Four children witness a confrontation between an elderly African-American man and a white storekeeper in rural Mississippi in the 1930s.

The author uses repetitive word play to tell the story of an African American boy who loses and then recovers his dog while sledding in the snow.

Mama Marina, a slave woman and conjurer in the Old South, casts a spell on her master's grapes as part of her plan to win freedom for her daughter Sheba and the man Sheba loves.

Harriet Hemings, rumored to be the daughter of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one of his black slaves, struggles with the problems facing her--to escape from the velvet cage that is Monticello, or to stay, and thus remain a slave.

A young slave tries to hide the horrors of slavery from his younger cousin, a light-skinned slave who is the daughter of the plantation owner.