In Bed Stuy, New York, a small misunderstanding can escalate into having a price on your head—even if you’re totally clean. This gritty, triumphant debut captures the heart and the hardship of life for an urban teen.
A lot of the stuff that gives my neighborhood a bad name, I don’t really mess with. The guns and drugs and all that, not really my thing.
Nah, not his thing. Ali’s got enough going on, between school and boxing and helping out at home. His best friend Noodles, though. Now there’s a dude looking for trouble—and, somehow, it’s always Ali around to pick up the pieces. But, hey, a guy’s gotta look out for his boys, right? Besides, it’s all small potatoes; it’s not like anyone’s getting hurt.
And then there’s Needles. Needles is Noodles’s brother. He’s got a syndrome, and gets these ticks and blurts out the wildest, craziest things. It’s cool, though: everyone on their street knows he doesn’t mean anything by it.
Yeah, it’s cool…until Ali and Noodles and Needles find themselves somewhere they never expected to be…somewhere they never should've been—where the people aren't so friendly, and even less forgiving.
Jason Reynolds is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books for children and young adults. A 2024 MacArthur Fellow, Jason is best known for his novels, including the New York Times bestseller Twenty-Four Seconds from Now . . ., which received the Coretta Scott King Author Award and seven starred reviews; Long Way Down, which received Newbery, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Honors; All American Boys (co-written with Brendan Kiely), which received a Coretta Scott King Author Honor and the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature; and the Track series, of which the first book, Ghost, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
View titles by Jason Reynolds
In Bed Stuy, New York, a small misunderstanding can escalate into having a price on your head—even if you’re totally clean. This gritty, triumphant debut captures the heart and the hardship of life for an urban teen.
A lot of the stuff that gives my neighborhood a bad name, I don’t really mess with. The guns and drugs and all that, not really my thing.
Nah, not his thing. Ali’s got enough going on, between school and boxing and helping out at home. His best friend Noodles, though. Now there’s a dude looking for trouble—and, somehow, it’s always Ali around to pick up the pieces. But, hey, a guy’s gotta look out for his boys, right? Besides, it’s all small potatoes; it’s not like anyone’s getting hurt.
And then there’s Needles. Needles is Noodles’s brother. He’s got a syndrome, and gets these ticks and blurts out the wildest, craziest things. It’s cool, though: everyone on their street knows he doesn’t mean anything by it.
Yeah, it’s cool…until Ali and Noodles and Needles find themselves somewhere they never expected to be…somewhere they never should've been—where the people aren't so friendly, and even less forgiving.
Author
Jason Reynolds is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books for children and young adults. A 2024 MacArthur Fellow, Jason is best known for his novels, including the New York Times bestseller Twenty-Four Seconds from Now . . ., which received the Coretta Scott King Author Award and seven starred reviews; Long Way Down, which received Newbery, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Honors; All American Boys (co-written with Brendan Kiely), which received a Coretta Scott King Author Honor and the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature; and the Track series, of which the first book, Ghost, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
View titles by Jason Reynolds
