9 Books Published by Laurel Leaf on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.

In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island’s highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag.

Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever.

To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men’s paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific’s most crucial island—an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo—three were killed during the battle—were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley’s father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn’t come back."

Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well as Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.

A wonderful middle-grade novel narrated by Kenny, 9, about his middle-class black family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. When Kenny’s 13-year-old brother, Byron, gets to be too much trouble, they head South to Birmingham to visit Grandma, the one person who can shape him up. And they happen to be in Birmingham when Grandma’s church is blown up.

"In these 12 well-honed stories told in first-person narrative, Johnson zeroes in on the idealism and resiliency that make young people a powerful force in the world. Despite their rough circumstances, these characters have a keen and refreshing sense of justice that helps them recognize—and perform—compassionate acts… . Johnson’s flavorful language will draw readers immediately into the brief, emotion-packed dramas. And after entering the often harsh and humbling worlds Johnson describes, readers will agree with the narrator of ’By the Time You Read This’: ’Some people come into your life and do nothing but make it better. They help you see what you may become. They foster growth and health in all things.’"—Publishers Weekly, Starred
"A beautiful collection … peopled with characters … whom teens will recognize and relate to. This book would make a fine addition to any short-story collection."—School Library Journal, Starred

Fourteen-year-old Vicki Harris’s dream has come true. She has been accepted into the summer program at New York City’s prestigious School of American Ballet. It will be hard work and highly competitive, but Vicki feels ready. She is totally committed to dancing.



Vicki isn’t prepared to be one of only two African-American students in the program. Nor is she expecting the racism she finds within the school. And Michael, from Harlem, takes Vicki completely by surprise. He shakes up her dream world—where Baryshnikov is her idol, her parents never really got divorced, and every pirouette is perfect—and shows her that the real world is bigger than a stage.

Phyllisia eventually recognizes that her own selfish pride rather than her mother’s death and her father’s tyrannical behavior created the gulf between her and her best friend.

Now in Laurel-Leaf, Virginia Hamilton’s powerful true account of the sensational trial of a fugitive slave.

The year is 1854, and Anthony Burns, a 20-year-old Virginia slave, has escaped to Boston. But according to the Fugitive Slave Act, a runaway can be captured in any free state, and Anthony is soon imprisoned. The antislavery forces in Massachusetts are outraged, but the federal government backs the Fugitive Slave Act, sparking riots in Boston and fueling the Abolitionist movement.

Written with all the novelistic skill that has won her every major award in children’s literature, Virginia Hamilton’s important work of nonfiction puts young readers into the mind of Burns himself.

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 …

Motown lives in a burned-out building one floor above the rats, searching out jobs every day, working his muscles every night, keeping strong, surviving. Didi lives in her cool dream bubble, untouched by the Harlem heat that beats down on her brother until only drugs can soothe him. Didi escapes, without needles, in her tidy plans and stainless visions, etchings of ivycovered colleges where her true life will begin. Didi can survive inside her own safe mind, until Motown steps into her real world and makes it bearable. Together they can stand the often brutal present. What about the future?

After a boy falls to his death on a hiking trip, his brother is pursued through the wilderness by the man he believes responsible.