Ocean State Libraries

Winner of the 1971 Coretta Scott King Book Award.

"A black child's dreams are filled with the images of the people and places of Africa." --

Five traditional Nigerian folktales retold by Ashley Bryan.

Four black children growing up in rural Mississippi during the Depression experience racial antagonisms and hard times, but learn from their parents the pride and self-respect they need to survive.

Fourteen-year-old Tree, resentful of her working mother who leaves her in charge of a retarded brother, encounters the ghost of her dead uncle and comes to a deeper understanding of her family's problems.

Everett Anderson has a difficult time coming to terms with his grief after his father dies.

Using scraps cut from the family's old clothing, Tanya helps her grandmother and mother make a beautiful quilt that tells the story of her family's life.

When Aunt Callie sends Cassie Logan and her brothers for medicine, the four children head nervously for the Wallace store despite their parents' warnings never to go there. And sure enough they find themselves bracing for trouble as they witness Mr. Tom Bee, an old black man, calling the white storekeeper by his first name. The year is 1933, the place Mississippi, and any child knows that certain things just aren't done. What follows is shocking and...

Mufaro's two beautiful daughters, one bad-tempered, one kind and sweet, go before the king, who is choosing a wife.