Growing up in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, award-winning illustrator Jerry Pinkney didn't have a lot of opportunities. In America in the 1940s and '50s, African-Americans were not considered the equal of whites, and the races were kept separate. Pinkney lived on an all-black street in the middle of a white neighborhood, and he attended an all-black elementary school. His father wa

In a time when many people consider the quality of education to have decayed, when parents, students and even teachers have little hope for schools, a woman named Sandy McBrayer is named U.S. Teacher of the Year. She teaches "unattended children" (whom most people refer to as homeless) in San Diego. Her job there isn't an easy one. Children there are like any other - uninterested in going to