Black and White by Paul Volponi

Marcus and Eddie don’t care about their mis-matched skin color: Marcus is black and Eddie is white. As best friends and co-stars of their high school’s basketball team, they only care about looking out for each other -- both on and off the court -- and they’ve got it all under control. So when they need a little extra cash to go on a school trip, they’re certain that they’re smart enough and smooth enough to get away with some quick and painless robberies. When one of the robberies goes terribly wrong and a community member, a judge who is “tough on crime” as luck would have it, gets injured, Marcus and Eddie are left to figure out a lot of things that had at one time seemed so simple. This book moves quickly in alternating chapters narrated by Marcus and Eddie and is full of thought provoking material. Marcus and Eddie never let their skin color define them before, but how are they supposed to feel now as their victims, the police, their team, and their once close families begin to do just that?

Volponi, Paul. Black and White. New York: Penguin SPEAK, 2005.