Yuma Public Library

By following the directions in a song, "The Drinking Gourd," taught them by an old sailor named Peg Leg Joe, runaway slaves journey north along the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada.

Written by American author and dedicated abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, "Uncle Toms Cabin" is a poignant novel which shows the harsh reality of a slaves life in the 1800s. Uncle Tom, an African-American slave who believes in the power of Christian faith. The book would be a major contributor to the Civil War because its compelling portrayal of slaves as fellow human beings left little room for compromise: if slaves were indeed...

Eleven-year-old Elijah lives in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves near the American border. Elijah's the firs child in town to be born free, and he ought to be famous just for that-not to mention for being the best at chunking rocks and catching fish. unfortunately, all that most people see is a "fra-gile" boy who's scared of snakes and tends to talk too much. But everything changes when a fromer slave steals money from Elijah's friend,...

With Harriet Tubman as her guide, Cassie retraces the steps escaping slaves took on the Underground Railroad in order to reunite with her younger brother.

In 1855 two thirteen-year-old girls, one white and one black, run away from a southern farm and make the difficult journey north to freedom, living to recount their story forty-one years later to two similar young girls.

A young Navajo girl recounts the events of 1864 when her tribe was forced to march to Fort Sumner as prisoners of the white soldiers.

Called "the veriest trash" by a member of the Concord, Massachusetts Library Board that banned the novel when it was first published, Huckleberry Finn has come to be viewed, as H.L. Mencken put it, as "one of the great masterpieces of the world." Ernest Hemingway wrote that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." A daringly ironic...

In 1864 twelve-year-old former slave Charlotte is lucky enough to live on a plantation near Richmond, Virginia, owned by a Miss Van Lew, who hates slavery, and when Charlotte overhears a conversation she realizes that her mistress is gathering information and passing it on to the Union army; Charlotte is eager to help, (especially since her own cousin, Mary, is involved) but her enthusiasm may endanger them all--or help free 400 Union soldiers who...

In this retelling of an episode from Uncle Tom's Cabin, the slave Eliza Harris resolves to escape with her two-year-old son across the frozen Ohio River to prevent her master from selling the boy. Includes historical notes on Harriet Beecher Stowe, slavery in America, the Fugitive slave laws, and the Underground Railroad.

In 1864, after her father and brother are sold to another owner, nine-year-old Addy Walker and her mother escape from their cruel life of slavery in North Carolina to freedom in Philadelphia.