"There are three rules in the neighborhood: Don't cry ; Don't snitch ; Get revenge. Will takes his dead brother Shawn's gun, and gets in the elevator on the 7th floor. As the elevator stops on each floor, someone connected to Shawn gets on. Someone already dead. Dead by teenage gun violence. And each has something to share with Will." --

A Study Guide for Jason Reynolds's "Long Way Down", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

"Otto and Sheed Alston are local sleuths in their zany Virginia town, masters of unraveling mischief using their unmatched powers of deduction. As summer winds down and the first day of school looms, the boys are craving just a little more time for fun, eve as they bicker over what kind of fun they want to have. That is, until a mysterious man named Mr. Flux appears with a camera that literally freezes time. Now, with the help of some very strange...

Seeing no way out of his difficult life in Harlem, seventeen-year-old Jeremy "Lil J" Dance flees into a house after a drug deal goes awry and meets a weird man who shows different turning points in Lil J's life when he could have made better choices.

"Jasmine and Chelsea are best friends on a mission--they're sick of the way women are treated even at their progressive NYC high school, so they decide to start a Women's Rights Club. They post their work online--poems, essays, videos of Chelsea performing her poetry, and Jasmine's response to the racial microaggressions she experiences--and soon they go viral. But with such positive support, the club is also targeted by trolls. When things escalate...

"Ada" means first daughter, means oldest girl, means most pressure. When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a historical Black college, it's the first time that she's been able to make her own choices. As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance and explores her sexuality, she also begins to wrestle with her past-- her mother's struggle with addiction, her Nigerian father's attempts to make a home for her. Will she find the courage to shape...

Waiting: Dean and Monty are two longtime friends who work as waiters as Shenanigan's, a "fun" chain restaurant. Both have been working at the restaurant for about four years and it has only recently occurred to Dean that he has nothing to show for his life but a community college diploma and his name tag from work. He has developed a sudden urgency to make something of himself. Monty, on the other hand, is more interested in making time with the women...