Set before the Civil War, in the first half of the nineteenth century, this novel of Mark Twain's delves into the ironies of racial prejudice. A young would-be lawyer, Wilson, sets out to solve a murder using the (at that time) unproven method of fingerprinting. Thought to be a simpleton or 'puddenhead', he eventually makes his critics look like puddenheads themselves. The main focus of the novel, however, deals with the identities of two young...

A novel in the guise of the tape-recorded recollections of a black woman who lived 110 years, who has been both a slave and a witness to the black militancy of the 1960's.

"A girl named Ruth Anne tells the story of her family's train journey from North Carolina to New York City as part of the Great Migration"--

Twelve-year-old Patsy keeps a diary of the ripe, but confusing time, following the end of the Civil War and the granting of freedom to former slaves.

"A child reflects on the meaning of being Black in this anthem about a people, a culture, a history, and a legacy that lives on"--

When Kofi's father, an Ashanti chief, is killed, Kofi is sold as a slave and ends up in Massachusetts, where his fate is in the hands of Paul Cuffe, an African American shipbuilder who works to return slaves to their homeland in Africa.

"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath...