Melodye Rosales

Addy and her mother forgo their Christmas plans to help the newly freed slaves arriving in Philadelphia during the Civil War. Addy Walker is a proud, courageous girl growing up in 1864, during the midst of the Civil War. Addy's stories tell of her daring escape with her mother from slavery, and the challenges they face afterward as they try to reunite their family. But Addy's stories are about much more than hardship. They are full of the love and...

After their escape from North Carolina to Philadelphia in the summer of 1864, Addy and her mother begin their new life as free people as her mother gets a paying job and Addy goes to school and learns a lesson in true friendship.

As each of the five members of the Bean family tries to write a "roof" poem, they come to realize just how nice it is to be a Bean.

Hester Merriweather's grandmother gives her a handmade rag doll that proves to be very special indeed. Includes historical background on Chicago's African-American community during the 1930s.

Determined to be the strawbeater during the corn shucking party, Jess, a small young slave boy, wrestles a bigger, stronger boy for the honor.

On a North Carolina plantation, a young slave girl's Christmas is brightened by the Johnkankus parade she witnesses as she waits for her parents to come home.