Jo Dinage – författare

Throwing children of different races together will not automatically foster friendships and deep connections. It takes effort to create multiculturalism awareness.

This teen novel helps to initiate discussions on diversity, stereotyping and privilege. Same age, same height, same grade-they could have been identical twins, but they were not. Yet they lived in the same imperfect world with overwhelming family problems.

Greg''s father had walked out after striking his mother. Steve''s father refused to leave after repeatedly abusing his mother. Each boy, in his own way, was begging for help. They lived in different homes. They had different personalities. 

One was black and the other was white and they had switched!

She Likes Sugar is a coming-of-age romantic novel. What else could go wrong? At seventeen, Jen has yet to recover emotionally from the death of her parents eight years ago. She has drifted into an unhealthy, dependent relationship with her twin sister, Josie. Change does not come easy for Jen. Now she must deal with an unforgivable assault by her uncle while facing an indefensible betrayal by Josie, who is ''the other woman'' in what is looking to be a messy divorce. Set in the 1980s on the beautiful Caribbean island of Jamaica, "She Likes Sugar," is a poignant tale of Jen''s struggles to break away from her past and find a life without dependency.

On the planet Segaan, we get a glimpse of the planet''s tumultuous history. One civilization was wiped out and the rulers of another were facing certain extinction-until the experiments. Zooric is now paying the price of the experiment that went terribly wrong. With his abilities and skills, he was born to rule, but for Zooric that is not an easy option. The abuse of his past is still too vivid a memory. To survive he must escape. It is then he discovers the secret his people have been hiding for centuries. There is another race living on the planet! They are the Tifoosas. They are the aliens, the invaders... but to them Zooric is alien. Yet he has pledged to support them in their ongoing war with their ruling council.

Far from Mother Earth, the ruling council is determined to survive. The Presidential Council decided to adopt a master policy. To avoid race wars, they would force interracial marriages, and create a single race of people. This decision resulted in exactly what they were trying to avoid. War! To win the war one group must align with Zooric. To win the war Zooric needs the help of his people. He has to face his past.

The Tifoosas need him, but they also fear him and his extraordinary powers. Now into this already murky mix comes an explosive attraction between Zooric and Carrie, the daughter of a Tifoosas.

Six teenagers from the Bronx, 3 blacks, a Chinese, an Italian and a Puerto Rican, set out to explore a cave in their neighborhood. The cave exploration is a washout but after falling down a ledge, the six find that they have time-travelled three centuries into the future! Here, the Bronx is a heavily wooded forest, unexplored by a tribe of people living there

The teens rescued a boy from a tribe living in the Bronx and he took them to his people. They were soon accepted. The tribe in the Bronx is unaware of the wealth of treasure-metals, jewelry, etc. - buried in the rubble of what was once busy shopping strips in the Bronx.  The six were able to help their new friend and soon settled into village life. Their biggest upset occurred when Hamid''s dog died. It was emotional, it was traumatic however, it was noting compared to war that was to come.

Another tribe living in Manhattan is determined to wipe out the tribe in the Bronx!

These teenagers have a unique advantage in this conflict. They know the land. For the six, this becomes a true adventure. The tribes knew nothing of the train tunnels running under the river from the Bronx to Manhattan. They were able get undetected into Manhattan to rescue friends and gather much needed supplied, including horses.  The Bronx tribe was no longer at a disadvantage. Unfortunately one of the teens got injured in their Manhattan adventure necessitating a daring rescue.

Yet, all too soon, the teen''s adventure becomes too real. In a retaliatory attack, the Manhattan tribe was able to kill and injury some of their friends. For the six this was no longer fun. It was a fight for survival. They had to carefully plan for the next encounter. It was not a decisive win, it was a stalemate. For now the war was over. The teens sent a message to the tribe leaders in Manhattan. The hope was that this would buy them time to build up their defenses or even relocate to a safer location.

After her parents'' separation, twelve-year-old Shari is forced to deal with her resentment. Even worse, her mother relocates to New York, leaving her father and two brothers in California. We get to see how Shari eventually resolves the conflict that is marring her relationship with her mother, but the story introduces another element. Readers are invited to travel with Shari as she makes new friends, takes a thrilling tour of the Bronx Zoo and solve an exciting mystery.