No Way Out by Peggy Kern
Harold is out of shape and self-conscious. When his grandma falls and breaks her legs, Harold knows he needs to help out, but he doesn’t know what he can do. The medical bills are mounting, and Harold thinks he can get a job, but the wage won’t begin to pay off the bills. And if the bills aren’t paid, Harold’s grandma will no long be considered able to care for him.
But when Londell, a neighborhood drug dealer, comes back from a year in prison, he keeps bullies from bothering Harold. And he has a job for him, too, at much better than minimum wage. Harold starts to feel that he respects Lonell, who reminds him than guys without parents have to stick together and do things other people wouldn’t think of.
The Test by Peggy Kern
It’s obvious from the book cover that ‘the test’ is a pregnancy test. But what you find as you read is that it’s also a test of life. Liselle becomes pregnant when she’s only sixteen, a student at Bluford High. Four years later, at twenty, she comes back to talk to some of the toughest girls in the school about her story.
