Out of My MindEleven year old Melody is not like most people. She can't walk. She can't talk. She can't write. All because she has cerebral palsy. But she also has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She's the smartest kid in her whole school, but NO ONE knows it. Most people her teachers, her doctors, her classmates dismiss her as mentally challenged because she can't tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses

but they all did something big and amazing

In "Bluebeard

as a husband and a father

and A Nation's Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis

A college student grapples with the space between chivalry and machismo in a tense encounter involving a nun

Between micro- and macro-aggressions at school

as Jessica Curry said

and the warmth of the neighborhood shines

But many readers will identify with Blade's struggle to find his place in a family where he feels like an outsider

Coming of age as a free-born Black girl in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn

Sixteen-year-old Alex Rufus's curse of seeing the future distracts him from being and doing his best

Here is Poitier's own introspective look at what has informed his performances and his life