Virginia Hamilton Books In Order

Dies Drear Chronicles Books In Order

  1. The House of Dies Drear (1968)
  2. The Mystery of Drear House (1987)

Justice Books In Order

  1. Justice and Her Brothers (1978)
  2. Dustland (1980)
  3. The Gathering (1981)

Cousins Books In Order

  1. Cousins (1990)
  2. Second Cousins (1998)

Novels

  1. Zeely (1967)
  2. The Planet of Junior Brown (1971)
  3. M.C. Higgins, the Great (1974)
  4. Arilla Sun Down (1976)
  5. Jahdu (1980)
  6. Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (1982)
  7. The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl (1983)
  8. Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed (1983)
  9. A Little Love (1984)
  10. A White Romance (1987)
  11. The Bells of Christmas (1989)
  12. Junius Over Far (1992)
  13. Drylongso (1992)
  14. Plain City (1993)
  15. Jaguarundi (1995)
  16. Bluish (1999)
  17. The Girl Who Spun Gold (2000)
  18. Time Pieces (2002)

Omnibus

  1. Virginia Hamilton: Five Novels (2021)

Collections

  1. The Time-Ago Tales of Jahdu (1969)
  2. In the Beginning (1988)
  3. The Dark Way (1990)
  4. The All Jahdu Storybook (1991)
  5. When Birds Could Talk and Bats Could Sing (1996)

Picture Books

  1. Wee Winnie Witch’s Skinny (2004)

Anthologies edited

  1. The People Could Fly (1985)
  2. Her Stories (1995)
  3. A Ring of Tricksters (1997)

Non fiction

  1. Paul Robeson (1974)
  2. Anthony Burns (1988)
  3. Many Thousand Gone (1993)
  4. Speeches, Essays, and Conversations (2010)

Dies Drear Chronicles Book Covers

Justice Book Covers

Cousins Book Covers

Novels Book Covers

Omnibus Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Picture Books Book Covers

Anthologies edited Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

Virginia Hamilton Books Overview

The House of Dies Drear

The house held secrets, Thomas knew, even before he first saw it looming gray and massive on its ledge of rock. It had a century old legend two fugitive slaves had been killed by bounty hunters after leaving its passageways, and Dies Drear himself, the abolitionist who had made the house into a station on the Underground Railroad, had been murdered there. The ghosts of the three were said to walk its rooms…
.

The Mystery of Drear House

‘This solid tale displays a sensitivity toward feelings, emotions, and conflicting values…
a welcome sequel to The House of Dies Drear.’ Booklist.

The Gathering

The First Unit Justice, her brothers, and a friend returns to Dustland, where they battle a force whose immense evil power threatens civilization.

Cousins

Being Cousins doesn’t mean you’ll be friends…
. Cammy loves her family except for her cousin Patty Ann. Though she knows she shouldn’t feel this way, she can’t help it. Patty Ann is too perfect to like, too perfect to be a friend. Then one day something terrible happens, something that can’t be changed. That’s when Cammy learns the truth about Patty Ann, and about family love and forgiveness.

Second Cousins

The friendship of twelve year old cousins Cammy and Elodie is threatened when the family reunion includes two other cousins near their age and Elodie is tempted to drop Cammy for a new companion.

Zeely

‘We’ll spend the whole summer on the farm with Uncle Ross. I ought to make up something special just because we’ve never ever gone alone like this!’ And the first thing Elizabeth does is give herself and her younger brother, John, new names Geeder and Toeboy.

The farm is special too, with its pump house, pond, and especially the prize razorback hogs that belong to Nat Tayber and his daughter, Zeely. Zeely Tayber is tall and dignified, unlike anyone else in the small town. Geeder is fascinated. And when she finds a picture of a Watutsi queen who looks like she could be Zeely‘s twin, Geeder knows she is in the presence of royalty.

The Planet of Junior Brown

Junior Brown, an overprotected three hundred pound musical prodigy who’s prone to having fantasies, and Buddy Clark, a loner who lives by his wits because he has no family whatsoever, have been on the hook from their eighth grade classroom all semester. Most of the time they have been in the school building in a secret cellar room behind a false wall, where Mr. Pool, the janitor, has made a model of the solar system. They have been pressing their luck for months…
and then they are caught. As society in the form of a zealous assistant principal closes in on them, Junior’s fantasies become more desperate, and Buddy draws on all his resources to ensure his friend’s well being.

M.C. Higgins, the Great

M.C.’s family is rooted to the slopes of Sarah’s Mountain. His great grandmother escaped to the mountain as a runaway slave and made it her home. It bears her name, and her descendants have lived there ever since. When M.C. looks out from atop the gleaming forty foot pole that his father planted in the mountain for him a gift for swimming the Ohio River he sees only the rolling hills and shady valleys that stretch out for miles in front of him. And M.C. knows why his father never wants his family to leave. But when M.C. looks behind, he sees only the massive remains of strip mining a gigantic heap of dirt and debris perched threateningly on a cliff above his home. And M.C. knows they cannot stay. So when two strangers arrive in the hills, one bringing the promise of fame in the world beyond the mountains and the other the revelation that choice and action both lie within his grasp, M.C.’s life is changed forever. In 1974, Virginia Hamilton dazzled the world with her powerful account of a young man’s coming of age trapped between heritage of his mountain home and his desires for the future. Twenty five years later, M.C. Higgins, the Great remains the only novel ever to win the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. It is truly an American classic.

Arilla Sun Down

The classic young adult novel from master storyteller Virginia Hamilton, now repackaged with striking new art from acclaimed illustrator Kadir Nelson. Arilla never asks for anything. Not even a true identity. It’s hard to remember who you are when you never really knew yourself in the first place. But her brother, Jack Sun Run, doesn’t have that problem. He has intelligence, beauty, and grace. He has decided who he is, and he shines as brightly as the sun. Arilla knows she walks in her brother’s shadow. That’s why he calls her ‘Moon.’ But everything turns around one day, and it is Jack who needs her help. That’s when Arilla realizes the sun must always set to make way for the moon.

Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush

Why had he come to her, with his dark secrets from a long ago past? What was the purpose of their strange, haunting journeys back into her own childhood? Was it to help Dab, her re*tarded older brother, wracked with mysterious pain who sometimes took more care and love than Tree had to give? Was it for her mother, Vy, who loved them the best she knew how, but wasn’t home enough to ease the terrible longing?Whatever secrets his whispered message held, Tree knew she must follow. She must follow Brother Rush through the magic mirror, and find out the truth. About all of them.

Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed

The setting is a town in Ohio where relatives gather on a Sunday at Willie Bea’s grandparents’ house the day is full of fun and fraught with incidents, overshadowed by Aunt Leah’s hysteria when she hears Orson Welles’s broadcast of the tale of Martians that have landed.

A Little Love

Though she has been raised lovingly by her grandparents, a black teenager goes in search of her father.

A White Romance

‘A much honored authro succeeds brilliantly at a new task telling it like it is at an inner city magnet school, where black Talley’s best friend is white Didi Adair, in love with a drug addict…
The characters are vivid and plausible…
. Hamilton demonstrates that a popular YA novel can also be a serious literary work of beauty, complexity, and depth.’ Kirkus Reviews.

The Bells of Christmas

Twelve year old Jason Bell waits impatiently for Christmas 1890. Set against the carefully researched background life of a middle class black family in Ohio a century ago, Hamilton’s story moves along at an elegant pace, giving readers time to savor the holiday preparations. School Library Journal

Drylongso

Lindy and her family are suffering through a long drought. Then the mystical Drylongso teaches them the secrets of finding water hidden in the earth. Drylongso is a hypnotic, joyful story from a distinguished writer one that, with the help of Jerry Pinkney’s beautiful watercolor and pastel pictures, depicts well the dry land, the swirling wind and earth, and an African American family planting in hope with the help of a wondrous, dusty, divining stickfella. The New York Times Book Review

Plain City

One of the finest novels from one of the most remarkable storytellers of our time. Going forward without a past isn not easy to do. But Buhlaine Sims has been doing it for as long as she can remember. Then her father returns to town, and Buhlaire’s world is turned upside down.

Jaguarundi

A portrait of endangered rainforest animals of South America describes their struggles to survive and find suitable habitats as they journey from the pineapple fields and cattle ranches that were once their home.

Bluish

Friendship isn t always easy Natalie is different from the other kids in Dreenie’s fifth grade class. She comes to school in a wheelchair. She always wears a knitted hat. And she s allowed to bring her puppy to class. The kids in the class call Natalie Bluish because her skin is tinted blue from chemotherapy. Dreenie is fascinated by Bluish and a little scared of her, too. She watches Bluish and writes about her in her journal. Slowly, the two girls become good friends. But Dreenie still struggles with Bluish s illness. Bluish is weak and frail, but she also wants to be independent. How do you act around a girl like that?

The Girl Who Spun Gold

‘Stirring…
with a rhythm just right for reading aloud…
a West Indian version of the universal little man Rumpelstiltskin folktale. Quashiba’s mother…
boasts that her daughter can spin and weave a whole field of the finest gold thread. Dramatic words and pictures.’ Booklist, starred review. ‘A charming and visually stunning tale of cunning, greed, and quixotic good fortune.’ School Library Journal, starred review

Time Pieces

The last book from Newbery Medalist Virginia Hamilton, this autobiographical novella brings together the slave past and multi generational present life of a young girl in Ohio.A quietly beautiful coming of age story from a master storyteller. Eleven year old Valena lives in both the present and the past as she struggles with racism in her daily life and listens to and learns from her mother’s tales of her family’s proud history. Moving backward and forward in time, these pieces of Valena’s life blend to form an extraordinary portrait of the ties that bind her family together over generations. Virginia Hamilton has deftly woven together moments in one family’s history into a seamless and poignant masterpiece.

In the Beginning

A thought provoking collection of twenty five stories that reflect the wonder and glory of the origins of the world and humankind. With commentary by the author. A must for mythology shelves. Booklist

When Birds Could Talk and Bats Could Sing

Based on African American folktales told in the South during the plantation era, a collection of stories originally gathered by journalist Martha Young pays tribute to the human spirit in the face of terrible hardship.

Wee Winnie Witch’s Skinny

Virginia Hamilton draws upon her extensive knowledge of folktales in this ‘scare tale,’ in which young James Lee discovers his Uncle Big Anthony has been cursed by a Wee Winnie Witch, who rides him like a broom across the night sky! When the witch captures James Lee and takes him along, Mamma Granny knows just what to do. She fills the Wee Winnie Witch’s skin, which the Wee Winnie removes before her ride, with hot pepper. When it’s back in place, Wee Winnie’s burnt to a crisp! Full of Virginia Hamilton’s poetic vernacular and authentic details, this is a perfect thrill for any spooky night.

The People Could Fly

The People Could Fly, the title story in Virginia Hamilton’s prize winning American Black folktale collection, is a fantasy tale of the slaves who possessed the ancient magic words that enabled them to literally fly away to freedom. And it is a moving tale of those who did not have the opportunity to fly away, who remained slaves with only their imaginations to set them free as they told and retold this tale.

Leo and Diane Dillon have created powerful new illustrations in full color for every page of this picture book presentation of Virginia Hamilton s most beloved tale. The author s original historical note as well as her previously unpublished notes are included.

Awards for The People Could Fly collection:

A Coretta Scott King Award

A Booklist Children s Editors Choice

A School Library Journal Best Books of the Year

A Horn Book Fanfare

An ALA Notable Book

An NCTE Teachers Choice

A New York Times Best Illustrated Children s Books of the Year

Her Stories

A collection of twenty five African American folktales focuses on strong female characters and includes ”Little Girl and Bruh Rabby,” ”Catskinella,” and ”Annie Christmas.” By the author of The People Could Fly.

A Ring of Tricksters

Newbery Medalist Virginia Hamilton and National Book Award winner Barry Moser join forces to tell 11 humorous trickster tales from the story ring of the slave trade. Following the migration of stories during the Plantation Era, Hamilton presents readers with a fascinating history of the first African Americans and the wonderful stories they brought with them to the West Indies and America. Full color.

Anthony Burns

Now in Laurel Leaf, Virginia Hamilton’s powerful true account of the sensational trial of a fugitive slave. The year is 1854, and Anthony Burns, a 20 year old Virginia slave, has escaped to Boston. But according to the Fugitive Slave Act, a runaway can be captured in any free state, and Anthony is soon imprisoned. The antislavery forces in Massachusetts are outraged, but the federal government backs the Fugitive Slave Act, sparking riots in Boston and fueling the Abolitionist movement. Written with all the novelistic skill that has won her every major award in children’s literature, Virginia Hamilton’s important work of nonfiction puts young readers into the mind of Burns himself.

Many Thousand Gone

Unavailable for several years, Virginia Hamilton’s award winning companion to The People Could Fly traces the history of slavery in America in the voices and stories of those who lived it. Leo and Diane Dillon s brilliant black and white illustrations echo the stories subtlety and power, making this book as stunning to look at as it is to read. There is probably no better way to convey the meaning of the institution of slavery as it existed in the United States to young readers than by using, as a text to share and discuss, Many Thousand Gone. The New York Times Book Review

Speeches, Essays, and Conversations

A must have for schools, libraries, and anyone interested in books for young readers. Virginia Hamilton 1936 2002 changed children’s literature for generations of readers, bringing a Faulknerian style of sophisticated and cutting edge writing to the world of books for young readers. Hamilton was awarded the Newbery Medal, three Newbery Honors, the National Book Award, the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, and many more. Readers will be enlightened by Hamilton’s engaging, powerful, and witty perspective on African American literature as well as her own experiences as a writer and an American.

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