Patricia C. McKissack has written well over one hundred titles under her own name, as well as in collaboration with her husband, Fredrick L. McKissack. The author of historical fiction and biographies for children, McKissack focuses on religious as well as African American themes, and her love of writing is in part inspired by the fact that she has been for many years an English instructor at both the junior high and college levels. The recipient of a 1993 Newbery Honor Award for the short stories gathered in The Dark-Thirty, McKissack has also won several Coretta Scott King Awards. Teaming up with her husband, she has contributed numerous titles to Enslow's "Great African Americans" series, as well as many non-series books on little-known aspects of African American history, including The Red-Tail Angels and Black Diamonds.

The McKissacks' lives were shaped by one of the most optimistic eras in American...