A man who sits on his gleaming, 40-foot steel pole, towering over his home onSarah's Mountain, dreams of escape for himself and his family one day when hewitnesses two strangers making their way toward the mountain.

The recipient of nearly every major award and honor in her field, including the 1992 Hans Christian Andersen Award, Virginia Hamilton (1934–2002) was the first African American woman to be awarded the Newbery Medal, for M.C. Higgins, the Great. Renowned as a storyteller, anthologist, and lecturer as well as a novelist, Ms. Hamilton made her home in Yellow Springs, Ohio.