Trade paperback - I'm pretty sure this copy came from a Friends of the Library sale (larger photo here).

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award: a fictionalized look at "the Weeping Time," the largest slave auction in American history. Over the course of two days (March 2-3, 1859), over 400 slaves from Pierce Butler's Georgia plantation were sold to help pay their master's massive gambling debts.

Butler was supposedly a "good" master who treated his slaves fairly well, but ultimately he viewed them as an asset which could be turned into cash: a good example of why, no matter how well they are treated, slaves are likely to want to be free and in charge of their own destiny.

There's a lot of heartbreak and misery in this story, but it manages to end on a hopeful note by moving forward to a time closer to the present, where Emma's granddaughter is free, literate, and writing a report for school on what happened to her grandparents.

Here's another copy on my BookCrossing shelf.

Counting this as my 2016 Georgia read for NancyNova's 2015-2016 50 States reading challenge.
2016 states read (3/51): CA ▫ GA ▫ WY

Left hanging from the vending machine in the parking lot. Wild released for Secretariat's 2016 Never Judge a Book By Its Cover Challenge (week 3: Africans and African Americans) and AlterEgoZoe's Leap into the Wild Challenge.

(Larger photo here - after following link, click on image to zoom.)

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I'm so glad you've found this book!

Won't you please make a journal entry to let the book's previous readers know that it's safely in your hands? How did you find it? What did you think of it? What are you going to do with it next?

It's now your book, for you to do with as you please: keep it, pass it to a friend, or maybe even leave it where someone else can find it!

If you've ever wondered where your books go after they leave your hands, join BookCrossing and you may find out: you'll be able to follow the further adventures of your books as new readers make journal entries - sometimes from surprisingly far-flung locations.

(Think of it like Where's George for books...or a little like geocaching - you can follow the book's journey every time someone makes a new entry. Some BookCrossers even leave books *in* geocaches!)

BookCrossing: making the whole world a library!