When a young slave named Addy goes fishing one spring day, she doesn't catch any fish. Instead, she finds a little boy in a basket floating in the river. Jabe is no ordinary boy: in a few short months, he grows to be a big, strong man with the strength of fifty. He can pick an entire field of cotton by himself in just one night and day. Why, he even has the power to turn a tired old workhorse into a young filly ready to race When slaves begin to miraculously disappear from the Plenty Plantation, Addy knows in her heart that Jabe is the reason why.

Too early to go to bed, and with only flashes of lightning to see by, Thomas and his grandfather happily find themselves re-discovering the half-forgotten scents and sounds of their world, and having a wonderful time learning important, new things about each other in a spirited conversation sparked by...

This critically acclaimed picture book suitable for a wide range of readers chronicles the Great Migration--the diaspora of African Americans who headed to the North after WWI--through the iconic paintings and words of renowned artist Jacob Lawrence. The New York Times praised it as "a compassionate and sensitive portrayal of history."

After World War I, large numbers of African Americans began leaving their homes in the rural South in search of employment, and a better life, in the industrial cities of the North like...

1994 Coretta Scott King Award Honor Book for Nonfiction
1994 Coretta Scott King Award Honor Book for...

The stars of the Big Dipper have led a runaway slave family to Deacon Fuller's house, a stop on the Underground Railroad. Will Tommy Fuller be able to hide the runaways from a search party--or will the secret passengers be discovered and their hope for freedom destroyed?

This Level 3 I Can Read book is a captivating first-person historical fiction account of the Underground Railroad, narrated by Tommy, a ten year-old Quaker boy, . With beautiful, simple prose that folds in historical facts about slavery and the Civil War, this book makes this important period of American history...

"The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest."

These are the words of Mary McLeod Bethune. She worked her whole life to make the world a better place. As a child, she loved to read. As a woman, she loved to teach. She started a school; she founded a hospital. Everywhere she saw a need, she searched for a solution.

When Grace gets the opportunity to go to Africa and visit with her father and his new family, she feels a little strange. But Nana says families are what you make them, and Grace is going to make the most of hers

"As assured and uplifting as its predecessor." -Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Validating, uplifting, and bound to please." -School Library Journal, starred review

A Reading Rainbow Book * A...

Why has their grandmother bothered keeping a menu from a restaurant that closed years ago, a restaurant that never served very good food in the first place? Three cousins listen to Gee's own story, set in the early days of lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville, a time when a black child could sit up front in a city bus but still could not get a milk shake at a downtown restaurant. Through the eyes of ten-year-old Abby, young readers see what it was like to...

When Momma and Dad decide it's time for a visit to Grandma, Dad comes home with the amazing Ultra-Glide, and the Watsons set out on a trip like no other. Heading South, they're going to Birmingham, Alabama, and toward one of the darkest moments in America's history.

By turns comic, tragic, and touching, this remarkable Newbery Honor work,...

Sixteen-year-old Keysha Kendall is a judge's signature away from foster care when she's sent to live with the father she never knew. Suddenly she has her own room in his big fancy house, a high-powered stepmother and a popular half brother who can introduce her to all the right people at her new school.

But Keysha can't forget where she came from. And she won't let anyone else, either. Why should her father and his perfect family have it so easy when she and her mother had it so hard? And so Keysha hooks up with a rough crowd and does "whatever" she wantsuntil what she wants changes...

From the author's note that takes us back to McKissack's own childhood when she would listen to stories told on her front porch... to the captivating introductions to each tale, in which the storyteller introduces himself and sets the stage for what follows... to the ten entertaining tales themselves, here is a worthy successor to McKissack's The Dark Thirty. In "The Best Lie Ever...

When the Civil War began, Obi knew it was time to run -- or be sold again. If he was caught, he'd be killed...or worse. But if he stayed, he might never know freedom.