I'm surprised to see very few reviews posted here for this excellent award-winning work of historical fiction for middle readers. This Scott O'Dell Award winner about African-American life in the South is in the same tradition as the renowned "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" books by Mildred Taylor.

Here we get on an emotional roller-coaster ride as we follow the lives of three young ex-slaves during the early days of Reconstruction in 1865. Gideon returns from following General Sherman to his former plantation to retrieve his younger crippled brother, Pascal, and his orphaned friend Nelly. In their quest to find the "forty acres and maybe a mule" in Georgia, that had been promised by General Sherman, they befriend a grandfatherly carpenter, and his long-lost granddaughter, to create a new family.

The harsh realities of unjust treatment by white nightriders, who are trying to force emancipated slaves to return to their plantations, are tempered by various friendly white people who help them find their forty acres, open a school for the children, register them to vote, who become neighbors, etc.

This is a story of determination, hard work, rebuilding lives and families, of hope, peace, and love, in the face of discrimination and cruelty.

A seldom recognized historical fact is woven into this well-researched tale: the party of Lincoln, the Republican Party, was the original party of Civil Rights. The impact of the death of Lincoln on these emancipated slaves that were given land is dramatically portrayed here. And the quick backpedaling of his successor, Andrew Johnson, becomes a painful reality for nearly 39,000 black landowners just months after he takes office.

This book deserves a wider reading by upper elementary through middle school students and their teachers, especially when discussing the facts surrounding the impact of the Civil War and early Reconstruction efforts in the South.

The events in this book kept me on the edge of mt seat. My emotions were in constant turmoil. At times I found myself full of joy and hope for the City family. The very next moment, I was experiencing fear and sorrow, not knowing whether the family could survive the constant dangers presented by the nightriders. A major theme throughout this book is man against society. Robinet allows the reader to enter the world of ex-slaves during the reconstruction period. The reader is able to experience the fears and the joys of the characters. The true historical events presented help the reader to understand the brutality of slavery. Readers can also see that this brutality did not end when President Lincoln freed the slaves. Readers can also see how the characters changed during the telling of this story. Pascal learns that he is a worthwhile person even though he has a physical disability. Gideon learns that he is a man whether or not he owns land. He and the others learn that freedom is about having dignity. The land can be taken, but freedom can't be taken away from you.

This book is very well written. As fiction it is enjoyable. As history it is accurate and informative. My fifth grade students were thrilled to find that their history book mentioned the same events of the Reconstruction as did the novel.Harriette Gillem Robinet is a great author for middle school.

I gave this book a 5 stars because it caputers the moment in how one little girl runs away and has so many things happen on this journey. I really enjoyed this book because it shows you you how people back in the 1871 really did have fires and were losing all of there belongings. In many other books that I read are similar to this book Children fo the Fire becaseu people are having things bring wrong with world today that we live in. This book also told me that when you run away from things that you shouldn't fo then you also know that you may never find your way back home. Hallelujah is an orhan gril were her father died and her mother was trying really hard making it to chicago when she died. Hallelujah when she ran away from home because she had follwed some of her friends to see what they were up to. They were were picking stuff for their father when Hallelujah wanted to go on Adventare to waht brings next in life...

Montgomery, Alabama, 1956. The historic, courageous, terrifying bus boycott had started when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person. Just what this meant to most people becomes very clear in this edgy, uncomfortable book. Alfa, aged 12, and his sister, age 15, live in dire poverty with their great-grandmother Merryfield. Alfa's mother left them there years before, and has never communicated with them since. Their great-grandmother is very elderly, some say maybe even ninety years old, and beginning to be forgetful. She makes about $40 a month; Alfa makes another $20 a month working hard in a grocery store. Rent is $50 a month, but part of the rent money is regularly disappearing. Alfa determines to solve the mystery, but stay within the system that keeps African-Americans perpetually in fear and victims of anyone who wants to get them in trouble.

The characters are so real and the story so well-written that I felt like I was walking right along with them. It's a wonderful book for children to get the feel of what it was like during the Civil Rights movement. I'm a middle school teacher, and I highly recommend this book for grades 4-8.

A mystery and historical fiction inspired by the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott (Rosa Parks, 1956), tells a story about how the black citizenry were affected by the bus boycott. Alfa, a 12 year old black boy living with his grandmother and sister, Zinnia, helps support them with his after school job. They are accused of stealing money from one of their cleaning jobs for "whites", and in addition, someone is stealing their rent money. The boy and his sister use the scientific method and mystery solving skills (gained from reading mystery novels) to solve the crime. The reader sees Dr. Martin Luther King's and Christian precepts for non-violence put into action by Alfa, as he successfully confronts his white tormentors. Conveys the values and flavor of the times. Includes bibliographic references.

Wow--this is a gripping tale about poverty, racial prejudice and social injustice rampant in the rural South during the Depression. In 20 short chapters author Robinet depicts the inherited evils of the era, wherein sharecropping was merely a legitimized form of Slavery. Ethical question: are we justified to use any means to ensure our physical and economic survival? Why play fair and abide by humanitarian rules, when the enemy is brutally corrupt and ruthlessly embittered? How far must familial honor dictate the suffering of its members?

For Shortening Bread Jackson's 12th birthday, he wants to give his large family the gift they most desire: his daddy's freedom from the harsh chain gang, for a crime he did not commit. But there was no justice to be had for sharecropping Blacks who bucked the system in a mangy widespot in the road called Sleepy Corners. This psychological flyspeck on a shabby map was home to a few rich folks who wielded the power to keep a disenfranchised race enslaved into the 20th century. Running scared and desperate to make an example of those who protested inhumane treatment--those who defied the ancient social system--the sherrif and landowners unite to retain their petty dictatorship.

But young Shortening Bread is clever beyond his years and all his older brothers combined. He has a dream and knows it is up to him to realize it for them all. He uses his wits and knowledge of human nature to start a rumor about an FBI agent coming to release his daddy from the chain gang. Can a mere kid defy social convention and actually deliver a white man intent on justice, who will free Rufus Jackson at high noon on Wednesday? Sherrif Clark doesn't take kindly to being made a fool of in his own domain, or being maniuplated by Blacks. If this scheme can be pulled off, will their lives be worth anything afterwards?

Can a white boy befriend a black boy, defying generations of strict protocol, in an area policed by the Klan? They may not play together or even shake hands, not say thank you for helping save a life. This riveting tale of interracial cooperation to achieve an underground form of justice will hold the interest of grades 4-10. But all conscientious adults should read this book and never forget our dark past of shame, so that such atrocities do not occur again. Black History revived!