Winner of the 2006 Coretta Scott King Author Award In this historical masterpiece, Julius Lester tells the story of Emma, slave of Pierce Butler and caretaker of his two daughters, and Pierce, a man with a mounting gambling debt and a household to protect. Using multiple voices, Julius Lester has taken a little-known event in American history and transformed it into a heartbreaking and powerfully dramatic epic about the struggle to affirm humanity in the midst of slavery.