Ron Butler

In the summer of 1988, twelve-year-old Chuck Bell is sent to stay with his grandparents, where he discovers jazz and basketball and learns more about his family's past.

"In a small but turbulent Louisiana town, one boy's grief takes him beyond the bayous of his backyard, to learn that there is no right way to be yourself"--

In Brooklyn, nine-year-old Jax joins Ma, a curmudgeonly witch who lives in his building, on a quest to deliver three baby dragons to a magical world, and along the way discovers his true calling.

Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro-Puerto Rican man named Arturo Schomburg. His life's passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora and bring to light the achievements of people of African descent. When his collection became so large that it threatened to overflow his house, he turned to the New York Public Library.

A blown mission and a dead team leave Adam Hayes the last loose thread in a tapestry of betrayal in this latest high stakes international thriller from the world of Robert Ludlum. The most pressing issue on Adam Hayes' mind is planning his son's upcoming 5th birthday party. After years of operating in the world's most dangerous spots for Treadstone, he's ready to call it quits, but the feeling isn't mutual. Levi Shaw, Treadstone's director, calls...

"The Chandaria family--emigrants from the Indian-enclave of Nairobi--have managed to flourish in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan crafts; and their son, Sunil, after quitting the pre-med track, is enrolled in a PhD program in philosophy at Harvard. But the parents have kept a very important secret from...

Told in two voices, Jax and Kavita, Kavita's brother Vik, and new friend Kenny try to return the baby dragon to the realm of magic before anything else goes wrong.

V.S. Naipaul's legendary command of broad comedy and acute social observation is on abundant display in these classic works of fiction-two novels and a collection of stories-that capture the rhythms of life in the Caribbean and England with impressive subtlety and humor. The Suffrage of Elvira is Naipaul's hilarious take on an electoral campaign in the back country of Trinidad, where the candidates' tactics include blatant vote-buying and supernatural...

It's the first day of school at Frederick Douglass Elementary and everyone's just a little bit nervous, especially the school itself. What will the children do once they come? Will they like the school? Will they be nice to him? The school has a rough start, but as the day goes on, he soon recovers when he sees that he's not the only one going through first-day jitters.

What happens when you invite as many jazz musicians as you can to pose for a photo in 1950s Harlem? Playful verse and glorious artwork capture an iconic moment for American jazz.