HARLEM SUMMER
By Walter Dean Myers and Walter Deam Myers

It's 1925 and Mark Purvis is a 16-yr-old with a summer to kill. He'd rather jam with his jazz band (they need the practice), but is urged by his parents to get a job.  As an assistant at The Crisis, a magazine for the “new Negro,” Mark rubs shoulders with Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. He's invited to a party at Alfred Knopf's place. He's making money, but not enough, and when piano player Fats Waller entices him and his buddies to make some fast cash, Mark finds himself crossing the gangster Dutch Schultz.

Excerpt:
Mama came in the house singing “There is a Balm in Gilead.”  Daddy asked what she was so happy about and she said she was happy because all her bills were paid.
            “There’s two bill collectors downstairs looking at the mailboxes,” Mama said.  “Least I guess they’re bill collectors cause they’re white and mean-looking.  But all my bills are paid.  My finances, except for Matt’s college, are so good they’re almost sanctified!”
            “Those bill collectors could be hoodlums,” I said, thinking about a certain Dutch Schulz.
            “Ain’t no hoodlums.”  Daddy sniffed hard the way he does sometimes.  “Ain’t no white hoodlums going to come al the way uptown to Harlem to get our little bit of cash.”
            I hoped they weren’t coming for anybody’s fingers, either.  Not that I was scared or anything .  But I did think maybe it would be a smooth idea not to go out until the next day.

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