Monroe Free Library

It's Christmas Eve in Harlem, but twelve-year-old Lolly Rachpaul and his mom still reeling from his older brother's death in a gang-related shooting just a few months earlier. Then Lolly's mother's girlfriend brings him a gift that will change everything: two enormous bags filled with Legos. Lolly's always loved Legos, and he prides himself on following the kit instructions exactly. Now, faced with a pile of building blocks and no instructions, Lolly...

When Shawn and Daniel witness a gang beating behind the local mall they flee the scene, terrified that they've been seen. They recognize one of the attackers as a locally infamous gang member. When they learn that the kid who was attacked is in critical condition, Shawn wants to go to the police, but Daniel convinces him that they are in more danger if they speak up. The threats they receive from other members of the gang reinforce the boys' fears....

When thirteen-year-old Sammy finds herself with an abandoned baby on her hands, she sets out to find the young mother, who may belong to a gang, and accidentally jeopardizes her position on the softball team.

When money becomes tight in the McNair household, Greg is willing to do chores and work in the neighborhood to earn money, but his cousin James looks for an easier way to get the things he wants.

Eleven-year-old Benny Kaminsky leads a rag-tag gang of neighborhood children as they use improbable disguises and crazy ruses while investigating such crimes as counterfeiting and stolen silver in 1894 London.

The summer before starting middle school, when eleven-year-old Goldenrod Moram sets out to make a very accurate map of the forest behind her home, she discovers a band of troublemakers, a mysterious old lady, and the ghost of her explorer idol.

A loose retelling of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, set in tenth-century Baghdad, in which twelve-year-old Marjana tries to keep her brother, Jamal, from joining a gang while helping Ali Baba, their master's cruel brother.