Shelley Pearsall

Samuel, an eleven-year-old Kentucky slave, and Harrison, the elderly slave who helped raise him, attempt to escape to Canada via the Underground Railroad. Eleven-year-old Samuel was born as Master Hackler's slave, and working the Kentucky farm is the only life he's ever known, until one dark night in 1859, that is. With no warning, cranky old Harrison, a fellow slave, pulls Samuel from his bed and, together, they run. The journey north seems much...

The year is 1812. A white trapper is murdered. And a young Chippewa Indian stands accused.
Captured and shackled in leg irons and chains, Indian John awaits his trial in a settler’s loft. In a world of crude frontier justice where evidence is often overlooked in favor of vengeance, he struggles to make sense of the white man’s court. His young lawyer faces the wrath of a settlement hungry to see the Indian hang. And 13-year-old Rebecca...

April is looking for an escape from the sixth-grade lunch hour, which has become a social-scene nightmare, so she signs up to be a "buddy bench monitor" for the fourth graders' recess. Joey Byrd is a boy on the fringes, who wanders the playground alone, dragging his foot through the dirt. But over time, April realizes that Joey isn't just making random circles. When you look at his designs from above, a story emerges... Joey's "bird's eye" drawings...

Five urban middle school students, their teacher, and other community members relate how a school project to build the world's largest tetrahedron affects the lives of everyone involved.