Akron Public Library

Octavian Nothing is raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers. He and his mother are the only people in their household assigned names. Young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies, only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments.

Cherishing the special broom resting above her hearth for its representation of the slave heritage that once forbade legal marriages, Ellen prepares for her parents' triumphant registry at a Reconstruction-era courthouse as lawful husband and wife and proudly carries the broom so that they can repeat a cultural wedding tradition.

Trouble has a way of seeking out Nicolas Calva, and it's not likely to leave him alone any time soon. With Caesar's magic bulla, the Malice of Mars, and the possibility of a Jupiter Stone in play, all the powers of Rome are circling Nic. He'll have to maneuver his way through scheming government officials and reawakened magical beasts to save the Empire.

The clashes between President Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney over slavery, secession, and the president's constitutional war powers went to the heart of Lincoln's presidency. Legal historian Simon brings to life the passionate struggle during the worst crisis in the nation's history, the Civil War. The issues that underlaid that crisis--race, states' rights, and the president's wartime authority--resonate today in the nation's political debate.

"Home is a new house with a loving husband in 1970s California that is suddenly transformed into the frightening world of the antebellum South. Dana, a young black writer, can't explain how she is transported across time and space to a plantation in Maryland. But she does quickly understand why: to deal with the troubles of Rufus, a conflicted white slaveholder - and her progenitor. Her survival, her very existence, depends on it. This searing graphic-novel...

"In 1850 in Massachusetts, Whittaker House stood as a stop on the Underground Railroad. It’s where two freedom seekers, Little Annie and Clementine, hid and perished. Whittaker House still stands, and Little Annie and Clementine still linger, their dreams of freedom unfulfilled. Now a fashionably distressed vacation rental in the Berkshires, Whittaker House draws seekers of another kind: Black women who only appear to be free. Among them are Dominique,...

A child in Egypt tells in rhyming text of the days leading up to the Jews' flight from slavery.