Pat McKissack

Messy Bessey discovers that with proper care her garden will flourish.

Messy Bessey learns a lesson about sharing when she cleans out her closet.

From the beginning of Reconstruction to the present, traces the struggle of blacks to gain their civil rights in America, with a brief comparison of their problems to those of other minorities.

A wily fox, notorious for stealing eggs, meets his match when he encounters a bold little girl in the woods who insists upon proof that he is a fox before she will be frightened.

In segregated 1950s Nashville, a young African American girl braves a series of indignities and obstacles to get to one of the few integrated places in town: the public library.

To win first prize in the Junior Cakewalk, Mirandy tries to capture the wind for her partner.

Brought up in France as the African slave companion of a nobleman's daughter, thirteen-year-old Zettie records the events of 1763, when she and her mistress escape to the New World where they are inadvertently drawn into the hostilities of the ongoing French and Indian War and, eventually, find a new direction to their lives.

A boy learns that the truth is often stretched on the Bayou Clapateaux, and gets the chance to tell his own version of a bayou tale when he goes fishing.

After having fun at their family reunion, Messy Bessey's family cleans up and leaves the park as beautiful as when they arrived.

In 1954, when desegregation comes to Kirkland, Missouri, ten-year-old Rosemary faces many changes and challenges at school and at home as her parents separate.