Central Kansas Library System

A documentary novel of the life and work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem bookseller

"You can't walk straight on a crooked line. You do you'll break your leg. How can you walk straight in a crooked system?"

Lewis Michaux was born to do things his own way. When a white banker told him to sell fried chicken, not books, because "Negroes don't read," Lewis took five books and one hundred dollars and built a bookstore. It soon became the intellectual center

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This is the story of one family whose history saw slavery at its very rawness. It is a story of pride, determination, struggle and hope. And of the piece of land that holds them together through it all

A free thirteen-year-old black girl in Connecticut is caught up in the horror of the Revolutionary War and the danger of being returned to slavery when her patriot father is killed by the British and her mother disappears.

Rooted in the history of the only secessionist town north of the Mason Dixon Line, Daren Wang's The Hidden Light of Northern Fires tells a story of redemption amidst a war that tore families and the country apart. Mary Willis has always been an outcast, an abolitionist in a town of bounty hunters and anti-Union farmers. After college, she dreams of exploring the country, but is obligated to take over the household duties and management of her family's...

"Yes, the morning breeze was a false friend. For one little girl named Goddie, the August breeze of 1945 would never feel the same again." In Robert Picart's debut novel Goddie, we read the story of Goddie, a young girl born in the mid-1900s in the picturesque Blue Mountains of Jamaica. With the sudden loss of both parents, Goddie finds herself indentured to strangers in order to pay for school. Heartbroken, weary, and alone, she forms a plan to...

"When a man arrives at the Bleecker Street Inquiry Agency, anxious to hire them to find a missing heiress, Eunice Holbrooke realizes her past has finally caught up with her... and that she may no longer be able to hide under the disguise that has kept her safe for so long. Arthur Livingston's goal in life is to make his mark on the world as a mining industrialist, but after the man who could help him achieve his goal is murdered, Arthur feels compelled...

While America was expanding westward, Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Indians signed a treaty with the United States that placed them on a reservation. In this thrilling script, the U.S. cavalry pursues resisting Nez Perce tribe members until a battle ensues at Bear Paw Mountain. This script features roles written to match different reading levels, supporting differentiation and English language learner strategies. By utilizing differentiation strategies,...

Little Bighorn is the beautifully written, uniquely American story of the coming-of-age of eighteen-year-old Allen Winslow during the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the fraught weeks immediately preceding it. The novel abounds with memorable characters, including Allen himself, his beautiful sixteen-year-old traveling companion, Addie, and the brave but monomaniacal Gen. George Armstrong Custer. Hough brings to life the American West and heartbreaking...

"Now that her sisters are both married, Felicity Courtney manages the Courtney Boardinghouse alone. After nearly collapsing from exhaustion while caring for an invalid man and his wife who are staying at the boardinghouse, Felicity posts an advertisement for a hired hand. Philip Berg, a prince in disguise, is hiding in Fairplay while attempting to stay one step ahead of an assassin. When the spirited Felicity Courtney tacks up a notice that she is...

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872—1906) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet during the turn of the 20th century. Born to ex-slave parents, Dunbar began writing at a very early age and had even published his first poems by the age of 16 in a local newspaper. Much of his work was written in the "African-American Vernacular" associated with the antebellum South, although he also employed conventional English in his novels and poems. Dunbar...