Showing results by narrator "Ruffin Prentiss" in All Categories

In this third Legendary Alston Boys adventure from Edgar Award-nominated author Lamar Giles, Otto and Sheed have to team up with the Ellison twins to take down a corporation obsessed with the weirdness of Logan County and that's turning its residents into Money-Zombies.  

Unlike the majority of Logan County's residents, Missus Nedraw of the Rorrim Mirror Emporium remembers the time freeze from The Last Last-Day-of-Summer and how Otto and Sheed took her mirrors without permission in order to fix their mess. Usually that's an unforgivable offense, punishable by a million-year sentence. However, she's willing to overlook the cousins' misdeeds if they help her with a problem of her own. One of her worst prisoners has escaped, and only the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County can help bring the fugitive to justice.   

Otto and Sheed are the local sleuths in their zany Virginia town, masters of unraveling mischief using their unmatched powers of deduction. And as the summer winds down and the first day of school looms, the boys are craving just a little bit more time for fun, even as they bicker over what kind of fun they want to have. That is, until a mysterious man appears with a camera that literally freezes time. 

He says: Omar "T-Diddy" Smalls has got it made - a full football ride to UMiami, hero-worship status at school, and pick of any girl at West Charleston High. She says: Football, shmootball. Here's what Claudia Clarke cares about: Harvard, the poor, the disenfranchised, the hungry, the staggering teen pregnancy rate, investigative journalism...the list goes on. She does not have a minute to waste on Mr. T-Diddy Smalls and his harem of bimbos. 

Brian has always been anxious, whether at home, or in class, or on the basketball court. His dad tries to get him to stand up for himself, and his mom helps as much as she can, but after he and his brother are placed in foster care, Brian starts having panic attacks. And he doesn't know if things will ever be normal again. Ezra's always been popular. He's friends with most of the kids on his basketball team, even Brian, who usually keeps to himself. But now, some of his friends have been acting differently, and Brian seems to be pulling away.

In 1920, as art and writing flourished during the Harlem Renaissance, W. E. B. Du Bois published The Brownies’ Book: A Monthly Magazine for Children of the Sun—the first periodical for African American youth, collecting original art, stories, letters, and activities to celebrate their identities and inspire their imaginations and ambitions. Building upon Du Bois’s mission, esteemed professor and scholar Karida L. Brown and celebrated artist Charly Palmer reimagine the groundbreaking publication with The New Brownies’ Book, gathering the work of more than 50 contemporary Black writers.

The era is 1988, Detroit is the scene, and crack is the movement. It's a time when young black men can become self-made millionaires seemingly overnight by selling dope. The crack era has become to blacks what Prohibition was to the Italians - a time to get over! It's a time that inspires generations of street dreams.... Fresh out of high school, young Wink has but one thing on his mind - rollin' fresh. Infatuated by all the trappings of the game, Wink and his B-boy crew jump headfirst into the ills of the drug trade, determined to taste the good life.

Meet Marcel and Sabrina, a hitman and a bookkeeper for the Mob. The couple should have never met, let alone fallen in love. When they decide to go against the grain, all hell breaks loose. Somebody wants them dead; they just don't know who. It could be Leo, Marcel's jealous older brother; Othello, Sabrina's crooked father; or it could be The Family, a roundtable of the top contenders in the underworld. There is no honor amongst thieves. Marcel and Sabrina will find the old adage to be true the hard way. 

When he graduates with his law degree, handsome and charismatic Langston Hudson is ready to hit the ground running as a lawyer with his family's firm, but a routine traffic stop during a night out with his friends quickly derails his plans and turns his world upside down. Langston and his friends are arrested after officers find half a million dollars' worth of drugs in his car. When Jacqueline Hudson learns of her son's arrest, she immediately begins to build her case. She is one of the top lawyers in the country, with a reputation for being a shark in the courtrooms.

They said it was the "Curse of the Bambino". They said "the bad guys won". Now one of baseball’s all-time good guys, New York Mets legend Mookie Wilson, tells his side of the story - from the ground ball through Bill Buckner’s legs that capped the miraculous 1986 World Series Game Six rally against the Boston Red Sox to the rise and fall of a team that boasted such outsize personalities as Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Gary Carter, Lenny Dykstra, and Davey Johnson.

Darrian dreams of writing for the New York Times. To hone his skills and learn more about the power of words, he enrolls in Mr. Ward's class, known for its open-mic poetry and boys vs. girls poetry slam. Everyone in class has something important to say, and in sharing their poetry, they learn that they all face challenges and have a story to tell - whether it's about health problems, aging out of foster care, being bullied for religious beliefs, or having to take on too much responsibility because of an addicted parent.

He has one gray eye, the other as dark as the deepest parts of any ocean. The often misunderstood Ronald Doolally lives his life as a single man with few attachments. After the death of his father, he hasn't a person left in the world. Until he meets Gertrude Liberal, who immediately shows interest in the odd stranger. The outspoken, natural beauty sees his distant demeanor as endearing. Eventually wearing down his defenses, Gertrude finds a place in his heart against what Ronald would call his better judgment. 

In this biography of Chester B. Himes (1909-1984), Lawrence P. Jackson depicts the improbable life of the controversial writer whose novels confront sexuality, racism, and social injustice. In absorbing detail, Jackson explores Chester Himes's middle-class origins, eight years in prison, painful odyssey as a Black World War II-era artist, and escape to Europe, where Himes became internationally famous for his Harlem detective series.

Charlie isn't looking forward to sixth grade. If he starts sixth grade, chances are he'll finish it. And when he does, he'll grow older than the brother he recently lost. Armstrong isn't looking forward to sixth grade, either. When his parents sign him up for Opportunity Busing to a white school in the Hollywood Hills, all he wants to know is "what time in the morning will my alarm clock have the opportunity to ring?" When these two land at the same desk, it's the Rules Boy next to the Rebel.

You gotta know the rules to play the game. Ball is life. Take it to the hoop. Soar. What can we imagine for ourselves? What if we were the star players, moving and grooving through the game of life? What if we had our own rules of the game to help us get what we want, what we aspire to, what will enrich our lives? The Playbook is intended to provide inspiration for kids ages 10 and up to help them succeed on and off the court.

Brian knows that anxiety and depression aren’t magically fixed overnight, but he still doesn’t understand why it’s all hitting him so hard right now. Sure, his dad is in prison and middle school is stressful, but he’s seeing a therapist, he’s got good friends, and he’s doing really well on the basketball team. He should be fine, so why does he feel too tired to get out of bed some days? And why does he turn into “Cursed Monster Brian” and snap whenever someone asks him what’s wrong?

It's Halloween: Candy-snatching time. For the past few years, twelve-year-old Jonas and his friends have competed to see how much candy they can snatch from unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. No one’s supposed to get hurt. So Jonas is taken by surprise when one of his smaller targets fights back against his candy-snatching attempt. He’s even more surprised when he starts to receive anonymous notes from someone who seems to know what happened that night.

Yasir has always felt he was meant for more…he has no idea how much. A native son of the Island Republic of Kindara, he is ripped from his homeland as a small boy, escaping an invasion that decimated his family. For the past decade, he has been living with his uncle in the small town of Oakwood Grove, Georgia, while dealing with life as an outsider—in more ways than one. All that would change over the course of a few weeks, thanks to a series of unfortunate incidents that brings Yasir into the spotlight.

Forty-something widow Jessie Tucker is beloved throughout Lexington, Alabama, for her kind heart and endless generosity. But she feels it's past time she rewarded herself—especially when upstanding Hubert Wiggins tragically loses his wife and son. Making herself indispensable, yet discouraged by Hubert’s lack of romantic interest, Jessie cooks up a deception she knows will make pious Hubert do right by her....    

Firefly meets The Breakfast Club in this high-concept LGBTQ+ romance from #1 New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff and bestselling author Nina Croft.