Freedom Bird

DURING THE VIETNAM WAR, GIs who managed to survive their tour of duty in one piece—more or less—were flown home in chartered airliners. They called those planes “Freedom Birds.” This is the story of three young men—from wildly different backgrounds—who meet on such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco. Their goal: to spend every cent of their mustering out money in a party of a lifetime. And they’ll get more than they bargained for: because when they land, it is July 1967—in a time that would come to be known as “The Summer of Love.” It’s a place and time where each young man will have to confront the ghosts who followed them home from the jungles of Vietnam and contemplate a future none of them had imagined.

Born with Down syndrome, Ruby Jean Sharp comes from a time when being a developmentally disabled person could mean growing up behind locked doors and barred windows and being called names like "retard" and "moron." When Ruby Jean's caregiver and loving grandmother dies, her mother takes her to Woodlands School in New Westminster, British Columbia, and rarely visits. As Ruby Jean herself says: "Can't say why they called it a school -- a school's a place you go for learnin an then after you get to go home. I never learnt much bout ledders and numbers, an I sure never got to go home." It's here in an institution that opened in 1878 and was originally called the Provincial Lunatic Asylum that Ruby Jean learns to survive isolation, boredom, and every kind of abuse. Just when she can hardly remember if she's ever been happy, she learns a lesson about patience and perseverance from an old crow.

“Powerful storytelling and immersive art.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Vibrant writing and magical realism lift this story to one of triumph.” —Publishers Weekly “Nolen's lively prose style recalls the richness of the oral tradition in this tale of triumphant courage and abiding hope.” —The Horn Book “A moving choice for children’s collections.” —Booklist A Parents’ Choice Silver Award Recipient In this inspiring story in the tradition of American black folktales, an enslaved brother and sister are inspired by a majestic and mysterious bird to escape to freedom in this dramatic and unforgettable picture book. There was nothing civil about that war. They should have called it what it was: a big, bad war. Brother and sister Millicent and John are slaves on Simon Plenty’s plantation and have suffered one hurt and heartbreak after another. Their parents had told them old tales of how their ancestors had flown away to freedom just as free and easy as a bird. Millicent and John hold these stories in their hearts long after their parents are gone. “Maybe such a time will come for you,” their parents said. Then one day a mysterious bird appears in their lives. The bird transforms them and gives them the courage to set their plan into motion and escape to freedom.

From a leading prison abolitionist, a moving memoir about coming of age in Brooklyn and surviving incarceration—and a call to break free from all the cages that confine us. Marlon Peterson grew up in 1980s Crown Heights, raised by Trinidadian immigrants. Amid the routine violence that shaped his neighborhood, Marlon became a high-achieving and devout child, the specter of the American dream opening up before him. But in the aftermath of immense trauma, he participated in a robbery that resulted in two murders. At nineteen, Peterson was charged and later convicted. He served ten long years in prison. While incarcerated, Peterson immersed himself in anti-violence activism, education, and prison abolition work. In Bird Uncaged, Peterson challenges the typical “redemption” narrative and our assumptions about justice. With vulnerability and insight, he uncovers the many cages—from the daily violence and trauma of poverty, to policing, to enforced masculinity, and the brutality of incarceration—created and maintained by American society. Bird Uncaged is a twenty-first-century abolitionist memoir, and a powerful debut that demands a shift from punishment to healing, an end to prisons, and a new vision of justice.

From acclaimed author Tonya Bolden comes the story of a teen girl becoming a woman on her own terms against the backdrop of widespread social change in the early 1900s. Savannah Riddle is lucky. As a daughter of an upper class African American family in Washington D.C., she attends one of the most rigorous public schools in the nation--black or white--and has her pick among the young men in her set. But lately the structure of her society--the fancy parties, the Sunday teas, the pretentious men, and shallow young women--has started to suffocate her. Then Savannah meets Lloyd, a young West Indian man from the working class who opens Savannah's eyes to how the other half lives. Inspired to fight for change, Savannah starts attending suffragist lectures and socialist meetings, finding herself drawn more and more to Lloyd's world. Set against the backdrop of the press for women's rights, the Red Summer, and anarchist bombings, Saving Savannah is the story of a girl and the risks she must take to be the change in a world on the brink of dramatic transformation.

Drafted in the army at the age of eighteen while living in Phoenix Arizona, Donnell completed his army training in the Deep South in middle sixties. Then shipped to Vietnam where he was assigned to The 2nd and 18th Infantry Unit with the 1st Army Division, on an operation assignment as his platoon was separated from the main unit and pinned down behind enemy lines. Had to fight their way out and back to their main unit. Then transferred to 2nd & 16th Rangers attached to the 1st Division. In a ranger unit and forced to be a sniper. Then lift in the jungle and reported dead and missing too his mother and family. Wounded in the jungles of Vietnam somehow he found his way back and was rescued by another unit. Med Evace. to Zama hospital near Tokyo Japan where he recovered from his wounds, his military records were lost and they did not know who he was for weeks. Then assigned to a radio and TV station located Soul Korea (AFKN) where he finished his military tour Before returning to the States.

Freedom is a wonderful word. It can be a wish for someone or a goal. A heart that has tasted freedom can never be kept imprisoned by the shackles of the society, it is like the free bird, that loves to fly high in the sky. In this anthology, 50 authors, by their wonderful write-ups have expressed their ideas of freedom. This anthology is bound to win your heart.

Thunder Rose vows to grow up to be more than just big and strong, thank you very kindly--and boy, does she ever But when a whirling storm on a riotous rampage threatens, has Rose finally met her match?