The Freedom Tree

Caroline knows it is dangerous to give a reading lesson to the slave girl Keely for they both could be punished severely, but she continues the lessons.

Taut free verse tells the little-known story of the first contraband camp of the Civil War—seen by some historians as the "beginning of the end of slavery in America." One night in 1861, three escaped slaves made their way from the Confederate line to a Union-held fort. The runaways were declared "contraband of war" and granted protection. As word spread, thousands of runaway slaves poured into the fort, seeking their freedom. These "contrabands" made a home for themselves, building the first African American community in the country. In 1863, they bore witness to one of the first readings of the Emancipation Proclamation in the South—beneath the sheltering branches of the tree now known as Emancipation Oak.

Caroline learns the meaning of freedom while struggling to maintain the family cotton plantation during the Civil War.

This early collection of eight short stories and a novella is vintage Wendt. Stories convey the unease of traditional island community caught up in the rapid changes of the modern world. Wendt writes with enviable directness and with deep feeling: comedy and tragedy are often hard to distinguish as his characters struggle to come to terms with their changing world.

A Newbery Honor Book: During the Revolutionary War, a courageous pioneer girl fights for freedom When thirteen-year-old Stephanie Venable moves with her family from North Carolina to a four-hundred-acre homestead in Kentucky, she knows they’re in for a great adventure. The family sells whatever belongings they can’t fit in their covered wagon, and begin the long journey west. But Stephanie has brought something special with her, an apple seed from their tree back home, just as her grandmother did when she moved from France to America. In Kentucky, the Venables must fell trees, build a cabin, and prepare the land for crops. Being a pioneer is a lot of work, but it’s also very exciting: Stephanie and her family must grow, catch, or hunt everything they need to eat and survive. With the Revolutionary War also moving west, the family faces threats from British sympathizers and American rebels. Will freedom take root in America, like Stephanie’s young apple tree, or will the Venable family succumb to the hardships of frontier life?

In the Summer of 1874, Matthew Lidgard travels to the busy port of Whitby seeking work on the treacherous trawler fleets. His father was killed while working for Henry Mundol, a notorious fleet owner, and in the search for answers Matthew secures a berth aboard 'Happy Jack,' one of Mundol's smacks. Within days, consumed by fever, a hellish workload and the folly wreaked by the intoxicated skipper, Matthew is forced to jump ship at Grimsby. He is rescued and escapes across the Humber to Spurn, where he finds a strange and turbulent community that gives sanctuary to men on the run from Mundol's corrupt practices. Struggling against a sense that he is cursed, Matthew cannot help being moved by the tale of a family tragedy related by Nathan Anstey, the group's embittered leader, and by the dreams of liberty Nathan's beautiful sister Elizabeth invests in the branches of the 'freedom tree.' Finding courage in love, Matthew becomes a source of hope for the community, transforming dreams of revenge into a desperate search for freedom.