This story of African American history is a good one for children. Osceola was the daughter of a sharecropper, and her father's father was a slave. Osceola tells her story through journaling, of her life growing up. She was born in Waskom, Texas in 1909, and she grew up in that segregated town. She grew up Baptist, and she soon realized that everyone she knew was afraid of white people. Because of this, she grew up afraid of white people--even the mailman. Osceola grew up learning songs and poems of his culture's history. She grew up very poor, and she lost her mother when she was only ten years old. After starting school, Osceola began to write a recite poems at school. She married a man named Clarence Mays, and they were married a month shy of fifty years when he passed away. Osceola regretted ending her poetry career early because she believed she could have gotten much better had she continued. ( )

In this book Osceola recounts the stories she's told around the world of her life and also of the stories and songs she was taught while growing up. ( )

Osceola Mays, the African-American daughter of a sharecropper, describes her childhood in a segregated Texas town during the early 20th century. Originally an oral history, this true story is illustrated with color paintings.