Way Past Cool — Jess Mowry

Gordon, age thirteen, is the leader of the Friends, a gang of young black boys who struggle to hold a few blocks of bleak, ragged turf in Oakland--known to the homeboys as Oaktown--California. When a more powerful sixteen-year-old drug dealer tries to set the Friends against their neighboring rival gang, the Crew, the dealer's unwilling bodyguard emerges as the key player in a drama that illuminates America's urban reality in a totally new way. A shocking portrait of young kids living on the slimmest of edges, Way Past Cool is also an inspiring, even hopeful testament to the renewing power of love.