Huck escapes from the lonely cabin in which his drunken, brutal father had imprisoned him; on Jackson's island he meets Jim, a runaway slave. Together they float down the Mississippi River on a raft, occasionally stopping at the banks. In these brief episodes Huck participates in the lives of others, witnessing corruption, moral decay, and intellectual impoverishment. He learns from Jim of the dignity and worth of a human being.

In 1963 in South Carolina, eleven-year-old twins Jez and Jay Turner begin lessons in rootwork, and their uncle's training offers them healing, protection, and a connection to their heritage even as they face threats from the local police deputy, school bullies, and others.

In 1950s Tennessee, ten-year-old David's racist father refuses to let him associate with his best friend Malcolm, an African American boy.

Biracial twin sisters--one who presents as black and the other as white--are determined to put the ghosts of the past to rest and to uncover the truth behind their parents' murders in the Jim Crow South. As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were separated after the lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress...

"After promising a town he'd find them water and then failing, Sullivan Harris is on the run; but he grows uneasy when one success makes folks ask him to find other things-like missing items or sons. When men are killed digging the Hawk's Nest Tunnel, Sully is compelled to help, and it becomes the catalyst for finding what even he has forgotten-hope"--

When an eleven-year-old boy takes over a friend's newspaper route in July, 1959, in Memphis, his debilitating stutter makes for a memorable month.

In 1958 Little Rock, Arkansas, painfully shy twelve-year-old Marlee sees her city and family divided over school integration, but her friendship with Liz, a new student, helps her find her voice and fight against racism.

A deep river pit in Natchez, Mississippi, reputed to be the hiding spot for Jean Lafitte's hidden treasure and a dumping ground for numerous murder victims, becomes the site of a dangerous showdown for Penn Cage.