Showing results for "Pearls" in African American

They say that good girls like bad boys, and this was especially true for Pearl Stone, a child born of privilege to a drug baron and reputed killer known in the streets as Big Stone. Although the flashy, fast-paced nature of the streets calls to Pearl, she's been brought up to look but not touch. Yet when a young hustler named Diamonds crawls up from the swamps of Louisiana and sets up shop in New York City, everything Pearl was taught flies out the window.

Three women spend a summer discovering that their less-than-perfect circumstances, their friendships with one another, and their faith are steppingstones to the lives they long to live. Serena never thought she'd have children; now she has two active toddlers. But instead of being overjoyed, she's overwhelmed. Did she make the wrong choice in giving up her successful career to be a stay-at-home-mom? Tawana, an ambitious new lawyer, is trying to pull her life to together, but her past keeps getting in the way.

"I was born with the choice to pass as Black or White. Everyday I ask myself whose blood is it that rushes through my veins? My own blood is making me hate who I really am. I feel two opposing ancestors at war within me - one fighting to be free, the other fighting to control me by denying me my true identity. When I visit my family in Mississippi, I'm Black. When I return to Chicago, I'm White again. I find myself taking on the values of the people who would squash me if the knew. I find no wholeness in either role."

Annamitta enters the story as a six-year old as her “Sonatina” begins with a Polonaise North with her Mama Minnie Lou, where she learns dignified protest and discovers a talent for sewing. Annamitta’s adult dance kicks-off in what I like to call the “Honey Pot Suite” where a visit with her big sister Suzie Mae in Miami leads to an altercation with Trixie Dupree causing concern over Mr. Buddy J.

Her name is Rochelle, and she is only fifteen when she disappears. Her father is a secret service agent assigned to ex-president William Baron Clarke, and when he asks for help, Clarke calls the most capable tracker he knows: Robert Sand, the only black man to ever attain the rank of samurai. Sand combs the tenements of New York's East Village in search of the girl, finally learning what no father ever wants to hear: Rochelle is in the clutches of Pearl, the meanest pimp in town.

In 1937, a young trumpet player called Doc leaves Harlem with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Eight hundred miles away, a little girl named Pearl is fighting a child's war against poverty and paternal abuse in a Chicago tenement. Spain's defeat leads directly to World War II. For the honor of Spain and self, Doc heads off to fight another war. Meanwhile, Pearl discovers the power of her voice and begins her own odyssey. By 1946, the war's over. Doc returns to find peace in the music, but everything changes when the band's new singer walks into the club.

Between Fathers and Sons: An African-American Fable was called "Potent. . .threaded through with morals and sobering life lessons without heavy-handed moralizing" by the Los Angeles Times. The novella tells the story of 13-year-old Miles Johnson and his mystical quest to become a black man. He is joined on his adventure by an unlikely trio of companions: a riddle whose answer will take Miles's life in an unexpected direction, a moth-eaten strip of Kente cloth, and a mysterious neighborhood shopkeeper.