Her family, Love, characterizes her comfortable, secure world in Bradford Corners, TN. Until Uncle Pace is murdered by the KKK. The Author gradually exposes the prejudice & segregation existing even though slavery has been abolished over 50 years. All discover, how whites live on one side of the only road, & Colored live on the other. We recognize the fear in the adults' faces when the sheriff warns against reading NAACP materials. & while Nellie's father & uncle attempt to find the only Colored doctor in 2 counties - who's far away delivering twins Nellie & her sister Erma Jean watch Uncle Pace's life slip away. With his death, Erma Jean's voice abandons her. In order to find better treatment for his daughter, Mr. Love & Erma Jean leave for Chicago. Soon, Nellie Lee & her mom join them.Life in Chicago even with less apparent segregation - isn't the promised land her family hoped. However, all that sustained the family in TN hold them together there. Home, once a large 2-story with trees, becomes a 2 room with a shared toilet. Religion, becomes Nellie & Erma's deliverance. Underneath the refined exterior, Chicago is a city of secrets. Mr. Love finds that bribery opens or shuts doors as he struggles with his business. Lake Michigan, a refuge for summer days, ignites racial rioting. The family watch in horror as a friend drowns while white's hurl rocks at Colored swimmers trying to rescue him. For over 2 weeks, all are held hostage & rioting consumes the streets: 38 dead, 100's injured, De facto segregation becomes more firmly rooted there. Mos later, Nellie reflects on her family's time there. The lynchings, rioting. James Weldon Johnson called 1919 the Red Summer - so much blood spilled. they survived battered & torn, but standing." Her diary ends New Year's Eve, 1919 with a summary

    In the diary account of her journey from Ireland in 1847 and of her work in a mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, fourteen-year-old Mary reveals a great longing for her family.

    I call myself Lucy now. I cannot hate California and be California. I know you will understand.California doesn't suit Lucy Whipple -- not the name, not the place. But moving out West to Lucky Diggins, California, was her mama's dream-come-true. And now her brother, Butte, and sisters, Prairie and Sierra, seem to be Westerners at heart, too. For Lucy, Lucky Diggins is hardly a town at all -- just a bunch of ramshackle tents and tobacco-spitting miners. Even the gold her mama claimed was just lying around in the fields isn't panning out. Worst of all, there's no lending library! Dag diggety!So Lucy vows to be plain miserable until she can hightail it back East where she belongs. But Lucy California Morning Whipple may be in for a surprise -- because home is a lot closer than she thinks... When California Morning Whipple's widowed mother uproots her family from their comfortable Massachusetts environs and moves them to a rough mining camp called Lucky Diggins in the Sierras, California Morning resents the upheaval. Desperately wanting to control something in her own life, she decides to be called Lucy, and as Lucy she grows and changes in her strange and challenging new environment. Here Karen Cushman helps the American Gold Rush spring to colorful life, just as she did for medieval England in her previous two books, Catherine, Called Birdy and The Midwife's Apprentice, which won Newbery Honor status and a Newbery Medal respectively.

    She finds life within the palace gates is not as full of ease and elegance as she had imagined. Faced with a test of conscience, Cecile shows that behaving in a noble matter has little to do with one's place at birth.

    The fate of entire platoons rests on her keen sense of smell. She's a Big Deal, and she likes it that way. Sometimes Cracker remembers when she was younger, and her previous owner would feed her hot dogs and let her sleep in his bed. That was nice, too. Rick Hanski is headed to Vietnam. There, he's going to whip the world and prove to his family and his sergeant -- and everyone else who didn't think he was cut out for war -- wrong. But sometimes Rick can't help but wonder that maybe everyone else is right. Maybe he should have just stayed at home and worked in his dad's hardware store. When Cracker is paired with Rick, she isn't so sure about this new owner. He's going to have to prove himself to her before she's going to prove herself to him. They need to be friends before they can be a team, and they have to be a team if they want to get home alive. Told in part through the uncanny point of view of a German shepherd, Cracker! is an action-packed glimpse into the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of a dog and her handler. It's an utterly unique powerhouse of a book by the Newbery Medal-winning author of Kira-Kira.

    Down near the docks, many have taken ill, and the fatalities are mounting. Now they include Polly, the serving girl at the Cook Coffeehouse. But fourteen-year-old Mattie Cook doesn't get a moment to mourn the passing of her childhood playmate. New customers have overrun her family's coffee shop, located far from the mosquito-infested river, and Mattie's concerns of fever are all but overshadowed by dreams of growing her family's small business into a thriving enterprise. But when the fever begins to strike closer to home, Mattie's struggle to build a new life must give way to a new fight—the fight to stay alive.

    A diary account of thirteen-year-old Anetka's life in Poland in 1896, immigration to America, marriage to a coal miner, widowhood, and happiness in finally finding her true love.

    But once Vesper and Brinnie arrive, they are plunged into a fierce struggle between rebel forces— and someone is out to kill the two of them! If anyone can triumph over those kind of odds, it's Vesper — one of Lloyd Alexander's most intrepid (and best-selling) heroines.

    Suddenly his mother is intent on climbing the social ladder; his grandmother isn't allowed to cook for the family anymore since they've hired a housekeeper; and his older brother, Ralph, who's always wanted to be a teacher has suddenly decided to go into business.

    Trapped in a strange land and stripped of their powers (Coren had been able to read the thoughts not only of humans, but also of animals and objects), the two must work together to overthrow the tyrannical Hevak, restore harmony to the country, and return home safely.

    Then Wise Child’s mother, Maeve, a black witch, reappears. In choosing between Maeve and Juniper, Wise Child discovers the extent of her supernatural powers—and her true loyalties.

    The lighter-skinned children have been promised a chance to escape into white society, but what does this mean for the children who look more like their mother? As each child grows up, their questions about slavery and freedom become tougher, calling into question the real meaning of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."Told in three parts from the points of view of three of Jefferson's slaves - Beverly, Madison, and a third boy close to the Hemings family - these engaging and poignant voices shed light on what life was like as one of Jefferson's invisible offspring.

    In a covered wagon containing all their possessions, they make their way across the drought-stricken Midwest to the lush green valleys of southern Missouri. The journey is long and not always easy, but at the end is the promise of a new home and a new life for the Wilders.Little House on Rocky Ridge is the first book in The Rose Years, an ongoing series about another spirited girl from America's most beloved pioneer family.

    Cloudy. Wind N.W. FreshMr.Lincoln has arrived at last in Washington.... In one week, he inherits the trouble of this great, unhappy country. In one week, the responsibility will be his--whether we come together again a Union,or fall entirely to pieces. And here we sit, in Delaware, on the border between North and South, half the state hauling slaves, half the state opposed to the practice....It is hard enough to hold a family together. Poor Mr. Lincoln. It is in his hands to hold a whole country together.... My hands are calloused and strong from rowing and working the ropes, from lifting and carrying barrels of oil and scrubbing stone floors and spiral stairs, but I do not know if they are strong enough to hold Mother and Father together.Mr. Lincoln's hands... they must be a thousand times stronger than mine. Please God, give Mr. Lincoln strong hands.

    But this year she will be mysteriously transported into the past. Only she knows the horrors that await.