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Introduction: Speak to My Heart: Each One…Reach One, book two in the Jamaal series, highlights the importance of community support in transforming the lives of two adolescents and their respective families. Speak to My Heart: Each One…Reach One builds on the strength of the relationship that formed between Jamaal and Trevon in Heart and Soul: Learning to Communicate through Thick and Thin, book one in the Jamaal series. Trevon is a 15-year-old youth who has longed to share his innermost thoughts and feelings with his mother but has been unable to do so. As a child, he often dreamed of owning his own business and doing great things but did not feel that he had anyone with whom he could share his hopes and dreams. As Trevon grew older, the only attention he was able to get was negative attention from his teachers and positive attention from his peers out of fear and respect. 

Acting out and getting into trouble had become a way of life for Trevon. Though Trevon was not doing well in school, he actually enjoyed being in school; and would often avoid going home because he was getting tired of dealing with the reality of coming home and finding his mother high and his sister and brothers crying because they had not been fed or properly cared for.

Book one, Heart and Soul: Learning to Communicate through Thick and Thin highlights the heart-wrenching circumstances that resulted in Jamaal and Trevon becoming such good friends. Unlike Jamaal, who is being raised by his mother with the support of his maternal grandmother, Trevon has been left to fend for himself. At the age of eight, Trevon overhead members of his family speaking about his mother’s drug addiction which made him feel that he had to step in and take care of his younger brothers and sister. The reality of not knowing his father and having a mother that seemed to care more about using drugs than taking care of her five children, Trevon being the oldest, was more than he could handle. Nevertheless, Jamaal has become a source of inspiration for Trevon, someone that he looks forward to meeting and spending time with.

Speak to My Heart: Each One…Reach One is a testament of the hope that lies within our youth; and the success that can come about through unconditional positive regard within the context of a community of support. As a society we must revisit the meaning of “community,” as we honestly ask ourselves “Is it possible to become that “Beloved Community” that the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of? Will the idea of creating a “Beloved Community” be a dream realized or another dream deferred?

This novel promotes a unique community-empowerment initiative that highlights the beneficial roles of a cooperative kinship in neighborhoods to transform the lives of young people and their families.