When We Was FierceHardcover, 9 August 2016

In an endless cycle of street violence and retribution, is there any escape? A powerful verse novel by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo.
Fifteen-year-old Theo isn t looking for trouble, but when he and his friends witness a brutal attack on Ricky-Ricky, an innocent boy who doesn t know better than to walk right up to the most vicious gang leader around, he s in trouble for real. And in this neighborhood, everything is at stake. In a poignant, unflinching novel of survival told largely in street dialect, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo enters the lives of teenagers coming of age in the face of spiraling violence among gangs, by police, and at home."