Fort Morgan Public Library

The moving abolitionist novel that fueled the fire of the human rights debate in 1852 and melodramatically condemned the institution of slavery through such powerfully realized characters as Tom, Eliza, Topsy, Eva, and Simon Legree. First published more than 150 years ago, this monumental work is today being reexamined by critics, scholars, and students.

"An examination of American slavery through the true stories of five enslaved people who were considered the property of some of our best-known presidents"--

Twelve-year-old Colton, son of a black mother and a white father, takes a job with the Pony Express in 1860 after his father abandons the family on their California-bound wagon train, and risks his life to deliver an important letter that may affect the growing conflict between the North and South.

Stripped of the familiar myths surrounding him, [in this book, Jesse] James emerges a far more significant figure: ruthless, purposeful, intensely political; a man who, in the midst of his crimes and notoriety, made himself a spokesman for the renewal of the Confederate cause during the bitter decade that followed Appomattox ... account of his life, he emerges as far more complicated. Raised in a fiercely pro-slavery atmosphere in bitterly divided...

It is the early 1860s. Slavery is legal in the United States. Brave slaves try to escape to freedom along the secret "Underground Railroad," but they dont always make it. What would you do? Would you help and protect the slaves from the slave catchers or Would you follow the law?

"Oberlin, Ohio, 1868. Lisbeth Johnson was born into privilege in the antebellum South. Jordan Freedman was born a slave to Mattie, Lisbeth's beloved nurse. The women have an unlikely bond deeper than friendship. Three years after the Civil War, Lisbeth and Mattie are tending their homes and families while Jordan, an aspiring suffragette, teaches at an integrated school. When Lisbeth discovers that her father is dying, she's summoned back to the Virginia...

On the way to California with their kind new master, thirteen-year-old Jacob, his mother, and other slaves are caught up in adventures that include trying to stop a plot to help the South secede from the Union.

"Reconstructing the South studies the aftermath of the Civil War, discusses how racist laws kept former slaves in inferior positions compared with whites, and explores how the actions of people in the mid-1800s continue to impact African Americans today."--