Jewell Parker Rhodes

Ten-year-old Sugar lives on the River Road sugar plantation along the banks of the Mississippi. Slavery is over, but laboring in the fields all day doesn't make her feel very free. Thankfully, Sugar has a knack for finding her own fun, especially when she joins forces with forbidden friend Billy, the white plantation owner's son. Sugar has always yearned to learn more about the world, and she sees her chance when Chinese workers are brought in to...

Visiting her grandmother in the Louisiana bayou, ten-year-old Maddy begins to realize that she may be the only sibling to carry on the gift of her family's magical legacy.

Fifth-grader Deja lives with her family in a shelter in New York City. When her teacher gives her class assignments related to the attacks on the Twin Towers, Deja wonders why she should care so much about something that happened before she was even born. But as she investigates 9/11, she learns things about her friends and her family she never imagined.

Bronx middle-grader Addy, who struggles with a family tragedy by drawing maps and studying mazes, joins other city youngsters on a wilderness adventure in California that turns deadly when wildfires erupt.

"Ranging from late nineteenth-century writers such as Charles Chesnutt to contemporary authors such as Walter Mosley, the works in The African American West demonstrate how the West, as seen through the eyes of African Americans, has evolved over the last century. Glasrud, a historian, and Champion, a literary scholar, combine their varying areas of expertise in The African American West, and their introductions to each part of the book provide both...