In 1870, Reconstruction brings big changes to the Louisiana sugar plantation where spunky ten-year-old Sugar has always lived, including her friendship with Billy, the son of her former master, and the arrival of workmen from China.

"Ophelia Harrison used to live in a small house in the Georgia countryside. But that was before the night in November 1922, and the cruel act that took her home and her father from her. Which was the same night that Ophie learned she can see ghosts. Now Ophie and her mother are living in Pittsburgh with relatives they barely know. In the hopes of earning enough money to get their own place, Mama has gotten Ophie a job as a maid in the same old manor...

A young black girl living in New York City in the late eighteenth century observes the historic events taking place around her and at the same time solves the mystery of her own identity.

"As a little boy, Jalani loves playing with his imaginary friends in the forest near his home in Africa. One day, a stranger takes Jalani from the forest and sends him to America on a big boat. Jalani is covered in locks and chains, forced to work all day and never to play again. After many years, Jalani and the other slaves are freed. Jalani decides to keep the lock and key so his family would never forget where they came from. Inspired by true events,...

When the sixteen-year-old boy whom she tutors in reading is accused of attempting to murder a white man, Francie gets herself in serious trouble for her efforts at friendship.

After a day of picking cotton in late 1860, Ella May, a young slave, joins her friends Bobby and Sue at their second job of listening outside the windows of their master's house for useful information.

Twelve-year-old Elias is sent to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky to fight a case of consumption--and ends up fighting for the lives of a secret community of escaped slaves traveling along the Underground Railroad.

"It's 1935, and the Great Depression and California drought has left eleven-year-old Joseph McCoy shining shoes to help his family survive. Through his hard work and games with his sister, Joseph has figured out how to get by as one of the few black people in a mostly white community. But the order of the town is disrupted when an all-black Civilian Conservation Corps camp comes to Elsinore, sparking racial tension. It isn't long before prejudice...

During the Great Depression, Marshall, an African American boy, uses lessons learned in arithmetic class and guidance from his mother to figure out how many beans are in a jar in order to win her a new sewing machine in a contest.

When Dede sees a notice offering land for black people in Kansas, her family decides to quit sharecropping and become homesteading pioneers.