New Releases by Walter Dean Myers

When Lonnie Jackson leaves Harlem for a basketball scholarship to a midwestern college, he know he must keep his head straight and his record clean. That's the only way he'll have a chance of making it to the pros someday.But his street smarts haven't prepared him for the pressures of tough classes, high-stakes college ball, and the temptation to fix games for local gamblers. Everyone plays by a whole new set of rules -- including Sherry, who's determined to be a track star. Her independence attracts Lonnie, but their on-again, off-again relationship is driving him crazy.Lonnie has one year to learn how to make it as a "college man." It's his outside shot at a bright future. Does he have what it takes?From the Paperback edition.

Fourteen-year-old Stephen, his new foster brother, his friends are sentenced to help out at an old age home for the summer after Stephen is caught writing graffiti on a train.

A young black boy must decide whether to go along with his father, who is a thief, or reject his father's way of life and risk losing him.

Stuff doesn't know anyone when he first moves to 116th Street. But all of that changes when he meets Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Gloria. Stuff and the gang grow close that eventful year, and nothing is ever like it again. That's the year modern science gets them all in jail; Stuff falls in love and is unfaithful; and Cool Clyde and Fast Sam win the dance contest-almost.

Selections from blue music for children. Poetry that both explores and exemplifies the blues tradition. The African experience in America is celebrated with a soulful, affecting blues poem that details the long journey from the Middle Passage to life today. Accompanied by Myers's bold and powerful paintings, "Blues Journey" creates its own resonant music. Full color.

Friends Zander, Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi, caught in the middle of a mock Civil War at DaVinci Academy, learn the true cost of freedom of speech when they use their alternative newspaper, The Cruiser, to try to make peace.

Pictures and easy-to-read text introduce the life of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In his own words...As a boy, Walter Dean Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously-he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer. But growing up in a poor family in Harlem, his hope for a successful future diminished as he came to realize fully the class and racial struggles that surrounded him. He began to doubt himself and the values that he had always relied on, attending high school less and less, turning to the streets and his books for comfort.In a memoir that is gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable, Walter Dean Myers travels back to his roots in the magical world of Harlem during the 1940s and 1950s. Here is the story of one of the strongest voices in young people's literature today.