Books written by Jewell Parker Rhodes

The African American Guide to Writing & Publishing Non Fiction

His notion of success was as deadpan and puritanical as the resolutions scripted by F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby. Houston, Sr.'s, manhood code was every bit as full as Gatsby's of cowboy morality, gutsy good-will, and trembling ...
Paradise on Fire

From award-winning and bestselling author Jewell Parker Rhodes comes a powerful coming-of-age survival tale exploring issues of race, class, and climate change Addy is haunted by the tragic fire that killed her parents, leaving her to be ...
Bayou Magic

And when a disastrous oil leak threatens the bayou, she knows she may also be the only one who can help. Does she have what it takes to be a hero? Jewell Parker Rhodes weaves a rich tale celebrating the magic within.
Towers Falling

From award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes comes a powerful novel set fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks in a classroom of students who cannot remember the event but live through the aftermath of its cultural shift.
Black Brother, Black Brother

Powerful and emotionally gripping, Black Brother, Black Brother is a careful examination of the school-to-prison pipeline and follows one boy's fight against racism and his empowering path to finding his voice.
Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons For Black Authors

The omniscient narrator in Virginia Hamilton's The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl knows not only Pearl's thoughts but also African geography, human civilization's history, and the hierarchy of magical gods: One long time ago, ...
Ghost Boys

Once again Jewell Parker Rhodes deftly weaves historical and socio-political layers into a gripping and poignant story about how children and families face the complexities of today's world, and how one boy grows to understand American ...
Magic City: A Novel

Magic City evokes one of the darkest chapters of twentieth century, Jim Crow America, painting an intimate portrait of the heroic but doomed stand that pitted the National Guard against a small band of black men determined to defend the ...
Proverbs for the People

Since she'd switched the dice there'd been no more beatings , no more fear , no more bruises . Hell , there was no more Marky . It didn't take long for the hustlers Marky played craps with to realize that luckless Marky McClain was ...
Sugar

Sugar soon realizes that she must be the one to bridge the cultural gap and bring the community together. Here is a story of unlikely friendships and how they can change our lives forever.
Voodoo Season

Marie Levant begins her medical residency in New Orleans's Charity Hospital in the wake of culture shock and increasingly violent dreams, which give way to an awareness of her ancestral heritage as an African and a voodoo queen.
Season: A Novel

Draws us into the fascinating world of ghosts and spirits, and the people they watch over.
Los Chicos Fantasmas (Ghost Boys Spanish Edition)

diciembre. En. la. mañana. —Regresa directamente a casa. ... Yo soy el chico bueno. Me gustaría no serlo. Tengo problemas, pero no me meto en problemas. Hay una gran diferencia. Soy un poco regordete, y se burlan de mí fácilmente; ...
Douglass' Women: A Novel

Douglass' Women fills the gaps and silences that history has left in an unforgettable epic full of heartache and triumph.
The Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy: Season, Moon, and Hurricane

Marie watched his expression. She saw him remembering gossip and tales. Remembering she did both physical and spiritual healing. Mixed with spirits, creatures resurrected from the dead. “Dog is protecting Marie-Claire?” “Yes.
Porch Stories: A Grandmother's Guide to Happiness

Porch Stories, described by Rhodes as "an intergenerational love song," is a loving tribute that is at once candid, courageous, and reverent -- a literary portrait of family love that readers from all walks of life can see in themselves.
Hurricane: A Novel

Jewell Parker Rhodes blends magic and man-made evil and weaves New Orleans’s past and present into a spine-tingling mystery that is masterfully crafted and deeply haunting.
Ninth Ward

From the New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Boys and Towers Falling, Ninth Ward is a deeply emotional story about transformation and a celebration of resilience, friendship, and family--as only love can define it.
Moon: A Novel

Yellow Moon is part two of the New Orleans trilogy that began with Voodoo Season -- magical realist fiction that takes the legend of the voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, as imagined by Jewell Parker Rhodes in the bestselling Voodoo Dreams, ...
Paradise on Fire

'Addy is a heroine any reader might aspire to be, a teenager who learns to trust her own voice and instincts, who realizes that fire can live within someone, too' - New York Times WINNER OF THE GREEN EARTH BOOK AWARD From award-winning and ...