On her tenth birthday, Leah receives a surprise gift from glamorous Aunt Olivia, Mamaâ's only sister, who lives in Los Angeles. It is a red rose box. Not many people in 1958 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 after, Leah and her sister, Ruth, find themselves in Hollywood, far away from the cotton fields and Jim Crow laws. To Leah, California feels like freedom. But when disaster strikes back home, Leah and Ruth have to stay with Aunt Olivia permanently. Will freedom ever feel like home?
Leah Hopper is thrilled when, on her 10th birthday, her sophisticated and wealthy Aunt Olivia sends her a beautiful suitcase covered with red roses and filled with all sorts of extraordinary gifts. One of the gifts is a packet of train tickets and an invitation for the entire family to travel from their small, rural southern hometown to the big city of Los Angeles. While there, the family experiences a life far different from the one in their sleepy, racially segregated hometown. But later, when a tragedy forces Leah and her younger sister to relocate to Los Angeles permanently, Leah finds that wealth and material comforts are not what she treasures most in life. A 2003 Coretta Scott King Author Honors book.
- Genre: Juvenile Fiction
- Subgenre: People + Places / United States / African-American, Historical / General
- Age: 9-12 years
- Publisher: Puffin
- Pages: 136
- Edition: Reprint
- Language: English
- Format: paperback
- Release Date: December 1, 2003
- Date Published: December 1, 2003
- Author: Brenda Woods