A young girl accidentally stirs up racial tensions
in 1926 South Carolina

Darby Carmichael's writing career started out with a little essay about toads. She wanted everyone to know that toads really didn't cause warts. Actually, it was her best friend, Evette Taylor, who got Darby thinking that she might start practicing to be a "newspaper girl." Evette was the daughter of a black tenant farmer who worked on land owned by Darby's father. It was Evette who first said she wanted to be a "newspaper girl" like an aunt of hers who lived in New York City. In that city, black people owned nice houses, had good jobs, and drove late model automobiles. That was not so in Marlboro County, South Carolina.

The two ten-year-old girls had played together since they were small. Even though they went to different schools, they played school together. They even put a sign on a tree that said "The Evette and Darby School." Evette was really better at spelling and writing that Darby was. When they started playing "newspaper girls," Evette would edit Darby's writing and make it sound better. Darby was surprised when Mr. Salter, editor of the town newspaper, agreed to print her little article about toads. Darby received a lot of attention when her name appeared in the paper along with her story.

Mr. Salter agreed to print more of her stories if Darby brought them into his office. Darby felt guilty that Evette's name wasn't on the first story, since Evette was the one who was editing Darby's writing. She persuaded Mr. Salter to list Evette along with her name, Darby Carmichael, on her little articles. However, for some reason, Mr. Salter objected to putting Evette's last name on the stories.

Besides being a farmer, Mr. Carmichael also ran a store in town where people bought tools and farming supplies. A neighboring farmer had brutally beaten a young black boy that he claimed had tried to steal a chicken. Mr. Carmichael tried to get medical help for the boy, but he died anyway. The brutal farmer was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and he and fellow Klansmen made local people fearful of doing anything to bring the boy's killer to justice. In fact, a rock was thrown through the front window of Mr. Carmichael's store as a warning.

Darby wanted to write about what she was seeing around her in terms of violence and fear. She wanted to see people learn to live with one another without mistreating persons of another race. She was shocked at how grown- ups reacted to her writing. Even Mr. Salter refused to print some of Darby and Evette's writing unless Darby's father first approved. Clearly, these grown-up men were afraid to speak out on certain matters. There was even some conjecture that white families who spoke openly in favor of better treatment of black families might be forced to leave town. The family of the murdered black boy had already been forced to leave the area.

Can Darby and her family overcome the ill feeling that some townspeople expressed toward them? Will Mr. Carmichael lose his business? Will they have to leave town? What will happen to Evette and her family?

A gypsy boy travels through the west in a wagon
pulled by a beautiful horse

Samantha Forster and Jen Kensworthy are two best friends who are neighbors on neighboring ranches in Nevada. They had gone out on a camping trip when they discovered their horses had run off. Their saddles were still on the horses when they were spooked by what sounded like a gunshot off in the distance. The girls, who were just about to break camp, thought they would have to hike all the way back home.

Samantha and Jen had followed the horses' tracks for a long distance, when they heard a voice singing off the trail. To their surprise they found a teen-age boy sitting near his campfire playing a violin and singing. He was singing to his horse, an unusual black and white mare with long hair. There was a colt near the mare. Not only were the mare and the colt being entertained by the music, but the two girls' horses were standing still, enchanted by the singing. They still had their saddles on. There was also a painted gypsy wagon in the clearing. To add still further to the surprise, Samantha saw that the Phantom Stallion and some of his band of wild horses were standing nearby also enchanted by the music. Sam had befriended the wild stallion now for some time.

The boy, named Nicholas, turned out to be descended from gypsies. He was taking a trip to get some feel for how his ancestors had lived. After his travels, he was going to enter college. The colt with him, he claimed, had just followed them because it was attracted to the mare. Or at least that was the story he told the two girls. They weren't quite sure whether to believe him or not.

The girls liked the boy and his unusual horse. They invited him to come with them and stop by the ranch and have a good home cooked meal before traveling on. Sam knew her dad and her step mom wouldn't like their taking up with a stranger so quickly, but it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, the plot gets complicated when the kids arrive at the ranch. Some of the grown-ups believed that Nicholas might have stolen the colt that was following him. The girls believed he was innocent, but Nicholas was hassled by the sheriff when he tried to continue on his journey. You need to read the novel to find out how it all works out.

Some of you may already know about the "Phantom Stallion" series of novels by author Terri Farley that feature Samantha and Jen and their love of horses. "Gypsy Gold" is the 23rd book in the series.

A teen-ager leaves Germany to join
her uncle's family in 1870's Brooklyn

Dina Kirk has worked sewing dresses for much of her thirteen years in the family's dressmaking business. She dreams of leaving her small German town to join relatives who are living in America. When her uncle, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, invites someone to join his family, it is her older sister that he sends for. Dina is envious of her sister. She thinks her sister will escape the obligation to sew dresses all day long every day.

It happens that a war is going on in Germany. Dina has a friend that lives across the river on the enemy side of the river. Occasionally, Dina rows across to visit her friend. They exchange sewing patterns. Soldiers catch Dina on one of her trips. They think she is a spy and her trips are to take information over to the enemy. She manages to escape the soldiers, but she is aware they know who she is. It is just a matter of time before they arrest her as a spy. In order to protect her, Dina is sent to her uncle's in Brooklyn in the place of her older sister.

When Dina finally reaches America, she is shocked to find that living conditions in Brooklyn are far worse than they were in Germany. Her uncle demands that she work all day sewing men's pants for the clothing maker that employs him. The apartment building, called a tenement, that she is forced to both live and work in, is a fire trap and is dirty, noisy, and crowded. The one sewing machine in the apartment is old and undependable. In addition, all the families live under the threat of small pox, a dreaded disease that kills most of those who catch it. Health inspectors come around regularly to check families in the tenements to see if anyone has symptoms of the disease. If a person seems to have symptoms, he or she is sent off to one of the overcrowded hospitals. Usually, they never return.

At first, Dina longs to go home to her family in Germany. But in the bad conditions in America, it seems impossible to make enough money to pay her way back home. Is there any way that Dina can improve her miserable life? There is a surprising series of events that change Dina's attitude and her new life in America.

The award-winning author of "A House of Tailors" is Patricia Reilly Giff. The story is based on the life of the author's great-grandmother.