"Belmont Plantation, Virginia, 1859"--Cover.

In the slave quarters of Virginia's cotton plantations, people pray for freedom. Everybody's mind is on freedom. But when will it come?

When John Price took a chance at freedom by crossing the frozen Ohio river from Kentucky into Ohio one January night in 1856, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was fully enforced in every state of the union. But the townspeople of Oberlin, Ohio, believed there that all people deserved to be free, so Price started a new life in town-until a crew of slave-catchers arrived and apprehended him. When the residents of Oberlin heard of his capture, many of them banded together to demand his release in a dramatic showdown that risked their own freedom. Paired for the first time, highly acclaimed authors Dennis & Judith Fradin and Pura Belpré award-winning illustrator Eric Velasquez, provide readers with an inspiring tale of how one man's journey to freedom helped spark an abolitionist movement.

In 1865, members of a family start their day as slaves, working in a Texas cotton field, and end it celebrating their freedom on what came to be known as Juneteenth.

"Picture Freedom provides a unique and nuanced interpretation of nineteenth-century African American life and culture. Focusing on visuality, print culture, and an examination of the parlor, Cobb has fashioned a book like none other, convincingly demonstrating how whites and blacks reimagined racial identity and belonging in the early republic."--Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City

Coretta Scott King Award winner and Newbery Honor author Patricia McKissack's inspiring A PICTURE OF FREEDOM is now back in print with a gorgeous new cover!It's 1859 and Clotee, a twelve-year-old slave, has the most wonderful, terrible secret. She knows that if she shares it with the wrong person, she will face unimaginable consequences. What is her secret? While doing her job of fanning her master's son during his daily lessons, Clotee has taught herself to read and write. However, she soon learns that the tutor, Ely Harms, has a secret of his own.In a time when literacy is one of the most valuable skills to have, Clotee is determined to use her secret to save herself, and her family.

Newbery Honor Book Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book Using original slave auction and plantation estate documents, Ashley Bryan offers a moving and powerful picture book that contrasts the monetary value of a person with the priceless value of life experiences and dreams that a slave owner could never take away. Imagine being looked up and down and being valued as less than chair. Less than an ox. Less than a dress. Maybe about the same as…a lantern. This gentle yet deeply powerful way goes to the heart of how a slave is given a monetary value by the slave owner, tempering this with the one thing that can’t be bought or sold: dreams. Inspired by the actual will of a plantation owner that lists the worth of each and every one of his “workers,” the author has created collages around that document, and others like it. Through fierce paintings and expansive poetry, he imagines and interprets each person’s life on the plantation, as well as the life their owner knew nothing about—their dreams and pride in knowing that they were worth far more than an overseer or madam ever would guess. Visually epic, and never before done, this stunning picture book is unlike anything you’ve seen.