Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule

In this novel set in April through September of 1865, Robinet's (The Twins, the Pirates, and the Battle of New Orleans) resilient characters lend immediacy to the early events of Reconstruction. Orphaned 12-year-old Pascal is a slave at the Big House on a South Carolina plantation when his runaway brother Gideon, a Union soldier, returns, proclaiming that Lincoln has freed the slaves and General Sherman has promised 40 acres and maybe a mule for both blacks and whites. Pascal, his friend Nelly and Gideon set off in search of a Freedmen's Bureau (where land is deeded) and finally find one in Georgia. Along the way they encounter other former slaves, two of whom they ""adopt"" as family; poor white farmers (among them the Bibbs family who become neighbors, and with whom they begin a moving friendship); night riders and Republican operatives eager to recruit new voters. Robinet compellingly demonstrates how the courage and determination of Pascal and Gideon's small band transform their 40 acres into a model farm. But there's no sugarcoating here: just as their perfect cotton crop matures, President Johnson reverses his land acts to declare that only white families can own the 40-acre plots of free land. Even this devastating development doesn't attenuate Pascal's sense of accomplishment (""Maybe nobody gave freedom, and nobody could take it away like they could take away a family farm. Maybe freedom was something you claimed yourself""). A stirring story of self-determination. Ages 8-12. (Nov.)