Hamilton, Virginia

What is true love, anyway?.

Already a leader in New York's underground world of homeless children, Buddy Clark takes on the responsibility of protecting the overweight, emotionally disturbed friend with whom he has been playing hooky from eighth grade all semester.

A biography of the slave who escaped to Boston in 1854, was arrested at the instigation of his owner, and whose trial caused a furor between abolitionists and those determined to enforce the Fugitive Slave Acts. The year is 1854. Anthony Burns, a Virginia slave, has escaped to Boston, but his freedom is short-lived. According to the Fugitive Slave Act, a runaway can be captured in any free state, and Burns is soon imprisoned. The antislavery forces in Massachusetts are outraged. Abolitionist lawyer Richard Dana steps forward to defend Burns free of charge, and the sensational trial brings massive riots and thousands of troops to the streets of Boston. At the center of it all, haunted by memories of his life as a slave and praying that his defenders will prevail, is Anthony Burns himself. This is the true story of his desperate fight for freedom.

Fourteen-year-old Tree, resentful of her working mother who leaves her in charge of a retarded brother, encounters the ghost of her dead uncle and comes to a deeper understanding of her family's problems.

Mama Luka of Harlem had told Lee Edward many stories about Jahdu, including a story with a strong taste, a heavy story, and a story full of mischief, but not until the cool and fresh story does Jahdu assume even a temporary identity.