A moving story of one woman's amazing bravery and determination follows Molly Walsh who, at the age of seventeen, was exiled from her country and sentenced to work as an indentured servant in British Colonial America, where she earned her freedom, married an African slave name Bannaky, and turned a one-room cabin into a prosperous farm.

Molly Bannaky

Children's Books

McGill, Alice

Biographies

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Collects thirteen slave lullabies created from the African-American experience that evince messages of hope and empowerment, paired with quilt collage illustrations and a CD recording of the lullabies. 25,000 first printing.

In the Hollow of Your Hand: Slave Lullabies

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

The year is 1851. Miles is a slave. By the shrewdness of his Mama Cee, he was assigned at an early age to work in the great house on the Tillery Plantation. Like the other servants-in-training, Miles is proud to wear soft wool knee britches and to use the speech of the great house. Each day he helps to provide the creature comforts of a well-run mansion. Until he is caught looking at the open pages of a book. As a punishment, twelve-year-old Miles is sent to the breaking ground. There he experiences what it really means to be a slave. With the help of a mysterious man named Elijah, Miles learns to read and forms a pact to escape. Watching and waiting, Miles takes risk after risk to gain freedom for himself and Mama Cee in a story that will inspire readers of all ages.

Miles' Song

Teen & Young Adult

It is 1851. Miles is a house slave on the Tilery Plantation, but when he is caught looking at an open book, he is sent to the breaking ground where he learns what it really means to be a slave. 12-year-old Miles is allowed to work in the great house on the Tillery Plantation, where he is training to be a house servant, rather than labor in the fields. But after he is caught looking at an open book while dusting the library, Miles is banished from the mansion and sent to the breaking ground. There, he learns what it truly means to feel like a slave. But it is also at the breaking ground that he meets Elijah, an older slave who teaches Miles to read and tells him of the land of freedom up north. Armed with his new knowledge, Miles tells himself that he does not feel like a slave and he no longer believes working in the great house is a privlege.

Scholastic Paperbacks

On a cold gray morning in 1683, Molly Walsh sat on a stool tugging at the udder of an obstinate cow. When she spilled the milk, she was brought before the court for stealing. Because she could read, Molly escaped the typicalpunishment of death on the gallows. At the age of seventeen, the English dairymaid was exiled from her country and sentenced to work as an indentured servant in British Colonial America. Molly worked for a planter in Maryland for seven long years. Then she was given an ox hitched to a cart, some supplies-and her freedom. That a lone woman should stake land was unheard of. That she would marry an African slave was even more so. Yet Molly prospered, and with her husband Bannaky, she turned a one-room cabin in the wilderness into a thriving one hundred-acre farm. And one day she had the pleasure of writing her new grandson's name in her cherished Bible: Benjamin Banneker.

Soentpiet, Chris K.

Clarion Books

Miles Song

Growing Up & Facts of Life

Demco Media

Slave lullabies, created from the African-American experience, were sung to give hope for a better time to come. Although these lullabies were born of hardship and overwhelming sadness, they can be thought of as musical stories for children and adults. By turns soothing, playful, empowering, and bittersweet, the songs convey the love of parents for children. Since childhood, Alice McGill has been collecting and singing these lullabies. Here they are preserved along with vibrant quilt collages and a CD recording of each song, introduced and sung by McGill. Her voice is rich and resonant, adding yet another dimension to these moving pieces of oral history. This beautiful package of lullabies, artwork, and personal history invites readers of all ages to sing along and remember the powerful words and melodies of a people struggling to survive.

In the Hollow of Your Hand

Cummings, Michael

HMH Books for Young Readers

Set in 1946, a wonderful story of growing up follows seven-year-old Roberta who is sent to live with her grandparents in rural North Carolina for one month while her mother prepares for the birth of the new baby, as she, afraid that the new baby will take her place, makes a secret wish, but all her worries are cast aside when she embraces the warmth of her extended family.

Here We Go Round

Set in the backwoods of North Carolina, a collection of charming tales features the clever Bruh Rabbit and his colorful kin as they go about their daily lives in their simple and rustic world.

Sure as Sunrise: Stories of Bruh Rabbit and His Walkin' Talkin' Friends

My great-grandmama’s mama told her and she told me this story about a long time ago . . . So begins this account of the author’s great-great-grandmother Jane, and how she meets a slave new to the plantation, a slave who would prove to have magical powers . . . created by the wish for freedom. Alice McGill remembers this story, passed down in her family through the generations, from her childhood and how her greatgrandmother told it to her “as if unveiling a great, wonderful secret. My siblings and I believed that certain Africans shared this gift of taking to the air—‘way up and over everything.’”

Way Up and Over Everything

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McGill, Alice. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McGill, Alice

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McGill, Alice. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Molly Bannaky

In the Hollow of Your Hand: Slave Lullabies

Miles' Song

Miles' Song

Molly Bannaky

Miles Song

In the Hollow of Your Hand

Here We Go Round

Sure as Sunrise: Stories of Bruh Rabbit and His Walkin' Talkin' Friends

Way Up and Over Everything