Bradby, Marie

Nine-year-old Booker works with his father and brother at the saltworks but dreams of the day when he will be able to read.

Fifth grader Pearl Jordan learns some difficult lessons about friendship when she befriends the odd, but artistically talented Artemesia, then shuns her in favor of the popular Lenore.

When Daddy rides off on his horse in a terrible snow storm to deliver the mail, his family anxiously awaits his return.

Illustrations and simple rhyming text recall life on a family farm.

Momma describes the special people and surroundings of her childhood, in a place where the edge of town met the countryside, in a time when all the children at school were brown.

Nine-year-old Booker works with his father and brother at the saltworks but dreams of the day when he'll be able to read.

In 1963, Pearl, an eleven-year-old black girl in Fairfax, Virginia, learns about the real nature of friendship from the popular but untrustworthy Lenore, and Artemesia, a poor girl who moves into the neighborhood for a brief time.