Walter Dean Myers

Examines the events and people that have shaped America, providing portraits of figures such as Chief Tecumseh, President Abraham Lincoln, and musician Jimi Hendrix, and featuring lyrical, free-verse poetic text.

Frederick Douglass was a self-educated slave in the South who grew up to become an icon. He was a leader of the abolitionist movement, a celebrated writer, an esteemed speaker, and a social reformer, proving that, as he said, "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."

A poem celebrating the people, sights, and sounds of Harlem.

Teenager Biddy Owens' 1948 journal about working for the Birmingham Black Barons includes the games and the players, racism the team faces from New Orleans to Chicago, and his family's resistance to his becoming a professional baseball player. Includes a historical note about the evolution of the Negro Leagues.

Five monkeys go in search of the easy life, but find that "easy ain't always good" and "a little work ain't always bad."

Biography of the African princess saved from execution and taken to England where Queen Victoria oversaw her upbringing and where she lived for a time before marrying an African missionary.

Traces the 1839 revolt of Africans against their Spanish captors aboard the slave ship Amistad, their landing in the United States and arrest for piracy and murder, and trials which ended in their acquittal by the Supreme Court.