Novels
- What A Womans Gotta Do (1979)
- Born in Sin (2001)
- Freedom Train (2008)
Picture Books
- The Foot Warmer and the Crow (1994)
- The Glass Bottle Tree (1995)
- White Socks Only (1996)
- To Be a Drum (1998)
- The Riches of Oseola Mccarty (1998)
Novels Book Covers
Picture Books Book Covers
Evelyn Coleman Books Overview
What A Womans Gotta Do
Trying to find out why her man did her wrong and who did him in, this woman isn’t waiting to exhale she’s ready to fight back. Patricia Conley considers herself to be a brother’s worst nightmare. A lifetime of hurt has made her fierce. A lifetime of victories has made her proud. And a whole lot of hope keeps her going. Now Patricia’s most daring stab at happiness has come up bad: The man she was supposed to marry has stood her up. Last seen holding hands with another woman, Kenneth Lawson has vanished. Still reeling from Kenneth’s disappearance, Patricia is stunned by a series of macabre discoveries. Her car is found bathed in blood. A woman is found dead. And another too good to be true brother is offering his services. Suddenly the tough talking Atlanta journalist doesn’t know who to trust. Because in a collision of murder, religion, love, and race, Patricia has learned some extraordinary secrets some about Kenneth Lawson, a few about herself, and one that the whole world needs to know…
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Born in Sin
‘Come on Betty…
Can’t nobody stop us from winning, ’cause we fish,’ Keisha whispers fiercely to her friend. ‘I want you to swim. Come on…
You and me, the first black girls going to the Olympics. Remember?’ For Betty, winning now means swimming upward from the depths of near death. In the cold hum of the hospital, only Keisha can remember their dreams from earlier that summer, when she was to attend a premed vacation school at nearby Avery University. She had the grades for it. And her mama was determined to make it happen, no matter what. Keisha dreamed of being a doctor. Betty dreamed desperately of having a friend. They were both at risk at least that’s the label Keisha gets slapped with when, instead of to Avery, she is sent to a high minded, white hearted urban rescue program for teens in poverty, or, as she figures it, Born in Sin. She is outraged to be thrown together with Clarissa, Phyllis, and Kimberly, but turns anger to something just as powerful the will to prove her doubters wrong. For this she has friends beyond the family she knows one ally especially. Plus Malik, Betty’s watchful brother, who wants beauty to be there for everyone. Like the sky. Born in Sin, which Keisha tells with straight forward, often funny frankness, is part gritty drama, part victory lap, and all heart.
Freedom Train
Now in paperback, an enthralling account of a young boy’s struggle to help freedom triumph over fear in the 1940s American South. It s 1947, and twelve year old Clyde Thomason is proud to have an older brother who guards the Freedom Train a train that is traveling to all forty eight states carrying the country s most important documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Clyde is chosen to say the Freedom Pledge at the train s stop in Atlanta, but his terrible stage fright forces him to refuse the honor. Instead, it s the class bully, Phillip, who gets selected, and he begins to torment Clyde. When an African American boy saves him from a beating, Clyde is shocked. Especially when he learns that William lives in the white part of town. How can this be? And why can t he bring himself to be friends with William?Clyde hasn t told his parents he won t perform the pledge, nor has he mentioned his confusing friendship with a boy of color. So when the townspeople threaten William s family, Clyde has a choice to make: Will he keep quiet, or stand up for real freedom? Ideal for classrooms, Freedom Train contains historical photos of the Freedom Train and its guards, as well as an author s note that provides additional information about the history of the Freedom Train.
The Glass Bottle Tree
Living together way out in the country, an African American girl and her grandmother have such a close relationship that they communicate without words.
White Socks Only
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Grandma tells the story about her first trip alone into town during the days when segregation still existed in Mississippi.
To Be a Drum
Daddy Wes helps his children hear the rhythm of the earth. And with the rhythm begins a story of the ‘drum,’ the pulse which has moved through the African people and through time and place.
The Riches of Oseola Mccarty
A brief biography of Oseola McCarty, a hard working washer woman who, without a formal education herself, donated a portion of her life savings to the University of Southern Mississippi to endow a scholarship fund for needy students.