Readers fascinated with racial inequality may enjoy If You Please, President Lincoln by Robinet. This historical novel takes place in the early-1860s when Abraham Lincoln begins executing the Emancipation Proclamation. Moses, a fourteen-year-old Maryland slave, runs away from his master to find freedom.

In Missing from Haymarket Square by Robinet, Dinah, a child of former slaves, must care for herself and work twelve-hour days to support her family. In the spring of 1886, the dreaded Pinkerton detectives, who prevent unions from organizing in factories, take Dinah's father prisoner. Dinah must find her father and free him.

Robinet's Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule takes place during the Reconstruction after the Civil War. The government promises ex-slaves Pascal and his older brother Gideon forty acres and perhaps a mule. With friends they consider family, they claim Green Gloryland, farm a vigorous cotton crop, and grow...