In the tradition of Copper Sun and Chains, this is the stirring
tale of a girl's journey from Africa to freedom and from youth to
womanhood, as recounted in this dazzling debut novel.
Ayanna Bahati lives in a small African village when she is brutally
kidnapped, along with her brother, and forced onto a slave ship to
America. As Ayanna, renamed Anna, rises from the cotton fields to the
master's house, she finds the familial love she's been yearning for in
elderly Mary and Mary's son Daniel--but she is also faced with more
threats to her survival.
Risking everything to escape the plantation, Anna manages to make it
north and to freedom, eventually settling in the free black community of
Hudson, Ohio, and educating herself to become a teacher.