PHAT Fiction: Popular, HIp and Tempting

Article Index
PHAT Fiction: Popular, HIp and Tempting
Part II
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Billingsley, ReShonda Tate. With Friends Like These. 2007. (YA Fiction Billi.R): Billingsley's Ten Commandments-based teen series continues with this story of a group of girls who find faith and friendship in an after-school church group. Having established friendships with each other and an easy relationship with their group leader, Camille, Angel, Alexis, and Jasmine are reluctant to accept two new girls who join their after school church youth group.

Bonham, Frank. Durango Street. 1999. (YA Fiction Bonha.F 1999): When Rufus Henry gets out of work camp for Grand Theft Auto, he has only one place to go— back to Durango Street. Almost right away, he gets on the wrong side of the Gassers, has to join the rival Moors— and starts running for his life. Years ahead of its time, Durango Street, like The Outsiders, shows that gang violence is, sadly, nothing new— and nothing glamorous.

Booth, Coe. Tyrell. 2006. (YA Fiction Booth.C): This astonishing debut novel is of a young, African-American teen who can't get a break. Tyrell is living (for now) with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter. He feels he needs to score some money to make things better. Will he end up following in his fathers footsteps?

Booth, Coe. Kendra. 2008. (YA Fiction Booth.C): High schooler Kendra longs to live with her mother who, unprepared for motherhood at age fourteen, left Kendra in the care of her grandmother to pursue her goal of a PhD.

Buckhanon, Kalisha. Upstate. 2005. (YA Fiction Buckh.K): Antonio and Natasha, two Harlem teenagers, are deeply in love with each other, but their relationship is put to the test when Antonio goes to jail just before their senior year for killing his father, a crime he may or may not have committed. The story is written in the form of letters between Antonio and Natasha.

Draper, Sharon M. Romiette And Julio. 1999. (YA Fiction Drape.S): Romiette, an African-American girl, and Julio, a Hispanic boy, discover that they attend the same high school after falling in love on the Internet, but are harassed by a gang whose members object to their interracial dating.

Elkeles, Simone. Perfect Chemistry. 2009. (YA Fiction Elkel.S): When wealthy, seemingly perfect Brittany Ellis and Alex Fuentes, a Latino Blood gang member from the other side of town, develop a relationship after they each discover that the other has more to them than they let on, they must face the disapproval of their schoolmates--and others.

Flake, Sharon. Bang!. 2005. (YA Fiction Flake.S): A teenage boy must face the harsh realities of inner city life, a disintegrating family, and destructive temptations as he struggles to find his identity as a young man.
Jones, Traci L.. Standing Against The Wind. 2006. (YA Fiction Jones.T): As she tries to escape her poor Chicago neighborhood by winning a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, shy and studious Patrice discovers that she has more options in life than she previously realized.
Jordan, Dream. Hot Girl. 2008. (YA Fiction Jorda.D): Kate, a fourteen-year-old Brooklyn girl and former gang member, risks losing her first good foster family when she adopts the risqué ways of her flirtatious new friend, Naleejah.

Langan, Paul. Blood Is Thicker. 2007. (YA Fiction Bluford): Hakeem Randall can't take it anymore. First he must leave his friends at Bluford High and move in with his uncle in faraway Detroit. Then things go from bad to worse when Hakeem is forced to share a bedroom with his moody and secretive cousin, Savon.

McDonald, Janet. Project Girl. 1999. (YA B Mcdon.J Mcdon.J): The compelling story of a black woman's coming-of-age, "Project Girl is the powerful story of a black woman with a genius IQ whose coming-of-age in a Brooklyn public housing project locks her into a struggle with the growing poverty, drug abuse, and violence of a neighborhood in decline.

McMullan, Margaret. Cashay. 2009. (YA Fiction Mcmul.M): When her world is turned upside down by her sister's death, a mentor is assigned to fourteen-year-old Cashay to help her through her anger and grief.

Myers, Walter Dean. Dope Sick. 2009. (YA Fiction Myers.W): Seeing no way out of his difficult life in Harlem, seventeen-year-old Jeremy "Lil J" Dance flees into a house after a drug deal goes awry and meets a weird man who shows different turning points in Lil J's life when he could have made better choices.
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