Urban and African American Teen Books

If you like urban and/or African American teen fiction, here are some recently released and upcoming books to look for:

• Friends ’Til the End (2/09) by ReShonda Tate Billingsley shows how everything is working out for The Good Girlz, until an unexpected tragedy throws everyone for a loop.
• Kendra (10/08) by Coe Booth creates the vivid voice of a teen trying to find her place in the world, even though nothing is what she thought it would be.
• Beacon Hills High (9/08) by Mo’Nique Jackson offers a girl’s coming-of-age story, with 21st-century challenges.
• If Only You Knew: A Hotlanta Novel (10/08) by Denene Millner and Mitzi Miller finds Sydney reeling from a breakup, while at the center of an unfolding murder mystery.
• India (10/08) and Veronique (3/09) by Victoria Christopher Murray follow four African-American teen girls who form their own singing group.
• Amiri and Odette: A Love Story (1/09) by Walter Dean Myers is part poem, part love story, part rap and rhapsody, and book celebrates two hearts that beat together on the mean streets.
• Dope Sick (2/09) by Walter Dean Myers spins a harrowing urban tale of recreational drug use, violence, perceptions of reality, and second chances.
• Chameleon (9/08) by Charles R. Smith Jr. evokes the bittersweet summer of transition for an inner-city Los Angeles teen.
• Trouble in My Way (11/08) by Michelle Stimpson follows Keris, a good-but-grounded teen trying to bend the rules.
• Hollywood & Maine (1/09) by Allison Whittenberg is about tenth-grader Charmaine experiencing both her first romance and the dream of becoming a Hollywood celebrity.
• Jumped (3/09) by Rita Williams-Garcia is a gritty novel about bullying and its consequences.