I Can Even Jump Over The Moon

Joe Willie and Andrew are brought back to Sumner Hills and they are to face the judge in the shooting death of Andrew's father. The judge rules that the two boys are to be separated from each other, and he warns them that if they are ever seen together again, he will take measures to make certain that one of them, if not both of them, will spend the rest of their lives in jail. Andrew is taken in by a White foster fatally, and Joe Willie goes back to live with his grandmother.

Joe Willie and Andrew are brought back to Sumner Hills and they are to face the judge in the shooting death of Andrew's father. The judge rules that the two boys are to be separated from each other, and he warns them that if they are ever seen together again, he will take measures to make certain that one of them, if not both of them, will spend the rest of their lives in jail. Andrew is taken in by a White foster fatally, and Joe Willie goes back to live with his grandmother. The novel now becomes Joe Willie's story almost entirely. It is Joe Willie's struggle that will not permit him to be with his friend, Andrew, simply because Andrew is White and he is Black. But his life becomes more complicated when his grandmother dies. Now he is left alone in the world, and it is a world that is not too kind. His grandmother wills him the house they have lived in, but the city informs him that they must take the house away from him because he is under aged, and there is no way possible for him to pay taxes on the house.

Dr. Robert Martin Screen was born in Augusta, Georgia and was among the last graduating class at Haines Institute. He went on to receive his bachelor's degree in English from Hampton Institute, his M. A. degree in Speech Pathology from New York University, and his Ph.D in Audiology and Speech Sciences from Michigan State University. His further study also included a one-year stay at the University Iowa's Writer's Workshop. It was this period in his training that launched Dr. Screen’s career in writing, and as a result, he has published three textbooks and three novels. Dr. Screen returned to his alma mater, Hampton Institute and founded the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, which he has shared since 1963. During this period of time the department also initiated a master's degree program, and this program has never failed to meet the standards for ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) accreditation. A major factor in Dr. Screen's tenure at Hampton has been his role as Head Tennis Coach since 1970. During this time at Hampton, he has won 37 Championships in 35 years. Since moving to Division 1 in the MEAC Conference he has won 13 Championships in 11 years (8 Men and 5 Women). Dr. Screen is the only African American Tennis Coach to have won a National Championship in Tennis, and he did this twice, in 1976 and 1989 when Hampton was still in Division II of the NCAA. As of this writing (Summer 2006), Dr. Screen has amassed 982 wins. He is the 3rd coach in tennis history to reach the mark of 1,000 victories. Dr. Screen is the only African American Coach to be recipient of the NCAA National Coach of the Year (1985). He has also won 23 Conference Coach of the year Awards, in both the CIAA and MEAC.