When a federal judge and his secretary fail to appear for a scheduled trial and panicked clerks call for an FBI investigation, a harrowing murder case ensues and culminates in the imprisonment of a lawyer who imparts the story of who killed the judge and why. Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only...

The first Pike Logan novel from New York Times bestselling author Brad Taylor.
They call it the Taskforce. Commissioned at the highest level of the U.S. government. Protected from the prying eyes of Congress and the media. Designed to operate outside the bounds of U.S. law. Trained to exist on the ragged edge of human capability.

Pike Logan was the most successful operator on the Taskforce, his instincts and talents...

An inspiring biography of Muhammad Ali from the legendary Walter Dean Myers, reissued under Scholastic Focus for a new generation.

From his childhood in the segregated South to his final fight with Parkinson's disease, Muhammad Ali never backed down. He was banned from boxing during his prime because he refused to fight in Vietnam. He became a symbol of the antiwar movement—and a defender of civil rights. As "The Greatest," he was a

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A cool idea with a big splash
 
You know the Super Soaker. It’s one of top twenty toys of all time. And it was invented entirely by accident. Trying to create a new cooling system for rockets, impressive inventor Lonnie Johnson instead created the mechanics for the iconic toy.
 
A love for rockets, robots, inventions, and a mind for creativity began early in Lonnie Johnson’s life. Growing up in a house full of brothers...

"Pittsburgh, 1995. The son of a black father he's never known, and a white mother he sometimes wishes he didn't, twenty-two year-old Bobby Saraceno has passed for white his entire life. Raised by his bigoted maternal grandfather, Bobby has hidden the truth about his identity from everyone, even his best friend and fellow comic-book geek, Aaron, who has just returned home from prison a newly radicalized white supremacist. Bobby's disparate worlds crash...

From award-winning investigative journalist Kyle Swenson, Good Kids, Bad City is the true story of the longest wrongful imprisonment in the United States to end in exoneration, and a critical social and political history of Cleveland, the city that convicted them. In the early 1970s, three African-American men-Wiley Bridgeman, Kwame Ajamu, and Rickey Jackson-were accused and convicted of the brutal robbery and murder of a man outside of a convenience...

As USA TODAY, the Nation's No. 1 Newspaper, puts it, "[Tupac] Shakur saw himself as both artist and urban soldier, battling the media, the law, the courts and rival rappers." Tupac overcame poverty to become one of hip-hop's biggest stars. His life, death, and music were all surrounded by controversy. Raised by a single mother and ex-Black Panther in Harlem, Tupac grew up aware of the problems in society around him. His social conscienceand creative...

"A must-read for anyone interested in social justice and inequalities, social movements, the criminal justice system, and African American history. An excellent companion to Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow and Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th."?Library Journal, Starred review

"I was fortunate to grow up in a community in which it was apparent that our lives mattered. This memory is the antidote to the despair that

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Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner relates the dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom.

In the middle of the night, Sheriff Winston Barnes learns that a plane has crashed at a coastal airfield, with neither pilot nor cargo in evidence and a local man found shot dead, but as Winston investigates, a devious challenger threatens his reelectionas sheriff, his daughter returns home with heartbreak of her own, and long-submerged racial bitterness comes to the fore.