TR aronii's Way Maker Series

Now Available: Book One

The Way Makers: Journey to Freedom

The note on the refrigerator from their mother provides her children with clear instructions:

"Nobody in! Nobody out!"

Outside the house, an April thunderstorm rages. Ewe, Papa's treasured African drum, a rhythmic dance to its drumbeat, a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a deafening crack of thunder, and Rheena Mackey and her little brother Zachary are thrown into America's past to discover firsthand the harsh realities of life on a South Carolina rice plantation. 

Soon after, their teenage brother, Hoban Cruz, follows.

The three siblings learn the cruel humiliation of slavery and of the auction block; they experience the friendships and the betrayals that follow runaways.

Sometimes together, sometimes apart, they discover the Underground Railroad ... all as they make their way on their journey to freedom.

This is the first book in The Way Makers young adult historical fiction series, a remarkable and harrowing account of three 21st-century Black American kids who must draw on their wit and strength to make their way through America's slavery past back to a world with freedoms they too often took for granted

 

Now Available: Book Two

The Way Makers: There You Have It

Young Zachary and Rheena are thrown decades into the past, into the lives of their enslaved ancestors... into a place and time that few could fathom.

Ewe brought them there. Papa's talking drum, hand-carved with Adinkra sigils, is now hidden in the slave quarters on the Hammond Rice Plantation. Is it their only way home?

Torn from this future that is now behind them, Rheena and her little brother Zachary are faced with yet another of the horrors of America's slavery past.

They face the separation at the auction block.

Just steps behind them, their older brother Hoban claims his place as a way maker, as their mother, Shirley Mackey, frantically searches their Monticello, NY neighborhood for her three missing children.

There you have it!

This is the second book in The Way Makers young adult historical fiction series, a remarkable and harrowing account of three 21st-century Black American kids who must draw on their wit and strength to make their way through America's slavery past back to a world with freedoms they too often took for granted.

 

Coming Soon: Book Three

The Way Makers: All Through the Night

Knowing how to read and write has new meaning for Rheena. It is a skill she can share. Living in the Silent Place has given her safety. It has given her purpose.

But when she heard the soulful voices sweetly singing: 

“Um bound, um bound fo' da promise land; 

Um bound, um bound fo' da promise land;

Oh, who will come and go wit’ me? 

Um bound fo' da promise land.”

... she knew it was time.

This is the third book in The Way Makers young adult historical fiction series, a remarkable and harrowing account of three 21st-century Black American kids who must draw on their wit and strength to make their way through America's slavery past back to a world with freedoms they too often took for granted.