Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule [Paperback]

Winner of the 1999 Scott O’Dell Award
A Notable Children’s Book in the Field of Social Studies

Maybe nobody gave freedom, and nobody could take it away like they could take away a family farm. Maybe freedom was something you claimed for yourself.

Like other ex-slaves, Pascal and his older brother Gideon have been promised forty acres and maybe a mule. With the family of friends they have built along the way, they claim a place of their own. Green Gloryland is the most wonderful place on earth, their own family farm with a healthy cotton crop and plenty to eat. But the notorious night riders have plans to take it away, threatening to tear the beautiful freedom that the two boys are enjoying for the first time in their young lives. Coming alive in plain, vibrant language is this story of the Reconstruction, after the Civil War.Teaching Guide
About the Book
Forty acres for farming, just for the asking, and maybe a mule thrown in, too. That's what General Sherman of the Union Army has promised to give former slaves. It's hard for Pascal to imagine. All his life he's lived on a South Carolina plantation, enslaved to a master. Now the twelve-year-old boy and his strong-willed older brother, Gideon, just back from the War Between the States, are free to start a new life for themselves and rebuild their shattered family. But no one, least of all Pascal, believes it's going to be easy in a region where anger and prejudice still run very deep. A stirring story of self-determination, is howPublishers Weeklydescribed this distinguished novel, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction. A fine historical novel, observedBooklist. Robinet skillfully balances her in-depth historical knowledge with the feelings of her characters.
Discussion Questions

• How did slavery destroy Pascal and Gideon's original family? How did they create a new one for tl8