"Randall tricks the heart into feeling by using sleight of language...[and] explores what it means to try to fix the fractured bits of our emotional lives, regardless of age. A gift!" ―#1 New York Times-bestselling author Jason Reynolds

"Absolutely vibrating with energy and heart, Shook is a masterful middle-grade novel." ―Newbery Honoree Jasmine Warga

Shake's dream of making the varsity basketball team is in peril when he gets injured. Can he rebound and make his way back onto the court―and back to feeling like himself? For fans of Kwame Alexander and Jason Reynolds.

Beautifully designed with illustrations.

Malik Page―though unless you're his mama, call him "Shake"―dreams of making the Marshall Grove varsity basketball squad as an eighth grader. Then he'll be on his way to joining the ranks of Chicago legends like his pops and late Uncle Kenny. But when Shake fractures his ankle in a championship game, he's sidelined for the first time since his first dribble.

As his world is turned upside down, Shake feels like there’s ginger ale bubbling in his chest and sweat slicking on his palms. With a best friend who’s getting more distant by the day, a growing silence between him and his dad, and varsity tryouts fast approaching, Shake will have to cross up every obstacle to find a way back onto the court―and back to being himself. Thankfully in Marshall Grove, the sky is always full of hope.

"Readers, make permanent room on your shelves―and in your hearts― for this witty and poignant novel." ―National Book Award winner Elizabeth Acevedo

"Stunning. This book is powerful." ―Newbery Medalist Tae Keller

"Witty, electric and profound, Randall’s verse dribbles, twists and weaves highlighting the complicated inner world of a middle-school boy with nuance and care." ―National Book Award Finalist Amber McBride

A young adult anthology featuring fictional stories of everyday resistance.

You might be the kind of person who stands up to online trolls.Or who marches to protest injustice.Perhaps you are #DisabledAndCute and dancing around your living room, alive and proud.Or perhaps you are the trans mentor that you wish you had when you were younger.Maybe you call out false allies, or stand up to loved ones. Maybe you speak your truth and drop the mic, or maybe you take it with you when you leave.This anthology features fictional stories--in poems, prose, and art--that reflect a slice of the varied and limitless ways that readers like you resist every day. Take the Mic's powerful collection of stories features work by literary luminaries and emerging talent alike, including Newbery-winner Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestseller Samira Ahmed, anthologist and contributor Bethany C. Morrow, Darcie Little Badger, Keah Brown, Laura Silverman, L.D. Lewis, Sofia Quintero, Ray Stoeve, Yamile Mendez, and Connie Sun, with cover and interior art by Richie Pope.

Celebrate the joys of Black boyhood with stories from seventeen bestselling, critically acclaimed Black authors—including Jason Reynolds (the Track series), Jerry Craft (New Kid), and Kwame Mbalia (the Tristan Strong series)!

Black boy joy is…

Picking out a fresh first-day-of-school outfit.
Saving the universe in an epic intergalactic race.
Finding your voice—and your rhymes—during tough times.
Flying on your skateboard like nobody’s watching.

And more! From seventeen acclaimed Black male and non-binary authors comes a vibrant collection of stories, comics, and poems about the power of joy and the wonders of Black boyhood.

The talented team of Robert Venditti and Olivia Stephens brings to glorious full color the novel that best-selling author Jason Reynolds called "A brilliant action adventure rooted in African American lore."

Seventh grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he's being sent to heal from the tragedy.

But on his first night there, a sticky creature shows up in his bedroom and steals Eddie's notebook. Tristan chases after it--is that a doll?--and a tug-of-war ensues between them underneath a Bottle Tree. In a last attempt to wrestle the journal out of the creature's hands, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world.

Tristan finds himself in the middle of a battle that has left Black American folk heroes John Henry and Brer Rabbit exhausted. In order to get back home, Tristan and these new allies will need to entice the god Anansi, the Weaver, to come out of hiding and seal the hole in the sky. But bartering with the trickster Anansi always comes at a price.

Can Tristan save this world before he loses more of the things he loves? Find out by diving into this stunning graphic novel adaptation of the original book.

*ships in 7-10 business days* 

“A modern masterpiece.” —Jason Reynolds, best-selling author of Look Both Ways

It’s 2013, and Circus Palmer, a forty-year-old Boston-based trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man, lives for his music and refuses to be tied down. Before a gig in Miami, he learns that the woman who is secretly closest to his heart, the free-spirited drummer Maggie, is pregnant by him. Instead of facing the necessary conversation, Circus flees, setting off a chain of interlocking revelations from the various women in his life. Most notable among them is his teenage daughter, Koko, who idolizes him and is awakening to her own sexuality even as her mentally fragile mother struggles to overcome her long-failed marriage and rejection by Circus.

Delivering a lush orchestration of diverse female voices, Warrell spins a provocative, soulful, and gripping story of passion and risk, fathers and daughters, wives and single women, and, finally, hope and reconciliation, in answer to the age-old question: how do we find belonging when love is unrequited?

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Long Way Down comes a powerful print adaptation of the acclaimed, award-winning audiobook Soundtrack—a stirring story of music, friendship, and finding your voice in 2000s New York City.

Stuy Grey plays the drums, just like his mom, a founding member of the all-black punk band the Bed-Stuy Magic Dusters. He teaches himself by watching videos of tap dancers. Now he’s left home, estranged from his mom and her abusive boyfriend. He’s camping out with his uncle on the Lower East Side. His landlord, Dunks, has chops: He shreds on only five strings. Add Alexis on bass guitar and Keith on horn: These teens are a band, busking in New York City subway stations to scrape enough money to record an album.

As their popularity grows, so do the pressures, from complicated family dynamics to the glare of unexpected public attention. And when the police start looking for their bassist, Stuy faces his toughest decision yet.

Adapted from the acclaimed Listening Library original audiobook and written with Jason Reynolds’s signature rhythm, heart, and honesty, Soundtrack: A Novel is a raw, resonant story about friendship, creativity, and what it truly means to find, and fight for, your voice.

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

Can Lawrence figure out how to get on the board, even though the odds are stacked against him?

Introducing a powerful novel about family, forgiveness, and figuring out who you are when you don’t make the rules—just right for middle-grade fans of Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds.

Lawrence is ready for a win. . . .

Nothing’s gone right for Lawrence since he had to move from Charlotte to Larenville, North Carolina, to live with his granny. When Lawrence ends up in one too many fights at his new school, he gets expelled. The fight wasn’t his fault, but since his pop’s been gone, it feels like no one listens to what Lawrence has to say.

Instead of going to school, Lawrence starts spending his days at the rec center, helping out a neighbor who runs a chess program. Some of the kids in the program will be picked to compete in the Charlotte Classic chess tournament. Could this be Lawrence's chance to go home?

Lawrence doesn’t know anything about chess, but something about the center—and the kids there—feels right. Lawrence thought the game was over . . . but does he have more moves left than he thought?

FOUR STARRED REVIEWS! Twelve-year old Lawrence is new to chess--can he find a way to get on the board, even though the odds are stacked against him?

Find out in this powerful novel about family, forgiveness, and figuring out who you are when you don’t make the rules—just right for middle-grade fans of Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds.

*“Essential middle grade and tween realistic reading.”—School Library Journal, starred Review

Lawrence is ready for a win. . . .

Nothing’s gone right for Lawrence since he had to move from Charlotte to Larenville, North Carolina, to live with his granny. When Lawrence ends up in one too many fights at his new school, he gets expelled. The fight wasn’t his fault, but since his pop’s been gone, it feels like no one listens to what Lawrence has to say.

Instead of going to school, Lawrence starts spending his days at the rec center, helping out a neighbor who runs a chess program. Some of the kids in the program will be picked to compete in the Charlotte Classic chess tournament. Could this be Lawrence's chance to go home?

Lawrence doesn’t know anything about chess, but something about the center—and the kids there—feels right. Lawrence thought the game was over . . . but does he have more moves left than he thought?

We Need to Talk about Kevin as if written by Jason Reynolds and Tananarive Due meets Model Home by Rivers Solomon in an innovative twist on the haunted house novel: about a mother desperate to protect her sons from the twin specters of gun violence and otherworldly menace in their public housing project.

Nona McKinley raised three boys in the Hester Gardens section of Medford, Michigan, an impoverished community divided by those who follow their faith in God and those who turn to crime to survive. With her drug dealer husband behind bars and her eldest son shot to death at eighteen, Nona has devoted herself to ensuring her other children escape their brother’s fate.

Her second son Marcus is on the right path. He's a valedictorian heading to an Ivy League school. He can get out.

But then, strange things start happening to Nona and other residents: mysterious footsteps are heard when she’s alone, people have phantom encounters in the streets, unattended appliances go off at all hours. Even more concerning is the state of Nona’s living sons. Her youngest, Lance, is hanging around with a bad crowd, and Marcus becomes moody and secretive. Sometimes he even seems to act like a different person entirely.

Nona has her secrets too. Her affair with the married church pastor has been weighing on her conscience, but that’s not the only guilt haunting her. She fears that someone—or something— is seeking revenge for an act she made in a moment of weakness to protect her family. And now everyone in Hester Gardens must pay the price . . .

An exciting, eye-catching repackage of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers' bestselling paperbacks!

With an Introduction by National Ambassador of Young People's Literature Jason Reynolds and bonus material by Coretta Scott King Award winner Christopher Myers.

A coming-of-age tale for young adults set in the trenches of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, this is the story of Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why Black troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the US is even there at all.

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. One of the most acclaimed YA novels of the year—this Walter Award–winning, New York Times and Indie bestseller is now available in paperback—a must-read for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo. 

The story that I thought

was my life

didn’t start on the day

I was born

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, because of a biased system, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated. Then, one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

The story that I think

will be my life

starts today

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?

With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth in a system designed to strip him of both.