Nikki Grimes

While studying the Harlem Renaissance, students at a Bronx high school read aloud poems they've written, revealing their innermost thoughts and fears to their formerly clueless classmates.

When Gabby's parents separate, her tendency to daydream becomes essential to coping with life's difficuties, which only increase when she moves with her mother to a new home and a new school.

A beloved and very sleepy little boy resists his mother's efforts to put him to bed.

A little girl introduces her best friend through a collection of thirteen poems.

Alternating poems compare and contrast the conflicted feelings of Ishmael, son of the Biblical patriarch Abraham, and Sam, a teenager in New York City, as they try to come to terms with being abandoned by their fathers and with the love they feel for their younger stepbrothers.

A group of high school students grow in understanding of each other's challenges and forge unexpected connections as they prepare for a boys vs. girls poetry slam. Includes author's note about foster home care. To hone his writing skills and learn more about the power of words, Darrian enrolls in Mr. Ward's class, known for its open-mic poetry readings and boys vs. girls poetry slam. Everyone in class has something important to say, and in sharing...

Free is excited about a local poetry contest because of its cash prize, but when he and Dyamonde befriend a classmate who is homeless and living in a shelter, they rethink what it means to be rich or poor.

Despite what Dyamonde and Free say, Damaria worries that she is getting fat, until a classmate's problem with diabetes causes her to change her thoughts about body image.