In 1963, Dwayne Hallston discovers James Brown and wants to perform just like him. Meanwhile, Dwayne's forbidden black friend Larry, aspiring to play piano like Thelonius Monk, apprentices to a jazz musician called the Bleeder. A mutual passion for music help Dwayne and Larry as they try to achieve their dreams.

When a formerly segregated North Carolina town hires its first African-American teacher in 1969, two girls--one black, one white--confront the prejudice that challenges their friendship.

December 6, 1941: Best friends Frank and Stanley have it good. With their dads stationed at the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, the boys get to soak up the sunshine while writing and drawing their own comic books. World War II might be raging overseas, but so far America has stayed out of the fight. There's nothing to fear, right? December 7th, 1941: Everything implodes. Frank and Stanley are touring a battleship when Japanese planes zoom overhead,...

"FIRST FRIENDS includes the riveting histories of myriad presidential friendships, among them Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, the man with whom Lincoln once shared a bed and who did more to help him emerge from his crippling depression than anyone else; Harry Truman and Eddie Jacobson, the Kansas City haberdasher who played a pivotal part in America's recognition of the state of Israel in 1948; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Daisy Suckley, a...

In this 1983 short story about race and the relationships that shape us through life, Twyla and Roberta, friends since childhood who are seemingly at opposite ends of every problem as they grow older, cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.