Maggie's dare: a 12-year-old is stirred to help a lonely slave girl.

ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S BEST NEW BOOKS “A searing and intimate memoir about love turned deadly.” —The BBC “An intimate illumination of sisterhood and loss.” —People When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood—one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother. In her signature spare and incisive prose, Sheila Kohler recounts the lives she and her sister led. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father when she and Maxine were girls, which led to the family abandoning their house and the girls being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. We follow them to the cloistered Anglican boarding school where they first learn of separation and later their studies in Rome and Paris where they plan grand lives for themselves—lives that are interrupted when both marry young and discover they have made poor choices. Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death. “A beautiful and disturbing memoir of a beloved sister who died at the age of thirty-nine in circumstances that strongly suggest murder. . . . Highly recommended.” —Joyce Carol Oates

Girls are girls wherever they live—and the Sisters in Time series shows that girls are girls whenever they lived, too! This new collection brings together four historical fiction books for 8–12-year-old girls: history and Christian faith. Featuring bonus educational materials such as time lines and brief biographies of key historical figures, American Dream is ideal for anytime reading and an excellent resource for home schooling. Visit the official Sisters in Time website at www.sistersintime.com

Time Period: 1744 Slavery confuses Maggie Baldwin. It's 1744, and the tenderhearted twelve-year-old can't understand why her friend was given a young female slave as a Christmas present-or why her friend mistreats the miserable Caribbean girl. When a major spiritual revival breaks out, Maggie is convinced she must dare to help the slave. Using actual historical events to tell a compelling fictional story, Maggie's Dare explores both the Great Awakening and the early stirrings of the abolition movement, while showing young readers that they, too, can serve God by serving others. Sisters in Time books offer learning and fun, at a great price!

Annotation Founded in Baltimore in 1828, the Oblate Sisters of Providence formed the first permanent African-American Roman Catholic sisterhood in the United States. Exploring the antebellum history of this pioneering sisterhood, Batts Morrow demonstrates the centrality of race in the Oblate experience.

Time Period: 1903 When her parents died, young Maureen O'Callaghan was sent from Ireland to the United States to begin a new life in the Stevenson family. At age eleven, she's ready to become a U.S. citizen-just as soon as she can solve the case of who's stealing artwork from her employer's mansion. Maureen the Detective is an exciting mystery and an intriguing look at what drew, and continues to draw, so many people to the shores of America. Using actual historical events to tell a compelling fictional story, the Sisters in Time series is perfect for personal reading, church libraries, or home schooling.

Time Period: 1620 Nov. Freezing weather, lack of food, and sickness make the first winter at Plymouth Colony a difficult and dangerous time. What would that winter be like for a ten-year-old girl? Find out in Rebekah in Danger, part of the Sisters in Time series. Written especially for eight- to twelve-year-old girls, this dramatic story shows how a seventeenth-century girl-not terribly different from girls of the twenty-first century-overcame some of the most challenging difficulties imaginable. Though the main character is fictional, the events and experiences are very real-providing an ideal vehicle for teaching American history and Christian faith.