Civil Rights

Its 1957, and Sylvia Patterson is shocked when she is asked to be one of the first black students to attend Central High School in Little Rock. Before Sylvia makes her final decision, smoldering racial tension ignites into flame, in this novel available just in time for the events 50th anniversary.

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Newbery Honor-winning poet Nelson offers an evocative tribute to a 14-year-old boy whose lynching in 1955 helps spark the civil rights movement. Full color.

It is 1969, and Ruba has just moved to Mississippi from Haiti to live with her grandmother. It isn't long before Ruba finds herself threatened by the KKK and drawn into the fight for civil rights. But a hurricane barreling toward the coast changes everything. Young Adult.

The National Book Award-winning author of "Dancing on the Edge" brings readers a bold new voice--by turns funny and poignant, innocent and worldly--in this powerful coming-of-age story set during the turbulent struggle for civil rights in the 1960s.

It's 1956, and ever since she and her mother rescued Angel Musseldorf from her abusive parents, Frankilee Baxter has been miserable. In addition to being more pretty, popular, and talented than Frankilee, Angel moves in, steals Frankilee's clothing, and begins dating the boy Frankilee likes. At the same time, Frankilee's community is struggling with the issue of school integration.

What keeps Frankilee going is her fantasy about Elvis Presley rescuing her from life in Clover, Texas. But this restless teenager is a realist and doesn't wait around for things to get worse. She devises a plan to get rid of Angel, begins a local Elvis fan club, and works to promote integration. What Frankilee doesn't bargain for is becoming involved in a burglary, an elaborate kidnapping scheme, and a shooting.

With humor and heart, "Dancing with Elvis" te

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In the tumultuous New Orleans of 1960, 13-year-old Louise Collins finds her world turned upside down when a stranger from the North arrives at her mother's boardinghouse. When the reason for the man's visit is called into question, everything Louise thinks she knows about her mother, her world, and herself will change.

Ho Che Anderson's long-awaited sequel to the graphic novel biography of the life and career of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ultimately traces the civil rights leader's life from his birth to assassination. Anderson's successful use of graphic novel to tell a major work of nonfiction has drawn favorable comparisons to works by Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco.

The stories of slaves who fled the South in search of freedom are some of the most riveting in American history. The fugitives usually left at night, with little or no food or money and only the light of the North Star to guide them. Gathered here are twelve stirring stories of escape, including those of Henry "Box" Brown, Ellen and William Craft, and Harriet Tubman, along with less well known but equally compelling accounts of Mary Prince, Eliza Harris, Margaret Garner, John Anderson, Solomon Northrup, and others. Accompanied by striking archival prints and photographs, these thought-provoking narratives vividly depict the horrors of slavery and the high value of freedom, and are a testimony to the tenacity of the human spirit. Bibliography, index.