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Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking,...
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Mark Twain's tale of a boy's picaresque journey down the Mississippi on a raft conveyed the voice and experience of the American frontier as no other work had done before. When Huck escapes from his drunken father and the 'sivilizing' Widow Douglas with the runaway slave Jim, he embarks on a series of adventures that draw him to feuding families and the trickery of the unscrupulous 'Duke' and 'Dauphin'. Beneath the exploits, however, are more serious...
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From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, Deacon King Kong, Five-Carat Soul, and Kill 'Em and Leave, a James Brown biography.
In the days before the Civil War, a runaway slave named Liz Spocott breaks free from her captors and escapes into the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore, setting loose a drama...
In the days before the Civil War, a runaway slave named Liz Spocott breaks free from her captors and escapes into the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore, setting loose a drama...
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English
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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...
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In the fall of 1863, the Union army is in control of the Mississippi River. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is retreating toward Texas, and being replaced by Red Legs, irregulars commanded by a maniacal figure, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with...
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"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...
7) Remembrance
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English
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"For centuries, there have been rumors, whispers in the fields and behind sheets of laundry. Remembrance - a place of sanctuary of freedom - and perhaps magic. If you could make it there. Now, three women, separated by time and oceans, but alike in desperation, seek its refuge. 1791, Haiti: The island is on the brink of revolution, and Abigail is forced to flee with her mistress, leaving her children behind. 1857, New Orleans: Promised her freedom...
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Called the greatest American novel
Huckleberry Finn follows a boy and a runaway slave as they make their way down the Mississippi. In a world filled with con men and slaves, Huck and Jim have only each other to rely on. Mark Twain blends brilliant satire and social commentary with breathtaking adventure, told in Huck's own wry, observant words. Beautifully illustrated, this classic, comic graphic novel captures the imagination of readers
...Author
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
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"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"--
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Series
Elm Creek Quilts volume 4
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English
Description
When Sylvia Compson discovers evidence of her ancestors' involvement with the Underground Railroad, it raises the historical issue of the use of quilts as a method of signalling fugitive slaves.
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English
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"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,...
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"Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage--and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child--but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river, but is saved from the depths by a force he doesn't understand, a blue light that lifts him up and lands him a mile away. This strange brush with death forces a new urgency on Hiram's private rebellion. Spurred on by his improvised plantation...
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"Already excerpted in the New Yorker, Black Cloud Rising is a compelling and important historical novel that takes us back to an extraordinary moment when enslaved men and women were shedding their bonds and embracing freedom By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia, and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways flooded the Union lines, but...
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The classic story of a boy who makes his own rules and the small Missouri town where he and his friends experience the adventures of a lifetime. Filled with schoolyard pranks, buried treasures, spooky caves, secret gangs, and grave robbers, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is entertainment of the highest order. The clever schemes of its eponymous hero--from tricking his friends into completing his chores to sneaking into his own funeral--are the stuff...
16) Finn: a novel
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English
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Description
It was more than a century ago that Mark Twain left the notoriously violent Finn, Huckleberry Finn's father, dead, surrounded by such oddities as a wooden leg and women's undergarments. But just exactly how did Finn end up in that room? Clinch takes us on a journey through the mysterious life of an unusual man. Along the way, he introduces us to characters like the Judge--Finn's own frightening father--as well as Finn's sickly brother Will, the hermit...
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English
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"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 in a stunning new work of historical fiction from bestselling novelist and historian Robert Morgan. In Chasing the North Star, 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,...
Author
Publisher
Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Pub. Date
[2015]
Language
English
Description
This novel is set in 1855, when Blackface minstrelsy is the most popular form of entertainment in a nation about to be torn apart by the battle over slavery. Henry Sims, a fugitive slave and a brilliant musician, has escaped to Philadelphia. He befriends James Douglass, leader of the Virginia Harmonists, a minstrel troup. A Free State is both a riveting chase novel and a searing parable of liberty and its costs. Charged with narrative tension and...
19) Soul catcher
Author
Publisher
William Morrow
Pub. Date
c2007
Language
English
Description
Augustus Cain faces a past he wants to forget, a present without prospect or fortune, and an uncertain future marred by the loss of his most prized possession: the horse that has been his working companion for years. He is also a man haunted by a terrible skill-the ability to track people who don't want to be found.
Rosetta is a runaway slave fueled by the passion and determination only a mother can feel. She bears the scars-inside and out-of a...
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English
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Description
In 1839, Emily's husband vanishes from an isolated island off the coast of Key West where he tends to the lighthouse. Emily takes charge of the lighthouse to support her three children. But unexpected help arrives when a runaway slave washes up on their beach.
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