Evelyn Coleman

In 1928, when her father tears her and her brother from their mother in North Carolina and takes them to live with aunts in Harlem, twelve-year-old Bessie is trapped in a strange place, especially after her father mysteriously disappears.

When her family moves to Philadelphia's Society Hill neighborhood in 1866, Addy discovers that her new home holds dangerous secrets--including one connected to the North Carolina plantation she had escaped from only two years earlier. Includes a brief overview of the experiences of African Americans during Reconstruction, the period immediately following the Civil War.

Eleven-year-old Cécile Rey searches through many corners of 1854 New Orleans seeking a necklace, borrowed from her Tante Tay, that disappeared as she was exiting a crowded showboat. Includes facts about the 1850s.