Tonya Bolden (Tell All the Children Our Story) tells the little-known true story of Sarah Rector (1902–1967), the daughter of a freedman adopted by the Creek nation. She was only 11 when "oil gushed up on her acres" in Twine, Okla.--and then she went missing.
Couched in a mystery, the book backtracks to the history of the melding of the Estelvste ("the black people" in Creek) and the Creeks, who received land as part of a fraught agreement between the U.S. government and the Five Tribes of the Southeast (also called "the Five Civilized Tribes" by white authorities because, as Bolden puts it, "many of their members embraced some of 'the white man's ways,' " such as certain legal codes, farming practices and dress). The exploitation that occurred on so many fronts--land-grabbing first by the government, then by "grafter guardians" who appointed themselves de facto overseers to the landowners who struck oil--will be eye-opening to readers.
Sarah's story weaves in some of history's greats, such as Booker T. Washington, who visited the area, and W.E.B. DuBois, who wrote to Judge Leahy to inquire after the girl. The question of Sarah Rector's whereabouts will initially pull readers in, and the story of how she and her family became part of a larger game, with both honest and duplicitous characters, will long linger. Excellent maps and period photographs situate readers in time and place. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness