In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, which is a haven for slaves fleeing the American south, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom.

A fictionalized account of how in 1849 a Virginia slave, Henry "Box" Brown, escapes to freedom by shipping himself in a wooden crate from Richmond to Philadelphia.

The day nine-year-old Grace is called to work in the kitchen in the Big House, everyone warns her to to keep her head down and her thoughts to herself, but the more she sees of the oppressive Master and his hateful wife, the more she questions things until one day her thoughts escape--and to avoid being separated she and her family flee into the Dismal Swamp, to join the other escaped slaves who live there.

In the mid-1800s, a slave boy dreams of escaping to freedom while on a journey from Missouri to the gold fields of Kansas Territory with his master's n'er-do-well son.

In late 1862, young James of Murfreesboro is a proud Southerner who takes on the responsibility of providing for his newly widowed mother and younger sister by working for his neighbor alongside the field slave Eli--an experience that calls into question many of his cherished beliefs about slavery and the War.