Gang-Related

These books can be found in the Juvenile, Teen, and/or Adult collections of your public library. Please check the online catalog for location, or ask the librarian.

FICTION

• Romiette and Julio by Sharon Draper (Atheneum)
  Romiette Capelle, aka Afroqueen, and Julio Montague, aka Spanishlover, fall in love in a chat room only to discover they attend the same high school but are harassed by a gang whose members object to their interracial dating.
  
  
• Drive-By by Lynn Ewing (HarperCollins)
  Twelve-year-old Tito, while helping to care for his little sister, struggles to find his way during the aftermath of his brother’s death in a gang-related shooting.
  
  
• Party Girl by Lynn Ewing (Random House)
  The death of her best friend Ana in a drive-by shooting causes fifteen-year-old Kata to question her position in L.A. gang life.
  
  
• Shadow of the Dragon by Sherry Garland (Harcourt)
  High school sophomore Danny Vo tries to resolve the conflict between the values of his Vietnamese refugee family and his new American way of life.
  
  
• CrashBoomLove: A Novel in Verse by Juan Felipe Herrera (University of New Mexico Press)
  16-year-old Cesar Garcia, trying to fit in at a new high school, is pressured to join a gang.
  
  
• The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton (Penguin Putnam)
  Greasers vs. Socs: for the rich Socs it’s just a cruel game, but for Ponyboy’s gang it’s a fight for survival and self worth.
  
  
• Way Past Cool by Jess Mowry (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)
  African American teens find family in a gang on the mean streets of West Oakland, California.
  
  
• Rats in the Trees: Stories by Jess Mowry (John Daniel & Co.)
  After running away from Fresno, 13-year-old Robby lands on the streets of Oakland with $5 and his skateboard and is befriended by a gang of friends that call themselves The Animals.
  
  
• Locas by Yxta Maya Murray (Grove/Atlantic)
  Girl gangs in East L.A. and the different paths which friends Lucia and Cecilia choose.
  
  
• Scorpions by Walter Dean Myers (HarperCollins)
  After reluctantly taking on the leadership of the Harlem gang, The Scorpions, Jamal finds that his enemies treat him with respect when he gets hold of a gun-until a tragedy occurs.
  
  
• Breaking Rank by Kristin Randle (HarperCollins)
  Seventeen-year-old Casey has some of her preconceived notions challenged when she begins to tutor Baby, a member of a gang-like non-conformist society called the Clan.
  
  
• Living for the City by Jervey Tervalon (Incommunicado Press)
  Stories about growing up in South Central L.A.
  
  
• Understand This by Jervey Tervalon (University of California Press)
  South Central L.A. – the choices different residents make either to embrace or reject gang life, drugs, etc.
  
  
• Rite of Passage by Richard Wright (HarperCollins)
  When fifteen-year-old Johnny Gibbs is told that he is really a foster child, he runs off into the streets of Harlem and meets up with a gang that wants him to participate in a mugging.
  
  

NON-FICTION

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• Do or Die by Leon Bing (Harper Trade)
  For the first time, members of L.A.’s most notorious teenage gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, speak for themselves.
  
  
• G-Dog and the Homeboys by Celeste Fremon (University of New Mexico Press)
  The extraordinary journey of Father Greg Boyle and his work with the Latino gangs of East L.A.
  
  
• Chinese Playground: A Memoir by Bill Lee (Bill Lee & Associates)
  San Francisco’s Chinatown is the backdrop for the story of a man who narrowly escaped death or imprisonment at the infamous Chinese Playground gang battle, went on to college and a successful career, only to have his son end up in a gang.
  
  
• Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. by Luis Rodriguez (Simon & Schuster)
  Rodriguez joined his first gang at age 11 and by 18 had seen twenty-five of his friends succumb to the ravages of gang warfare, police killings, drug overdoses, and suicide.
  
  
• Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz by Mona Ruiz (Arte Publico)
  She spent her youth in gangs, survived an abusive marriage, and went on to become a police officer.
  
  
• Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member by Shanyika Shakur (Penguin Putnam)
  In his gang days known as “Monster” Kody Scott, Shakur recounts his brutal life as a gangbanger.
  
  
• 8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters by Gini Sikes (Doubleday)
  Journalist Gini Sikes spent a year hanging out with girl gangs in L.A., Milwaukee, and San Antonio.
  
  
• Baby Insane and the Buddha by Bob Sipchen (Doubleday)
  Crips member Kevin Glass, aka Baby Insane, after years in and out of juvenile hall, eventually became a police informant working with Patrick Birse, aka the Buddha, in his work to eradicate gang-related violence in San Diego.
  
  
• Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas (Vintage)
  The classis biography of a Puerto Rican New Yorker who survived his life in gangs and prison them turned his life around.
  
  
• Uprising: Crips and Bloods Tell the Story of America’s Youth in the Crossfire Interviews by Yusuf Jah and Sister Shay’Keyah (Simon & Schuster)
  Voices from the Street: Young Former Gang Members Tell Their Stories Interviews & photographs by S. Beth Atkin (Little, Brown)
  
  
• The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson (Jove)
  The true story of Wilkerson’s ministry to the gangs of New York City and the conversion of Nicky Cruz, notorious gang leader.
  
  
• Life in Prison by Stanley "Tookie" Williams (SeaStar)
  Co-founder of the Crips, executed at San Quentin, Williams tried to convince young men not to make the same mistakes he did.
  
  

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