-in-cheek exploration of metamorphosis will make you flutter with glee, while also providing real facts about how caterpillars transform into butterflies.

Eleven-year-old Kylie’s friends seem so much more mature than she is. And with middle school just a summer away, she’s worried her friends might leave her behind, especially because she keeps embarrassing them. So Kylie applies her scientific brain to solve the problem and comes up with the Everybody Experiment.

A thousand years into the future, a Black elite class reigns while the underclass toils at their feet. With her society’s future hanging in the balance, young Avi Jore enters into an arranged marriage. But the ceremony turns violent when the servants rebel and kill Avi’s father. In the aftermath of General Jore’s death, Avi and her sister Jade vie for power in a vicious contest. As the rightful heir, Avi has no choice but to defend what’s hers—at any cost. With her loyalties tested and her enemies closing in, Avi must rely on her sister Saige, who searches for allies outside the Union’s walls.