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The Adventures of the Untouchables

Books in the Hood
By Emily Brady in Books, Featured Friday, May. 8 2009
When LaVerne Harris decided to open a bookstore in the South Bronx two years ago, she knew she it wasn't going to be easy. The area is known for a lot of different things -- urban blight, crime, poverty -- and a healthy book culture wasn't one of them.
But Harris, a 61-year-old primary school teacher who grew up on Simpson Street, was walking with some friends when she wondered aloud what it would take to put a bookstore in among the liquor stores, Laundromats, and take-out places.

Hip-Hop Lit Is Hot
February 11, 2008 by Kara Gebhart Uhl
Once limited to street-corner sales, hip-hop lit now can be found in major bookstores—and mainstream publishers are taking note.

From the Streets to the Libraries
Yolanda Degraff, a part-time employee, arranged books in the urban fiction area of the public library in Far Rockaway, Queens.

Gossip Girls and Ghetto Girls
Why are so many librarians—advocates of the uncensored right to read anything on all points of view—panic-stricken over teens reading street lit? As Amy Patee wrote in the July 2008 issue of School Library Journal, “There’s no getting around it: urban fiction forces many of us out of our comfort zones...