In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father, a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man, has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey, first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of...

"Whispered secrets about her parents' past take on new urgency for Chariline as she pays one last visit to the land of her forefathers, the ancient kingdom of Cush. Raised as an orphan by her aunt, Chariline has only been told a few pieces of her parents' tragic love story. Her beautiful dark skin is proof that her father was Cushite, but she knows nothing else. While visiting her grandfather before his retirement as the Roman official in the queen's...

When New York Yankee James "JY" Yager tries to show that he can still hit in the majors without the help of twelve-year-old Jalen's baseball genius, Jalen focuses on his own baseball career as he tries to carve out a spot with the Rockton Rockets.

When Sonia's father loses his job and she must move from her small, supportive private school to a public middle school, the half-Jewish half-Indian sixth-grader experiences culture shock as she tries to navigate the school's unfamiliar social scene, and after her father is diagnosed with clinical depression, she finds herself becoming even more confused about herself and her family.

A twelve-year-old boy and his dog become trapped in New Orleans during the horrors of Hurricane Katrina.

Lena Grove's resolute search for the father of her unborn child begets a rich, poignant, and ultimately hopeful story of perseverance in the face of mortality. It also acquaints us with several unforgettable characters, including the Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen, and Joe Christmas, a ragged, itinerant soul obsessed with his mixed-race ancestry.

Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. With an incisive...

Reluctant orphan-turned-spy Max Segredo discovers intrigue at the Merry Sunshine Orphanage and must confront an international group bent on world domination, while uncovering mysteries from his past.

"Even before the Civil War, a number of slaves escaped bondage and sought sanctuary in the American West. This includes the narrator of Storm Riders, who becomes enmeshed in the life of Waco Joseph Callahan, a.k.a. Brother Wolf, a.k.a. the Comanche Kid. Both the narrator and Waco are born of mixed parentage, which creates a bond between them. When Wacos brothers set out to kill him, they initiate a series of events that climaxes in a full-blown range...

"Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long...