Urban Schools

Amanda Clarke thinks of herself as perfectly ordinary in every way. Just a small-town girl who serves breakfast all day in a little diner nestled next to the highway, nothing but dairy farms for miles around. She fits in there. But then an old woman she never met dies, and Amanda was named in her will.

Jonathan Kozol traveled from the most blighted neighborhoods of Chicago to the urban wreckage of Camden, New Jersey; from the ghetto suburbs of Detroit to inner-city San Antonio; East St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Everywhere, he discovered separate systems of public schools, with the children of America's poor condemned to schools that are underfunded, understaffed, physically crumbling, and imbued with despair.

The Franklin Academy is the most prestigious magick school in the US, with the highest admission standards, and tuition to match. Any student would be honored to go at all, much less get a scholarship. Not Chance Fortunato. He’d much rather stay at home and study under his mentor, Dr. Corwin. But when a student is attacked and his soul is ripped from his body, Chance knows he has to stay.

In a world where dark faeries have stepped in to save the planet from humanity's mistakes, 17-year-old December Thorne is nothing but a shadow. Shunned by her peers, bullied at school, and paid a little too much attention by her sleazy foster father, she lives in constant fear and perpetual solitude. Until the day everything changes. Offered a scholarship to the prestigious Oberon Academy, December finds herself living in a whole new world.

If it was left to her, Ife Adebola wouldn’t be starting at Nithercott School. Because despite her being in the Urban Achievers scholarship program, her parents can barely afford the tuition. No matter who is trying to be friends with her, like her classmate Bijal, or how much the prestigious boarding school tries to pull her in, Ife is determined not to get caught up in any of it. But when another student, Malika, begins acting strange, Ife can’t help but wonder if there’s more going on at Nithercott than she realizes.

On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers?

Sixteen-year-old Hal Stevens is a budding historical scholar from a small town in Colorado. A virtual outcast at high school, he has only two friends: Roberto the Biker Witch and Cleo Mallawi. Cleo claims to be the reincarnation of Queen Cleopatra. But when Hal and Roberto find Cleo murdered in the forest near her home, it appears she may have been telling the truth. Her last request sends them journeying to Egypt, where it quickly becomes clear that Cleo has set them on the search of a lifetime: the search for the lost graves of Marc Antony and Cleopatra.

Most kids at the Colorado branch of Mythos Academy know me as Rory Forseti, the daughter of Reaper assassins. Secretly, I'm a member of Team Midgard, a group of students and adults tasked with stopping Covington, the evil leader of the Reapers of Chaos. For me, the mission is a deeply personal one, since Covington is also the man who murdered my parents. When my friends and I get a lead on a powerful artifact that Covington wants to steal, we think we finally have a chance to thwart the Reapers and stop them for good.

Despite ongoing professional development for urban educators, many inner-city school students are still not performing on high levels or even grade level. This book is a practical guide to helping educators understand the innate difficulties of transferring expertise from the experts, through the teachers, and into the students in a meaningful way that demonstrates student learning.

Most teenagers have to deal with grades, school dances, and curfews. At the School of Necessary Magic, Alison and her crew have school elections, a musical to put on, a tournament in Louper to win while learning how to use their growing magical powers - and a sudden outbreak of werewolves. All before third period and a class on potions.

It’s anything but a calm, quiet semester at the School of Necessary Magic. Dangerous magical criminals are near, and Homeland Security puts the school on alert. Can Raine Campbell finally show her future boss - the FBI - what she can do, or will it all go sideways? The criminals think they can convince Raine and her friends to help them. But Agent Connor has taught her well. Their junior year gets even more challenging when students’ secrets are exposed. Do Raine and friends help their fellow students or turn them in? Should they follow the rules or do what’s right?

When an elf is kidnapped by a nefarious gang, Raine must use her magical abilities and team up with some unlikely allies in order to rescue her friend.

When rumors of a black dog roaming campus turn into grisly attacks, Raine must put aside her busy class schedule to investigate and make sure no one else gets hurt.

A shy poet, Imogen has always been bullied at her all-girl's private school, St. Nocturne. She's learned to adapt and ignore the torments of the Golden Girls as much as possible, and in fact, she feels a secret thrill whenever they're near. If the Golden Girls knew her secret, however, Imogen's life would be ruined. They could never know that she madly, passionately loved one of them.

Dark magic has infiltrated the school of necessary magic. Spies stalk the halls. Traitors whisper lies to impressionable freshmen and devious wizards distract with charming smiles. If Alison and her friends can’t see past the friendly masks of their fellow students to the dark purpose they hide, it’s not just the school that will be destroyed. But the forces of evil should have kept one thing in mind before targeting Alison Brownstone.

Dark magic is bent on destroying the school. A Drow princess is gaining powers faster than she knows what to do with them. Her best friend, a Jasper Elf, can’t remember who she is, and her boyfriend turns into a wolf at night and runs with his pack. By day, they’re trying out for the school play, worrying about who’s going to the fall dance, and oh yeah, are excited about Halloween when the dead can finally talk to the living again. Just your typical teenager in America when magic returns.

When Ziv is recruited by the secret society known as The Sect, he finds himself cast into a perilous journey of identity, love, and hope. As a conduit, Ziv possess the ability to see creatures of the night: demons. The Sect trains him along, with two other trainees, to be a warrior of light.

Drow Princess Alison Brownstone begins her senior year ready to finally graduate and start her new life, fully trained and ready to kick ass. But still reeling from the attack last semester and the absence of her best friend, Alison is desperate for some kind of distraction to make the days pass quicker. And trouble in paradise with boyfriend Tanner makes it even more vital. When books start disappearing, she can’t resist digging deeper. But going down the rabbit hole leads to truths far more dangerous than petty theft.

Sophie Briggs has made it to her junior year at the School of Roots and Vines, but it isn't all fun and games for the Defenders. Change is coming. Some good and some . . . not so much. Friends are breaking up—will Sophie have to take sides? Sophie and Marcus are struggling, too. Marcus is pushing Sophie and the rest of the gang away, worried that being a Templeton will put them all at risk. He thinks he needs to do this by himself. Does he have to go it alone?

Sophie Briggs will have to fight her way out this time but without her elemental gift of life. It's the spring semester of Year Two at the famous School of Roots and Vines. The National Elemental Skills Trials are coming up, and Sophie and her friends are called to represent the school in faraway Colorado. Dark forces and powerful, all-too-familiar enemies are out to kidnap Sophie and steal her elemental powers. They'll stop at nothing to get their revenge.