Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule

"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 family of friends they have built along the way, they claim a place of their own.

Green Gloryland is the most wonderful place on earth, their own family 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.

Coming alive in plain, vibrant language is this story of the Reconstruction, after the Civil War.

Pasacal, a slave boy who's about twelve years old, was born with a withered hand and leg, so he never did heavy work. Now that the Civil War is over, Pascal and his older brother, Gideon, and nine year old Nelly, a slave from their plantation, decide to claim the forty acres and a mule being offered to former slaves. They don't get the mule, but they do get the forty acres, and Pascal is determined to help out in building their new home. Can Pascal, his brother, and little Nelly, who's like a sister to him, build a life outside slavery?

This is a good book to talk about what the slaves faced outside of slavery.