Imagine being looked up and down and being valued as less than a chair. Less than an ox. Less than a dress. Maybe about the same as... a lantern. You, an object. An object to sell. Ashley Bryan goes to the heart of how a slave is given a monetary value by the slave owner, tempering this with the one thing that CAN'T be bought or sold -- dreams. Inspired by the actual will of a plantation owner that lists the worth of each and every one of his "workers",...

"This is a story about America and the shaping of its democratic values during the Reconstruction era, one of our country's most pivotal and misunderstood chapters. In this stirring account of the Civil War, emancipation, and the struggle for rights and reunion that followed, one of the premier US scholars delivers a book that is as illuminating as it is timely. Real-life accounts of heroism, grit, betrayal, and bravery drive this book's narrative,...

A white child sees a TV news report of a white police officer shooting and killing a black man. "In our family, we don't see color," his mother says, but he sees the colors plain enough. An afternoon in the library's history stacks uncover the truth of white supremacy in America. Racism was not his idea and he refuses to defend it. "A necessary children's book about whiteness, white supremacy, and resistance. Important, accessible, needed." --

Philly native Roberta Forest is a precocious rebel with the soul of a poet. The thirteen-year-old is young, gifted, black, and Catholic--although shes uncertain about the Catholic part after she calls Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite for enslaving people and her nun responds with a racist insult. Their ensuing fight makes Roberta question God and the important adults in her life, all of whom seem to see truth as gray when Roberta believes its black or...

In 1964 Detroit, nine-year-old Melody pursues her singing dreams until a tragic event in Birmingham, Alabama, shakes her confidence.