The adventures of a boy and a runaway slave as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft.

March, 1850. In the tense days before the Civil War, a slave breakout in the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore sets loose a riveting drama of violence, hope, and redemption among slave catchers, plantation owners, watermen, runaway slaves, and free blacks. Liz Spocott, a beautiful runaway slave, shot and near death, is wracked by disturbing visions of the future as she lies shackled to an old woman in the prison attic of the notorious...

"It is 1864 and Eliza Spooner's husband Will has joined the Kansas volunteers to fight the Confederates, leaving her with their two children and in charge of their home and land. Eliza is confident that he will return home, and she helps pass the months making a special quilt to keep Will warm during his winter months in the army. When the unthinkable happens, she takes in a a woman and child who have been left alone and made vulnerable by the war,...

"Traveling along the path of the Underground Railroad from Virginia to Michigan, from the Indigenous nations around the Great Lakes, to the Black refugee communities of Canada, In the Upper Country weaves together unlikely stories of love, survival, and familial upheaval that map the interconnected history of the peoples of North America in an entirely new and resonant way"--

"Based on the true story of Henry "Box" Brown's amazing escape from slavery, a gripping tale about the lengths to which people will go in seeking freedom brings to light one of the heroes of the Underground Railroad"--

Ohio, present day. A refugee struggling to rebuild her life in America after the devastating Haitian earthquake is suddenly inexplicably bound to a mysterious old woman who is not at all what she seems. Haiti, 1791, on the brink of revolution. When the slave Abigail is forced from her children to take her mistress to safety, she discovers New Orleans has its own powers. New Orleans, 1857. Following tragedy, house girl Margot is sold just before her...

A Virginia family must come to terms with their slave-owning past as the Civil War approaches and an abolitionist visits their plantation, throwing it into turmoil before compelling the family to move West.

Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that flank it, but then again, the smaller structures are better positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond. And they provide more privacy, which...

On a moonless night in the spring of 1851, a young slave makes a bid for freedom with only the North Star to guide him. Novelist and historian Robert Morgan brings to full and vivid life the story of a runaway slave named Jonah Williams, who, on his eighteenth birthday, flees the South Carolina plantation on which he was born with only a few saved coins, a knife, and the clothes on his back. No shoes, no map, no clear idea of where to head, except...

"From Percival Everett--a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards--comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...