Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt

Deborah Hopkinson has written many acclaimed picture books including A Letter to My Teacher; Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book; and Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek: A Tall, Thin Tale, an ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book. She lives in Oregon with her family. Visit her at deborahhopkinson.com.

James Ransome is the illustrator of many award-winning titles for children, including The Creation by James Weldon Johnson, which won a Coretta Scott King Award for illustration, and Let My People Go by Patricia McKissack, winner of an NAACP Image Award. His other titles include This Is the Rope by National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson, Young Pele by Lesa Cline-Ransome and Sky Boys by Deborah Hopkinson. He lives in New York. Visit him at jamesransome.com.

2013 marks the 20th anniversary of Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt!

As a seamstress in the Big House, Clara dreams of a reunion with her Momma, who lives on another plantation--and even of running away to freedom. Then she overhears two slaves talking about the Underground Railroad. In a flash of inspiration, Clara sees how she can use the cloth in her scrap bag to make a map of the land--a freedom quilt--that no master will ever suspect.