A young black boy learns the pain of humiliation and anger when his father is given an unjust jail sentence for stealing a ham from a white man. Learning to read and discovering that things do not die but become part of other things, brings the youngster new hope.

"Under the cover of night, twelve-year-old Homer flees Southerland Plantation with his little sister Ada, unwillingly leaving their beloved mother behind. Much as he adores her and fears for her life, Homer knows there's no turning back, not with the overseer on their trail. Through tangled vines, secret doorways, and over a sky bridge, the two find a secret community called Freewater, deep in the swamp. In this society created by formerly enslaved...

The life of the eighteenth-century African prince who, after being captured by slave traders, was brought to Massachusetts where he was a slave until he was able to buy his freedom at the age of sixty.

As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M. C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.

An African-American family living in Mississippi during the Depression of the 1930s is faced with prejudice and discrimination which its children do not understand.