- Romiette and Julio
- Drive-By
- Party Girl
- Shadow of the Dragon
- CrashBoomLove: A Novel in Verse
- The Outsiders
- Way Past Cool
- Rats in the Trees: Stories
- Locas
- Scorpions
- Breaking Rank
- Living for the City
- Understand This
- Rite of Passage
- Perfect chemistry
- Rules of Attraction
- Dirty Jersey
- Snitch
- The good girl’s guide to getting kidnapped
- Blade : playing dead
- Retaliation : a novel
- Kung Fu High School
- Muchacho : a novel
- Everlasting
by Sharon Draper (Atheneum)
Romiette Capelle, aka Afroqueen, and Julio Montague, aka Spanishlover, fall in love in a chat room only to discover they attend the same high school but are harassed by a gang whose members object to their interracial dating.
by Lynn Ewing (HarperCollins)
Twelve-year-old Tito, while helping to care for his little sister, struggles to find his way during
the aftermath of his brother’s death in a gang-related shooting.
by Lynn Ewing (Random House)
The death of her best friend Ana in a drive-by shooting causes fifteen-year-old Kata to
question her position in L.A. gang life.
by Sherry Garland (Harcourt)
High school sophomore Danny Vo tries to resolve the conflict between the
values of his Vietnamese refugee family and his new American way of life.
by Juan Felipe Herrera (University of New Mexico Press)
16-year-old Cesar Garcia, trying to fit in at a new high school, is pressured to join a gang.
by S. E. Hinton (Penguin Putnam)
Greasers vs. Socs: for the rich Socs it’s just a cruel game, but for Ponyboy’s gang it’s a fight for survival and self worth.
by Jess Mowry (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)
African American teens find family in a gang on the mean streets of West Oakland, California.
by Jess Mowry (John Daniel & Co.)
After running away from Fresno, 13-year-old Robby lands on the streets of Oakland with $5 and his skateboard and is befriended by a gang of friends that call themselves The Animals.
by Yxta Maya Murray (Grove/Atlantic)
Girl gangs in East L.A. and the different paths which friends Lucia and Cecilia choose.
by Walter Dean Myers (HarperCollins)
After reluctantly taking on the leadership of the Harlem gang, The Scorpions, Jamal finds that his enemies treat him with respect when he gets hold of a gun-until a tragedy occurs.
by Kristin Randle (HarperCollins)
Seventeen-year-old Casey has some of her preconceived notions challenged when she begins to tutor Baby, a member of a gang-like non-conformist society called the Clan.
by Jervey Tervalon (Incommunicado Press)
Stories about growing up in South Central L.A.
by Jervey Tervalon (University of California Press)
South Central L.A. – the choices different residents make either to embrace or reject gang life, drugs, etc.
by Richard Wright (HarperCollins)
When fifteen-year-old Johnny Gibbs is told that he is really a foster child, he runs off into the streets of Harlem and meets up with a gang that wants him to participate in a mugging.
by Simone Elkeles
When wealthy, seemingly perfect Brittany and Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, develop a relationship after Alex discovers that Brittany is not exactly who she seems to be, they must face the disapproval of their schoolmates–and others.
by Simone Elkeles
Living on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus with his older brother Alex, a college student and ex-gang member, high school senior Carlos is not ready to give up his wild ways until he meets a shy classmate named Kiara and becomes unwillingly involved in a drug ring.
by Phillip Thomas Duck
A chance encounter with Fiasco, one of the hottest rappers around, gives Eric Posey entry into a world where he is suddenly cool and has access to anything he’s ever wanted, for the price of his sister, Kenya.
by Allison van Diepen
Julia DiVino tries hard not to get mixed-up with the gangs at South Bay High School, but when Eric Valienté enters into her life, everything changes.
by Yxta Maya Murray
Fifteen-year-old Michelle Pena, born into a powerful Mexican American gang family, tries to reconcile her gangster legacy with the girl she has become–a nationally ranked runner and academic superstar.
by Tim Bowler
A fourteen-year-old British street person with extraordinary powers of observation and self-control must face murderous thugs connected with a past he has tried to forget, when his skills with a knife earned him the nickname, Blade.
by Yasmin Shiraz
A violent attack on seventeen-year-old Tashera Odom by high school girls in Washington, D.C., has dangerous repercussions for the rest of the family, including her secretive mother Sheila, and her brother Khalil, who is willing to rejoin his gang in order to get revenge.
by Ryan Gattis ; illustrations by Brandon Gattis
When Jen and her brother Cue’s cousin Jimmy arrives in their home town, his reputation as a world-champion martial arts master precedes him, testing his vow to never fight again.
by LouAnne Johnson
Living in a neighborhood of drug dealers and gangs in New Mexico, high school junior Eddie Corazon, a juvenile delinquent-in-training, falls in love with a girl who inspires him to rethink his life and his choices.
by Stacy-Deanne
Everlasting is the chronicle of two equally fascinating Latino teenagers, seventeen-year-old Juan Alonso and sixteen-year-old Nina Sagastume, who fall in love despite unrelenting odds. (from Amazon)
