{"product_id":"the-stars-beneath-our-feet-isbn-9781524701277","title":"The Stars Beneath Our Feet","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"The right story at the right time. . . . It’s not just a narrative; it’s an experience. It’s the novel we’ve been waiting for.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A boy tries to steer a safe path through the projects in Harlem in the wake of his brother’s death in this outstanding debut novel that celebrates community and creativity.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e** WINNER OF THE \u003cb\u003eCORETTA SCOTT KING–JOHN STEPTOE AWARD FOR NEW TALENT! **\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSIX STARRED REVIEWS!\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It’s Christmas Eve in Harlem, but twelve-year-old Lolly Rachpaul and his mom aren’t celebrating. They’re 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 must find his own way forward.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e His path isn’t clear—and the pressure to join a “crew,” as his brother did, is always there. When Lolly and his friend are beaten up and robbed, joining a crew almost seems like the safe choice. But building a fantastical Lego city at the community center provides Lolly with an escape—and an unexpected bridge back to the world. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e David Barclay Moore paints a powerful portrait of a boy teetering on the edge—of adolescence, of grief, of violence—and shows how Lolly’s inventive spirit helps him build a life with firm foundations and open doors.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eMORE PRAISE FOR \u003ci\u003eTHE STARS BENEATH OUR FEET:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e Top 10 Children's Books of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e Best Children's Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e Best Children's Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e Best Children's Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn ALA-YALSA Quick Pick\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e“\u003c\/i\u003eA fast and furious read in which we meet some amazing people, people that stay with us. David Barclay Moore is an exciting new voice. We definitely haven’t heard the last of his brilliance.” —Jacqueline Woodson, Newbery Honor and National Book Award–winning of \u003ci\u003eBrown Girl Dreaming\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eThe Stars Beneath Our Feet\u003c\/i\u003e is about the weight of the world on the back of a child, and the creative tools necessary to alleviate that pressure. I found myself rooting for Lolly, and you will too.” —Jason Reynolds, Coretta Scott King Honor Award Winner for \u003ci\u003eAs Brave As You\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003ePublisher's Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003e A \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e Best   Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003e A \u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003e A YALSA Quick Pick\u003cbr\u003e An ALA Notable Book\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Moore tells Lolly’s story of survival with the right mix of humor and   hope to balance violence, fear, denial and deprivation. That’s a tall order.   To succeed is a celebration. The power of adults as influencers and   confidants, nurturing by words, deeds and acts of kindness large and small,   fuels every page of this novel. \u003cb\u003eIt’s a book in   which art is celebrated, being different is an act of resistance, and   acceptance, not resignation, is the answer.\u003c\/b\u003e\"   —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"This well-honed debut novel paints a vivid picture of Lolly and the   choices that he must make, but beyond that, it \u003cb\u003eintroduces   a cast of memorable, fully realized characters, each of whom will stay with   readers long beyond the closing page.\u003c\/b\u003e\" —\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"\u003cb\u003eReaders will marvel\u003c\/b\u003e at the grandeur of what Lolly and Rose are able to build and   learn together and will find comfort in the intimacy of Lolly’s introspective   narration.\" —\u003ci\u003eBulletin\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"\u003cb\u003eA debut that serves as a powerful   instructive for writing from and reading the intersections\u003c\/b\u003e—125th Street-size intersections for all readers to   enjoy.\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Debut author Moore delivers a realistic and at times brutal portrait   of life for young people of color who are living on the edge of poverty. At   the same time, \u003cb\u003eMoore infuses the story with hope   and aspiration, giving Lolly the chance to find salvation through creativity.\u003c\/b\u003e\" —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Moore’s work with the Harlem Children’s Zone and Quality Services for   the Autism Community serve him well in creating this debut, slice-of-life   narrative with an \u003cb\u003eauthentic\u003c\/b\u003e adolescent voice and strong adult supports, all of whom are   true to their urban world.\" —\u003ci\u003eVOYA\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"\u003cb\u003eMagnificent.\u003c\/b\u003e\" —\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e, starred   review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\"\u003c\/b\u003eRealistic problems and vivid depictions of   family and city life make this\u003cb\u003e middle-grade debut stand out.\u003c\/b\u003e\" —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003eDAVID BARCLAY MOORE is the winner of the Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe Award for New Talent for \u003ci\u003eThe Stars Beneath Our Feet.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDavid was born and raised in Missouri. After studying creative writing at Iowa State University, film at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and language studies at l’Université de Montpellier in France, David moved to New York City, where he has worked in film, journalism, and communications.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDavid now divides his time between Brooklyn, NY; Los Angeles, CA; and St. Louis, MO.\u003cp\u003e1\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat I couldn’t get out of my skull was the thought of their rough, grimy hands all over my clean sneaks. What I couldn’t get out of my heart was this joy-grabbing stone I felt there. Partly because of these two thugs trailing me now, but more because I knew Jermaine wouldn’t be here to protect my neck this time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe would never, ever be coming home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy daddy, Benny Rachpaul, had bought me these sneakers when I turned twelve over the summer. I wasn’t about to let two older boys strolling down 125th Street snatch them off me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBesides me being humiliated by it, my mother would whup my butt if she knew I had let some dudes swipe my shoes. And then, when he found out, Daddy Rachpaul would drive over and whup me again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI flipped up the collar of my blue parka and continued down 125th Street, but rushed my step a little bit more. I heard the two boys following me quicken their pace. Their footsteps behind me crunched on the ice that much faster. My heart was beating faster too.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe streets around me were cheery, though. Harlem’s main street was laid out tonight with bright lights, and Christmas tunes played constant on loudspeakers. I guess to put you more in the Christmas spirit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut for me, there was nothing, and I mean nothing, that would ever make me feel Christmassy again. I was through with it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDone with all of the Christmas music, wreaths, ornaments and happy holiday shoppers. I had decided weeks ago that I would never be happy again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause it wasn’t fair.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWasn’t fair to get robbed of somebody I thought would be there for the rest of my life. Someone who was supposed to spend this Christmas with me, plus lots more Christmases!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt also wasn’t fair that I couldn’t even walk down 125th Street without being harassed. Rushing along down the sidewalk, I glanced up at all the men who were passing. All of them older and most of them Black like me. I was the youngest one out here and one of the few who felt scared to walk down this street.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor us young brothers, taking a stroll down here, even on Christmas Eve, was not relaxing at all. I felt like I had put my life on the line, straight up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAll of these old dudes lived in a different world from me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI crossed the street and dipped into a gift shop on the corner. Grinning wide smiles, my two “buddies” waited for me outside, one of them sitting down on a fire hydrant and wiggling his fingers at me like I was a little infant in a stroller.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI sucked my teeth and turned toward the salesclerk.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Happy holidays, my young man,” the clerk said. “Help you find something?” For a minute, his eyes peeped outside at the two boys waiting. He frowned at them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI watched them leave and sighed with relief. The clerk cocked his bald head to one side.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I need a excellent Christmas gift,” I said. “One for my mother, and another one for her, um, friend. And for my father. But I don’t have much money.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Last-minute shoppers,” he said, smiling at me. “Come on. We’ll get you straightened up. You’re lucky we’re open this late on Christmas Eve--125th Street is shutting down.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e ###\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e125th is a big street that runs from the East River on the east side of Manhattan to the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan. The street cuts right through the neighborhood of Harlem and is where most of the main stores and shops and businesses are. The Apollo Theater, the Adam Clayton Powell Building and the Studio Museum are all lined up along 1-2-5. If Harlem was a human body, then 125th would be its pumping heart, throbbing all the time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI don’t know what the neighborhood’s brain would be.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs I flew back toward home, I suddenly realized how heavy the gifts were that I had just bought in that shop. Ma and Yvonne would both be happy, I hoped. And Daddy, with his gift too.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut the bag handle cut into my fingers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd just as I switched the plastic shopping bag to my other hand, I saw them. Across the wide blacktopped, slushy street, those two older boys had caught sight of me again. I started to step even faster down 125th Street, toward St. Nick, hoping I could make it to the border before they could catch me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere I live, it’s all about borders.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd territories.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd crews.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen you’re a little kid in Harlem, you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything as long as you’re careful. But when you start to get old--about my age, twelve--things start to change.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou can’t go everywhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou got to start worrying about crews. Crews are like cliques. Groups of mostly boys, and sometimes females, who hang out together. Mostly for fun, but for protection too.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd each crew got its territory in their neighborhood. And if you ain’t from that hood, or a member of that set, you need to stay out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen I was young, I used to have a friend over on East 127th Street. His name was Cody. We used to play boxball and dodgeball on East 127th all the time, even though I lived on the West Side.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNowadays when I see Cody and he’s with his crew, we don’t talk at all. He just glares at me like I’m about to get jumped. He does it because we live in different places and we’re old now.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat’s how crews work.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo tonight, when I finally turned off of 125th and onto Eighth Av’, the boys following me had to stop right there. There wasn’t no real roadblock set up for them. If they had really wanted to, they could’a kept on following me, right up the block and straight into St. Nick projects.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut if they’d done that, somebody would’a jumped them boys.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOr worse.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e ### \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yo, whattup, Lolly,” Concrete said to me when I walked up the path into St. Nick. We slapped hands. “Lolly Rachpaul,” he said again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Hey, ’Crete,” I said to him. “How Day-Day?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“He fine,” Concrete said. “Thanks for asking. How your moms?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“She fine,” I said. “Merry Christmas!”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yo, man, I don’t celebrate White Jesus Day no more!” he shouted. “This is the holiday of the Oppressor.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConcrete, about thirty, was ten years older than what Jermaine would’a been. ’Crete was what we called him. I didn’t even know what his real name was, and he probably didn’t know that my real name wasn’t Lolly, which is what everybody called me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Sorry, man,” I told him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e’Crete didn’t even live in St. Nick, but he was always there, hanging around the big courtyard at its center. As far back as I remember, he had always been in that courtyard, peddling weed. He was a dealer, or “street pharmacist.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe place where I lived, the St. Nicholas Houses--otherwise known as the projects--was like a big family. Just like in a real family, you got some “relatives” you’re cool with and others you can’t stand, or who act up all the time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSt. Nick Houses was just like that.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt was home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI got to my building, where I lived with my moms, walked in through the broken door and took the steps, because our elevator was jacked up too--the city didn’t never fix nothing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeven flights of stairs!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbout half the way up, the stairwell got all dark. The lights on this floor had burnt out, meaning I had to be careful climbing stairs in the gloominess.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeing in the dark forced my brain to concentrate more on the smell, which was mostly laid-over pee. You got used to it, though, the pee smell.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJust then, I raised one foot up and hit something. Something big and lumpy. The big lump jumped and clubbed my leg.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI stumbled back and almost tripped down the stairs, until I realized the big lump was Moses. Who was a old drunk man. When it was real cold outside, like it was tonight, he sometimes slept in the stairs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUntil the kids ran him out of here.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOr the cops.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Merry Christmas, old drunk,” I said to him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Show respect, boy!” he shouted after me. “I ain’t no drunk. I only booze it up twice a year--”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yeah, I know, Moses: when it’s your birthday and when it’s not your birthday.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis jokes, I’d heard them all before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoses cackled like a old witch in the darkness while I continued climbing stairs.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Yearling","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301882908901,"sku":"NP9781524701277","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781524701277.jpg?v=1767741648","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-stars-beneath-our-feet-isbn-9781524701277","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}