Books with author Jesse Joshua Watson

From a Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor recipient comes a street-smart tale about a displaced teen who learns to defend what’s right—the Cowboy Way. Now available in a movie tie-in editon.When Cole’s mom dumps him in Philadelphia to live with the dad he’s never met, the last thing Cole expects to see is a horse, let alone a stable full of them. He may not know much about cowboys, but what he knows for sure is that cowboys aren’t black, and they don’t live in the inner city. But in his dad’s world, horses are a way of life, and soon Cole’s days of skipping school and getting in trouble in Detroit have been replaced by shoveling muck and trying not to get stomped on. At first, all Cole can think about is how to ditch these ghetto cowboys and get home. But when the City threatens to shut down the stables—and take away the horse Cole has come to think of as his own—he knows that it’s time to step up and fight back. Inspired by the little-known urban riders of Philly and Brooklyn, this compelling tale of latter-day cowboy justice champions a world where your friends always have your back, especially when the chips are down.

In simultaneous hardcover and paperback editions, the first book in the Clubhouse Mysteries. Ziggy and his friends Rico, Rashawn, and Jerome call themselves The Black Dinosaurs, and share exciting adventures. In The Buried Bones Mystery, the boys build a clubhouse in Ziggy's backyard, where they uncover a box of bones while digging to bury their secret treasures. But when the boys try to hide their treasures, they're swept up in a mystery more intriguing -- and scary -- than anything they could have imagined. Who could have buried a box of bones behind their clubhouse?

In the third mystery of the series, Ziggy and friends are excited about their overnight camping trip to Caesar's Creek State Park--named after a Shawnee chief. Their camp counselor is a descendant of Caesar, and fills the campers' imaginations with fun (and spooky!) stories about her ancestors and the Shawnee legends. When Ziggy and the rest of the Clubhouse gang decide to test their courage like the Shawnee youth did, things don't go quite as planned. And when they end up lost, strange things start to happen. Could it just be the animals roaming the woods? Or are the ancient spirits of Caesar back to haunt their old stomping grounds?