Most Popular Books by Julius Lester

A Newbery Honor Book What was it like to be a slave? Listen to the words and learn about the lives of countless slaves and ex-slaves, telling about their forced journey from Africa to the United States, their work in the fields and houses of their owners, and their passion for freedom. You will never look at life the same way again. "The dehumanizing aspects of slavery are made abundantly clear, but a testament to the human spirit of those who endured or survived this experience is exalted."—Children''s Literature

A modern retelling with contemporary references to 12 African and African American folktales.

The author introduces the concept of race as only one component in an individual''s or nation''s "story".

In a gray fieldstone house in Nashville, Tennessee, the Reverend Joshua Smith Sr.--the staunch and gentle man known to thousands in black churches throughout the South as the Singing Evangelist and to one white reporter as "the Colored Billy Graham"--is trying to compose his own obituary on what will be the last day of his life. In doing so, he looks back over that life--from his childhood in rural northern Mississippi to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, from tears of humiliation to songs of celebration and triumph. When Do Lord Remember Me was first published in 1984, the Chicago Sun-Times compared it to Alex Haley''s Roots, Newsday described it as "exquisitely crafted," People as "distinguished," the Philadelphia Inquirer as "riveting," and the Cleveland Plain-Dealer declared "every page has something worth remembering." Thirty years later and now a classic, Julius Lester''s Do Lord Remember Me is an eloquent and deeply moving story about a black family''s dignified struggle for survival.

A young girl who has not uttered a sound since birth is shunned by the people in her village, until they realize how special she is.

Julius Lester was born the son of a black Methodist minister in the south. His book Lovesong is a beautifully written account of his spiritual journey away from the conventions of his Southern heritage and Methodist upbringing, culminating in his personal self-discovery through a conversion to Judaism. Growing up in the turbulent civil rights era South, Lester was often discouraged by the disconnectedness between the promises of religion and the realities of his life. He used the outlets available to him to try to come to grips with this split and somehow reconcile the injustices he was witnessing with the purity of religion. He became a controversial writer and commentator, siding with neither blacks nor whites in his unconventional viewpoints. He became a luminal figure of the times, outside of the conventional labels of race, religion, politics, or philosophy. Lester’s spiritual quest would take him through the existential landscape of his Southern, Christian upbringing, into his ancestry, winding through some of the holiest places on the planet and into the spiritual depths of the world’s major religious cultures. His odyssey of faith would unexpectedly lead him to discovering Judaism as his true spiritual calling.

Delightfully funny animal stories and beautifully detailed paintings certain to captivate children.

Bob Lemmons is famous for his ability to track wild horses. He rides his horse, Warrior, picks up the trail of mustangs, then runs with them day and night until they accept his presence. Bob and Warrior must then challenge the stallion for leadership of the wild herd. A victorious Bob leads the mustangs across the wide plains and for one last spectacular run before guiding them into the corral. Bob''s job is done, but he dreams of galloping with Warrior forever to where the sky and land meet. This splendid collaboration by an award-winning team captures the beauty and harshness of the frontier, a boundless arena for the struggle between freedom and survival. Based on accounts of Bob Lemmons, a formerly enslaved person, Black Cowboy, Wild Horses has been rewritten as a picture book by Julius Lester from his story "The Man Who Was a Horse" in Long Journey Home, first published by Dial in 1972.

Two short stories and one novella (all based on true stories) about love in the time of slavery. The first is about Ras, who helps other slaves escape, and ultimately escapes with his girlfriend, Sally. The second is about Maria, whose husband (a free black man) buys her but neglects to officially set her free; when he dies, she finds herself a slave again because her husband had debts and so she becomes the payment. The third is about William and Ellen Craft, a famous slave couple who escaped by pretending that Ellen (with her very light skin) was a white woman being escorted north by her slave; they went on to speak against slavery form the home base of Boston.

Nothing can stop John Henry-no boulder, no mountain, and definitely no steam drill. Newbery Honor winner Julius Lester writes with such power that this African-American folk hero becomes as awesome as a natural phenomenon. Jerry Pinkney received a Caldecott Honor for his exuberant, glowing watercolor paintings of the hero. The book, celebrating its tenth year in print, was also a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner, a Parents magazine Best Book, and an ALA Notable Book, among other honors.

Poems and photographs dealing with the themes of love, identity, city and country life, and childhood.

Follows the adventures of a little boy named Sam when he matches wits with several tigers that want to eat him.

Meet Rambler, a runaway slave roaming the countryside with a guitar, who knows the only way to stay free is to keep moving. Louis is another runaway, fleeing the plantation where he was raised, because he is about to be sold. And Jake and Mandy''s marriage is damaged by slavery''and destroyed by freedom. Here is the African-American experience, brought alive by a master storyteller.''Lester has an eye for capturing the essence of a human experience.''AHis work? boldly proclaims the heritage of African-Americans.'' ? The New York Times Book Review

FROM SLAVE SHIP TO FREEDOM ROAD presents a series of magnificent paintings created by artist Rod Brown, portraying the story of slavery from its beginnings on the infamous ships of the Middle Passage to the enslaved Africans'' and their descendants'' centuries of subjugation and their final hard-won freedom. This gifted artist has vividly expressed both the horror of the slaves'' experience and the hope and spirit of resistance that sustained the survivors. Acclaimed author Julius Lester''s impassioned meditations on the paintings challenge readers to imagine not only the pain and grief, but also the triumph of the slaves: a terrifying voyage in chains and darkness; the humiliating auctions that separated families; the belief in deliverance; the joy and uncertainties of freedom. Together, Mr. Brown and Mr. Lester invoke the memory of their ancestors and provide a stirring testimony to their strength and endurance.

When the girl, Silence, is sent by the trees to save Yesterday, she doesn''t know what her task is, only that it is important. Returning to the village that cast her out, Silence recognizes her purpose: to join the dead with the living in an act that celebrates their memory.

A boy sent by an African god to tend the spirits of the dead struggles to fulfill his duty from within the bonds of slavery in Time''s Memory, by National Book Award finalist Julius Lester. Amma is the creator god, the master of life and death, and he is worried. His people have always known how to take care of the spirits of the dead – the nyama – so that they don''t become destructive forces among the living. But amid the chaos of the African slave trade and the brutality of American slavery, too many of his people are dying and their souls are being ignored in this new land. Amma sends a young man, Ekundayo, to a plantation in Virginia where he becomes a slave on the eve of the Civil War. Amma hopes that Ekundayo will be able to find a way to bring peace to the nyama before it is too late. But Ekundayo can see only sorrow in this land – sorrow in the ownership of people, in the slaves who have been separated from their children and spouses, in the restless spirits of the dead, and in his own forbidden relationship with his master''s daughter. How Ekundayo finds a way to bring peace to both the dead and the living makes this an unforgettable journey into the slave experience and Newbury Honor author Julius Lester''s most powerful work to date. Time''s Memory is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children''s Book of the Year.

When John Calvin Marshall graduated from Harvard in 1956, he was prepared for a life of teaching and relative tranquility. But history had another plan for him: here, a veteran author re-envisions the Martin Luther King Jr. story in fearful, exciting, and violent terms. Political and provocative, And All Our Wounds Forgiven is both a compelling political fable and a striking and tender love story about one of this century’s most charismatic black leaders and the two women he loved.

A critically acclaimed author “melds the classic college mystery with deeply theological ruminations on suffering and death. . . . richly absorbing” (Publishers Weekly). Rebecca Nachman is a Rabbi without a synagogue. Having resigned from her dwindling congregation, she now works as a college counselor at a small Vermont college advising students about private matters and offering the “Jewish perspective” on issues raised at faculty dinner parties. Deeply lonely and on the edge of losing her faith, she comes into possession of a Torah, the last relic of Czechowa, a village of Polish Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis. With the Torah, the unquiet spirits of the village dead begin to visit Rebecca. On one visit they leave a manuscript written in Hebrew and titled My Life, an autobiography by God who, like any eager author, is seeking a sympathetic reader. No one has ever finished reading the manuscript, including Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Maimonides, and Augustine. God thinks Rebecca will. Rebecca’s life is further complicated when one of her advisees—a troubled young woman who seemed on the verge of confessing something—is found murdered. As the college struggles to comprehend the tragedy and a police investigation is launched, Rebecca begins reading, and so comes to confront the central challenge to her faith in His most troubling and unlikely incarnation. “In true Yiddish style, Lester writes with the irony and intensity and sometimes dark comedy . . . that dramatize the Jewish belief that good and evil coexist in people and in God.” —Booklist

Cupid, the spoiled and mischievous god of love, is attracted to and marries the beautiful mortal, Psyche, and both learn many lessons about the nature of love.

YA. Set in 1956 in Nashville, Tennessee. Tells of a young black boy and white girl who become interested in each other and of the helplessness of the situation, in the face of adult hostility.

There are times when a tree can no longer withstand the pain inflicted on it, and the wind will take pity on that tree and topple it over in a mighty storm. All the other trees who witnessed the evil look down upon the fallen tree with envy. They pray for the day when a wind will end their suffering. I pray for the day when God will end mine. In a time and place without moral conscience, fourteen-year-old Ansel knows what is right and what is true. But it is dangerous to choose honesty, and so he chooses silence. Now an innocent man is dead, and Ansel feels the burden of his decision. He must also bear the pain of losing a friend, his family, and the love of a lifetime. Coretta Scott King Award winner and Newbery Honoree Julius Lester delivers a haunting and poignant novel about what happens when one group of people takes away the humanity of another.

Pinkney''s lively and humorous illustrations are a perfect match for Lester''s contemporary approach, which expertly introduces a modern sense of humor to these 48 tales while paying homage to their roots as traditional American folklore. Illustrations.

Highlights the careers of Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Mahalia Jackson, Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday, B.B. King, Ray Charles, Little Richard, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin.

A fictionalized account of the Biblical tale in which a Hebrew infant, rescued by the daughter of the Pharaoh, passes through a turbulent adolescence to eventually become a prophet of his people while his sister finds her true self as a priestess to the Egyptian gods.

Great middle greats fiction.

In this disturbing novel, a college psychologist kills his wife and no one knows why. Sister and brother, Jenna and Jeremy, tell the story in alternating chapters.--Booklist