I Have Heard of a Land

I have heard of a land

Where the imagination has no fences

Where what is dreamed one night

Is accomplished the next day

In the late 1880s, signs went up all around America-- land was free in the Oklahoma territory. And it was free to everyone: Whites, Blacks, men and women alike. All one needed to stake a claim was hope and courage, strength and perseverance. Thousands of pioneers, many of them African-Americans newly freed from slavery, headed west to carve out a new life in the Oklahoma soil.

Drawing upon her own family history, National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Thomas has crafted an unforgettable anthem to these brave and determined people from America's past. Richly illustrated by Coretta Scott King Award honoree Floyd Cooper, I Have Heard of a Land is a glorious tribute to the Afrian-American pioneer spirit.

National Book Award-winning author Joyce Carol Thomas draws on family history for this lyrical account of America's little-known past. In the late 1880s, thousands of pioneers, many African Americans newly freed from slavery, raced to the Oklahoma Territory. Here all one needed to stake a claim was hope and courage and the determination to journey west. Richly illustrated by Coretta Scott King Award Honor — recipient Floyd Cooper and complete with an author's endnote, I Have Heard of a Land commemorates the strength of the African-American pioneers. It is a hymn to liberty and unity, an ode to a land where what can be dreamed can be accomplished.

00-01 Sequoyah Children's Book Award Masterlist