The Red Rose Box

On her tenth birthday, Leah Hopper receives a surprise gift from glamorous Aunt Olivia, Mama's only sister, who lives in Los Angeles. It is a red rose box. Not many people in 1953 Sulphur, Louisiana, have seen such a beautiful traveling case, covered with red roses, filled with jewelry, silk bedclothes, expensive soaps . . . and train tickets to California. Soon Leah and her sister, Ruth, find themselves in Hollywood, far away from the cotton fields and Jim Crow laws of Sulphur. To Leah, California feels like freedom. But when disaster strikes back home, Leah and Ruth are forced to stay with Aunt Olivia permanently. Will freedom ever feel like home? Ages 10 and up.