Books with author Rosa Guy

A powerful, award-winning novel about friendship. Phyllisia Cathy—She is fourteen. Her problems seem overwhelming: New York, after life on her sunlit West Indies island, is cold, cruel and filthy. She is insulted daily and is beaten up by classmates. What Phyllisia needs, God not being interested, is a friend. Edith Jackson—She is fifteen. Her clothes are unpressed, her stockings bagging with big holes. Her knowledge of school is zero. She has no parents, she swears and she steals. But she is kind and offers her friendship and protection to Phyllisia. “And so begins the struggle that is the heart of this very important book: the fight to gain perception of one’s own real character; the grim struggle for self-knowledge.”—Alice Walker, The New York Times

Rosa Guy’s tropical retelling of "The Little Mermaid" is the gorgeous, tragic love story of Désirée, a beautiful peasant girl who devotes herself to the handsome, aristocratic young man whose life she has saved. When his upper-class fami-ly feels that Désirée’s skin is too dark and her family too poor for a boy destined for power and wealth, Désirée proves that she is willing to give everything for love. This lovely reprint will break your heart.Born in Trinidad, Rosa Guy has written 15 novels and has received the Coretta Scott King Award, and The New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year citation.

Imamu Jones has two defenses against the world--his intelligence and the toothpick between his lips--and he needs them. After being acquitted of murdering the owner of a grocery store, he is released into the custody of the Aimsley family. Their immaculate Brooklyn brownstone is a long way from the dirty Harlem apartment he had been sharing with his wino mother. Things seem to be looking up unitl the Aimsleys' youngest daughter disappears. And Imamu is the prime suspect . . .