URBAN lIT:
TOUGH TALES FROM THE STREETS

non-Fiction

Down These Mean Streets
Piri Thomas (325.2729 THO) 340p HS
An autobiography of a Puerto Rican teen fighting to stay alive in Harlem’s mean streets.

Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.
Luis Rodriguez (364.1 ROD) 260p HS
A former gang member recounts the sense of security and power found in a gang.

Voices From the Streets: Young Former Gang Members Tell Their Stories
(364.106 VOI) 131p MS/HS
Photographs, poems, and interviews with former gang members from all over the U.S. depict their experiences.

Inside the Crips: Life Inside L.A’s Most Notorious Gang
Colton Simpson (364.1092 SIM) 323p HS
An intimate, detailed look at gang life as a Crip from the ‘70s to the ‘90s, and a story of both buoyant camaraderie and devastating loss.

Life in Prison
Stanley “Tookie” Williams (365.6 WIL) 80p MS/HS
The co-founder of the Crips gang debunks the glorifying myths of prison and reveals what prison life is really like.

We Beat the Street: How a Friendship
Pact Helped Us Succeed
Sampson Davis (610.922 DAV) 194p HS
Three doctors could easily have followed their peers into drug dealing, gangs, and prison. A friendship pact led them to go to college, then medical school.

The Rose That Grew From Concrete
Tupac Shakur (811.54 SHA) 149p HS
“I Hope I Die For A Principle/or A Belief that I had Lived 4.”

From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time
in Southside, Queens
50 Cent (921 50 CENT) 224p HS
Getting rich and trying not to die.

Finding Fish: A Memoir
Antwone Fisher (921 FISHER) 339p HS
Antwone Fisher, raised in institutions and on the streets, enlists in the Navy, where he finds salvation.

Fiction

Dangerous Angels
Francesca Lia Block (YA BLOCK) 478p HS
“He didn’t even know what to call it. He wanted to be a girl and he wanted to love girls.”

Tyrell
Coe Booth (YA BOOTH) 310p HS
With dad in prison, Tyrell’s got to make money for his family. How’s he going to manage without following the same path?

Upstate
Kalisha Buckhanon (YA BUCKHANON) 256p HS
“Baby, the first thing I need to know is...do you believe I killed my father?”

Married to the Game
Chunichi (FIC CHUNICHI) 237p HS
Crystal turns to drugs and fast money after her world is brutally destroyed.

Kid B
Linden Dalecki (YA DALECKI) 178p MS/HS
Kid B has to represent with his gang at the Throw Down, the most cut-throat
hip-hop dance competition in the nation. It seems they have a chance, until challenging their rival gang, Magno Clique, gets bloody.

Thieves Paradise
Eric Jerome Dickey (FIC DICKEY) 320p HS
When ex-con artist Dante Brown finally pieces his life back together, he is laid off from his computer tech job. But an old friend is there to steer him in another direction…the wrong one.

Street Pharm
Allison van Diepen (YA DIEPEN) 304p HS
Lots of sons inherit the family business. Ty does at 16. But most businesses don’t cost you your life if you mess up.

Drama High: The Fight
L. Divine (YA DIVINE) 208p HS
When school starts, Jayd has a tough time adjusting: from rumors to bad break ups, crushes and...the fight.

Darkness Before Dawn
Sharon Draper (YA DRAPER) 233p HS
Who can you trust?

Romiette & Julio
Sharon Draper (YA DRAPER) 236p MS/HS
Cyberspace brought them together. Will gangs & loved ones tear them apart?

Party Girl
Lynne Ewing (YA EWING) 110p MS/HS
Pocho handed her a gun, and for the first time in days, Kata felt calm.

Money Hungry
Sharon Flake (YA FLAKE) 187p MS/HS
“If you got money, people can't take stuff from you--not your house, or your ride, not your family.”

Bang!
Sharon Flake (YA FLAKE) 304p HS
“They kill people where I live. They shoot ‘em dead for no real reason.”

Daddy Cool
Donald Goines (FIC GOINES) 223p HS
Hit-man Larry Jackson is forced to seek vengeance on Ronald, the pimp who lured Larry’s daughter into his lifestyle.

Saint Iggy
K.L. Going (YA GOING) 260p HS
When Iggy gets kicked out of school, he ventures into a world that he doesn’t understand, with hopes to make something more of himself than his drugged out parents ever did.

CrashBoomLove
Juan Herrera (YA HERRERA) 155p HS
“Don’t know how it all started. The frozen feeling, this fender inside wanting to crash against everything.”

The Outsiders
S.E. Hinton (YA HINTON) 188p MS/HS
Three brothers struggle to stay together after their parent’s death as they search for identity among the conflicting values of gang life.

Riding Rhythm
Jihad (FIC JIHAD) 303p HS
When Rhythm, a D.C. college student, discovers that Moses, the leader of the Disciples, was wrongly convicted of murder, she sets out to fight the system.

Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida
Victor Martinez (YA MARTINEZ) 216p HS
"I only remember a storm of cuffs & chops & kicks hitting me as I thrashed...."

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Walter Mosley (FIC MOSLEY) 208p HS
"I either committed a crime or had a crime done to me every day I was in jail. Once you go to prison you belong there."

Babylon Boyz
Jess Mowry (YA MOWRY) 188p HS
A found suitcase full of coke. Do you destroy it? Or let it make you rich, while destroying your community?

Way Past Cool
Jess Mowry (FIC MOWRY) 309p HS
Street gangs of Oakland battle against a drug dealer that is taking over their turf.

Locas
Yxta Maya Murray (FIC MURRAY) 248p HS
Sister Lucia and girlfriend Cecilia get caught in the middle of a gang war between Manny, the up-and-coming loco, and the gangs of Echo Park.

Autobiography of My Dead Brother
Walter Dean Myers (YA MYERS) 224p HS
As his brother falls deep into dealing drugs, Jesse tries to find the brother he used to know by depicting his life in art.

Monster
Walter Dean Myers (YA MYERS) 281p MS/HS
Steve Harmon’s in jail, maybe forever. He’s on trial for murder. And he’s only 16.

Street Love
Walter Dean Myers (YA MYERS) 144p MS/HS
Damien, a straight-A student, falls for a street girl named Junice. Can two people from such different lives find a way to be together?

Small Steps
Louis Sachar (YA SACHAR) 272p MS/HS
Armpit is trying to turn his life around. But it’s hard, when everyone expects the worst of you.

Push
Saphhire (FIC SAPPHIRE) 141p HS
Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father’s child, strives to learn to read and somehow escape her brutal home.

Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood
Benjamin Alire Saenz (YA SAENZ) 240p HS
After the death of his first love, Sammy is determined to find a way to leave behind his life in a New Mexico barrio.

The Afterlife
Gary Soto (YA SOTO) 161p MS/HS
You'd think that a knife in the ribs would be the end of things, but for Chuy, that's when his life finally gets interesting.

The Coldest Winter Ever
Sister Souljah (FIC SOULJAH) 337p HS
Her daddy’s Brooklyn’s top drug dealer, and she doesn’t take no for an answer. But will living the wild life get her killed?

Behind the Eyes
Francisco X. Stork (YA STORK) 256p HS
When his brother is killed, quiet Hector makes a big mistake that makes him the target of a gang leader.

Nikki Turner Presents Street Chronicles:
Tales From Da Hood
Nikki Turner, ed. (FIC TURNER) 304p HS
Chronicles of gangstas, written by those who starved and bled by the code of the streets.

The Glamorous Life
Nikki Turner (FIC TURNER) 304p HS
After good-girl Bambi’s heart is broken by young hustler Reggie, Bambi goes into business for herself as a party planner and swindler.

Flyy Girl
Omar Tyree (FIC TYREE) 415p HS
Tracy loves living fast & loose, until heartbreak makes her examine her values & her future.

Black & White
Paul Volponi (YA VOLPONI) 160p HS
Marcus and Eddie, aka Black and White: who takes the rap when your best friend pulls the trigger?

Rooftop
Paul Volponi (YA VOLPONI) 199p HS
Clay saw the white cop shoot his unarmed black cousin. But he doesn’t tell. Now he has to figure out how to seek redemption....

Baby Momma Drama
Carl Weber (FIC WEBER) 327p HS
Big Momma fights to protect young Jasmine and Stephanie from the lying hustlers they’ve gotten mixed up with.

Boy Kills Man
Matt Whyman (YA WHYMAN) 153p HS
Kid assassins trapped in a Colombian drug lord’s war.

Broken China
Lori Aurelia Williams (YA WILLIAMS) 272p HS
China’s trying to do right by her daughter, but the only place in town willing to hire a 14-year-old dropout is the strip club.

Gangsta Rap
Benjamin Zephaniah (YA ZEPHANIAH) 200p HS
“You wait until I get my rap band together, we'll teach you about good music.”

MS = Most appropriate for middle schoolers
MS/HS = Most appropriate for middle/high schoolers
HS = Most appropriate for high schoolers

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