Urban Schools

“My love, speak to me. Tell me everything.” Neferet went to Kalona, kneeling before him, stroking the soft, dark wings that unfurled loosely around the immortal. “What would you have me say?” He didn’t meet her eyes. “Zoey lives.” Neferet’s voice was flat, cold, lifeless. “She does.” “Then you owe me the subservience of your immortal soul.” She started to walk away from him.“Where are you going? What will happen next?” “It is quite simple. I will ensure Zoey is drawn back to Oklahoma....

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.

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.

Alison is a young Drow princess whose power is just beginning to grow inside of her - too bad for the dark forces after her. They won’t see it coming. Even better...Alison’s making a few tween friends who can stand by her side.

The School of Necessary Magic is back in session. Alison, the young Drow princess has returned to Charlottesville for her second semester, along with the other elves, witches, and wizards and more. And her powers are growing. But dark forces have planted a bad seed in the student body. They want to use their hidden asset to close the doors before the year is over. They didn’t count on Alison and her unique gifts.

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?

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?

Raine Campbell and her friends arrive to team up with another school to tackle the Magical Multitudes Project, ready for a little fun during the school break. But the island is full of secrets and creatures not normally found on Earth. And the island doesn’t stay quiet for long. Earthquakes plague the area, and Raine even thinks she sees other people on the island - people who aren’t supposed to be there. When the students find a dead creature, they finally know for certain - there’s trouble on the island.

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.

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.

After Raine discovers that she has magic, she attends a school to help her develop it. But when evil forces threaten her, she must take on the danger to restore balance.

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.

The first semester of sophomore year at the famous School of Roots and Vines has begun for life Elemental Sophie Briggs and her friends. Although Year Two brings a whirlwind of change, some things feel straight out of a not-so-ancient past. Sophie and Marcus become Combat Mentors, giving them more time together. Until Marcus's secret internship makes him miss more and more school. Something strange is happening, and things point directly at the ESCB—and Marcus.

The last semester of classes for Sophie Briggs at The School of Roots and Vines is racing to the end. A confrontation and battle with the Serpent, Azdaja, is fast approaching. The legendary Thicket Hall is dying and no matter what the Defenders do, they can only slow the ancient tree's death, not stop it. Could its end lead to a new beginning?

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?

Told with equal parts raw honesty and unbridled compassion, All Day recounts a year in Liza Jessie Peterson's classroom at Island Academy, the high school for inmates detained at New York City's Rikers Island. A poet and an actress who had done occasional workshops at the correctional facility, Peterson was ill prepared for a full-time stint teaching in the GED program for the incarcerated youths.

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.

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.

As they say, there are a thousand ways to use a knife. If one method isn't working, don't keep doing it. It's time you try another effective method to help students see themselves and the world from a different, much better perspective.