Kirjahaku

Rediscover America's most honored writer of children's literature in this deluxe collector's edition of her finest work: five classic novels about African American young people confronting the world and its many challenges Playing out themes of memory, folklore, and tradition in enthralling, often wildly inventive stories, Virginia Hamilton transformed American children's literature in the 1960s and 70s. Her award-winning novels brought Black characters center stage, creating a multifaceted portrait of African American life that she called "liberation literature." This volume collects five of her best known and most beloved works. In Zeely (1967), Geeder Perry and her brother, Toeboy, go to their uncle's farm for the summer and encounter a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Watusi queen and a mysterious night traveler. In the Edgar Award-winning The House of Dies Drear (1968), Thomas Small and his family move to a forbidding former waystation on the Underground Railroad--a house whose secrets Thomas must discover before it's too late. Junior Brown, a three-hundred-pound musical prodigy, plays a silent piano in The Planet of Junior Brown (1971), while his homeless friend Buddy Clark draws on all his New York City wit to protect Junior's disintegrating mind. In the National Book Award-winning M.C. Higgins, The Great (1974), Mayo Cornelius Higgins sits atop a forty-foot pole on the side of Sarah's Mountain and dreams of escape. Poised above his family's home is a massive spoil heap from strip-mining that could come crashing down at any moment. Can he rescue his family and save his own future? Must he choose? And in Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (1982), fifteen-year-old Tree's life revolves around her ailing brother, Dab, until she sees cool, handsome Brother Rush, an enigmatic figure who may hold the key to unlocking her family's troubled past. This Library of America edition contains twenty beautifully restored illustrations, ten in full color for the first time; a selection of writings in which Hamilton discusses her work; and a newly researched chronology of Hamilton's life and career.

Through the words of the storyteller and their own imagination, a group of slaves dreams that they have the ability to fly back to their native land where a life of freedom and dignity await them amidst the people they know and love.

National Book Award Finalist * Newbery Honor Book * Coretta Scott King Award WinnerThis towering classic from the esteemed author Virginia Hamilton "is like a thoughtfully designed African American quilt. It is finely stitched, tightly constructed, and rooted in cultural authenticity."*Why had Brother Rush come to her, with his dark secrets from a long-ago past? What was the purpose of their strange, haunting journeys back into her own childhood?Was it to help Dab, her older brother, who sometimes took more care and love than Tree had to give? Was it for her mother, M'Vy, who loved them the best she knew how but wasn't home enough to ease the terrible longing?Whatever secrets Brother Rush's whispered message held, Tree knew she must follow. She must follow Brother Rush through the magic mirror, and find out the truth. About all of them.Katherine Paterson, reviewing this powerful novel in The New York Times, commented: "Just read the first page, just the first paragraph, of Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush. Then stop--if you can. The last time a first paragraph chilled my spine like this one, I was sixteen years old, hunched over a copy of Rebecca."*Geraldine Wilson in Interracial Books for Children Bulletin

A collection of twenty-five African-American folktales focuses on strong female characters and includes "Little Girl and Bruh Rabby," "Catskinella," and "Annie Christmas." By the author of The People Could Fly.

Now in Laurel-Leaf, Virginia Hamilton's powerful true account of the sensational trial of a fugitive slave.The year is 1854, and Anthony Burns, a 20-year-old Virginia slave, has escaped to Boston. But according to the Fugitive Slave Act, a runaway can be captured in any free state, and Anthony is soon imprisoned. The antislavery forces in Massachusetts are outraged, but the federal government backs the Fugitive Slave Act, sparking riots in Boston and fueling the Abolitionist movement.Written with all the novelistic skill that has won her every major award in children's literature, Virginia Hamilton's important work of nonfiction puts young readers into the mind of Burns himself.

"The well-known author retells 24 black American folk tales in sure storytelling voice: animal tales, supernatural tales, fanciful and cautionary tales, and slave tales of freedom. All are beautifully readable. With the added attraction of 40 wonderfully expressive paintings by the Dillons, this collection should be snapped up."--(starred) School Library Journal.

Discover this transcendent middle grade masterpiece about a young black boy whose quiet rural live in the Appalachian Mountains begins to change--winner of the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Mayo Cornelius Higgins sits on his gleaming, forty-foot steel pole, towering over his home on Sarah's Mountain. Stretched before him are rolling hills and shady valleys. But behind him lie the wounds of strip mining, including a mountain of rubble that may one day fall and bury his home. M.C. dreams of escape for himself and his family. And, one day, atop his pole, he thinks he sees it--two strangers are making their way toward Sarah's Mountain. One has the ability to make M.C.'s mother famous. And the other has the kind of freedom that M.C. has never even considered.

A family tries to unravel the secrets of their new home which was once a stop on the Underground Railroad in this Edgar Award-winning book from Virginia Hamilton. The house held secrets, Thomas knew, even before he first saw it looming gray and massive on its ledge of rock. It had a century-old legend--two fugitive slaves had been killed by bounty hunters after leaving its passageways, and Dies Drear himself, the abolitionist who had made the house into a station on the Underground Railroad, had been murdered there. The ghosts of the three were said to walk its rooms...

As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M.C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love. A Newbery Medal Winner & ALA Notable Children's Book. Reissue.

Already a leader in New York's underground world of homeless children, Buddy Clark takes on the responsibility of protecting the overweight, emotionally disturbed friend with whom he has been playing hooky from eighth grade all semester. A Newbery Honor Book & ALA Notable Book. Reissue.

With this special collector's edition, featuring a deluxe faux-leather embossed cover, celebrate the legacy of the transcendent middle grade masterpiece about a young Black boy whose quiet rural live in the Appalachian Mountains begins to change--winner of the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Mayo Cornelius Higgins sits on his gleaming, forty-foot steel pole, towering over his home on Sarah's Mountain. Stretched before him are rolling hills and shady valleys. But behind him lie the wounds of strip mining, including a mountain of rubble that may one day fall and bury his home. M.C. dreams of escape for himself and his family. And, one day, atop his pole, he thinks he sees it--two strangers are making their way toward Sarah's Mountain. One can make M.C.'s mother famous. And the other has the kind of freedom that M.C. has never even considered.