Elizabeth Acevedo

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. Harlem. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers-- especially after...

With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks.

"The forthcoming LOA collection, edited by distinguished poet and scholar of American poetry Kevin Young, will embrace the entire wide-ranging tradition of African American poetry from its eighteenth-century beginnings to the present, and will be representative of many styles, schools, periods, and regions. Familiar poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and other acknowledged greats will appear alongside less familiar and...