Winner of the 1999 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction
A CBC Notable Children's Book in the Field of Social Studies
Two recently freed, formerly enslaved brothers work to protect the new
life they've built during the Reconstruction after the Civil War in this
vibrant, illustrated middle grade novel.
Maybe nobody gave freedom, and nobody could take it away like they
could take away a family farm. Maybe freedom was something you claimed
for yourself.
Like other ex-slaves, Pascal and his older brother Gideon have been
promised forty acres and maybe a mule. With the found family they have
built along the way, they claim a place of their own.
Green Gloryland is the most wonderful place on earth, their own farm
with a healthy cotton crop and plenty to eat. But the notorious night
riders have plans to take it away, threatening to tear the beautiful
freedom that the two boys are enjoying for the first time in their young
lives.