Frank Carlson Library

Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, Northup published...

When Caroline Wimbley Levine returned to Tall Pines Plantation, she never expected to make peace with long-buried truths about herself and her family.

In 1862 eleven-year-old Summer and her thirteen-year-old brother Rosco take turns describing how life on the quiet Virginia plantation where they are slaves is affected by the Civil War.

The true story of Karen Blixen, a strong-willed woman who runs a coffee plantation in Kenya (British East Africa) in 1914, and her passionate love affair with a big-game hunter. An epic romance of love and loss.

As the country changes and shifts, everyone is challenged to do what it takes to walk toward freedom. Carrie and Janie battle fear and worry as Anthony and Matthew deal with the horror of a brutal massacre in Colfax, Louisiana. Moses takes Felicia and Frances to San Francisco, where Felicia makes a decision that will dictate the direction of her life. The plantation is invaded. Annie becomes an angel to ten more orphans in need of a home. Rose befriends...