[1] He has written eighteen books and many short stories for and about black children and teens in a variety of genres, ranging from inner-city settings to the forests of Haiti.

Many of the novels are set in Oakland, California (USA),[2] and deal with contemporary themes such as crack cocaine, drug dealers, teenage sexuality, school dropouts, and coming-of-age.

In 1990, Mowry's first collection of stories, Rats in the Trees, won a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award and was also published in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.

Mowry's characters and settings range from gun-toting gang kids in Oakland and Voodoo apprentices in New Orleans' French Quarter, to teenage airplane pilots and child soldiers in Africa.

Mowry has declined to take the easy way, refusing to be seduced by fame or money into writing the kind of Black ghetto fiction that mainstream publishers seem to want.

Instead, Mowry remains socially committed and aware; he prefers doing things his way as he works to improve the lives and self-image of black street kids.