My Name Is Not Angelica (11 page)

From far below rose a faint sound. I imagined that it was his voice calling to me. I took one heavy step, but my body stirred again. And I moved no farther. Our child bound me to the earth that I stood upon, bound me to life forever.

When Captain Dumont learned that Jost van Prok had fled the day before his home burned to the ground, he took Raisha to the French island of Martinique. Here she worked in his household, caring for his children. Her daughter was born some months later. After a year, under the French laws, she was no longer a slave. She was free and her daughter was free.

Scott O'Dell is a Newbery Medalist, a three-time Newbery Honor Book winner, a two-time winner of the German Jugendbuchpreis, winner of the deGrummond and Regina medals, and a recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Author Medal, the highest international recognition for a body of work by an author of children's books.