Twelve-year-old Patsy keeps a diary of the ripe, but confusing time, following the end of the Civil War and the granting of freedom to former slaves.

Twelve-year-old Patsy keeps a diary of the confusing time following the end of the Civil War, when freedom was granted to former slaves.

Doris becomes friends with Yellow Bird as she helps him with his studies and his part in the school play and discovers that he has a problem known as dyslexia.

When Kofi's father, an Ashanti chief, is killed, Kofi is sold as a slave and ends up in Massachusetts, where his fate is in the hands of Paul Cuffe, an African American shipbuilder who works to return slaves to their homeland in Africa.

Documents the recruitment, training, and struggles of African American soldiers during the Civil War and examines the campaigns in which they participated.