"In 1863, the US Civil War was raging. Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had freed over 3.5 million African-American slaves, and now the Union Army began to recruit a second all-black regiment of soldiers to join the fight. As the struggle against the Confederate South raged on, the newly-formed 54th Massachusetts battalion prepared to attack the seemingly impregnable fortress of Fort Wagner. The odds were heavily against them; the fort had never been taken. America was watching them - and when the bugle sounded they marched towards the guns, flag held high"--Publisher's description.

Kekla Magoon is the author of many novels and nonfiction books for young readers, including The Season of Styx Malone, The Rock and the River, How It Went Down, and the Robyn Hoodlum Adventure series. She has received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the John Steptoe New Talent Award, three Coretta Scott King Honors, the Walter Award Honor, an NAACP Image Award, and been long listed for the National Book Award.

Amerigo Pinelli lives in the heart of the city of Naples, Italy, among narrow streets and old churches. A long time ago, when he was a child, he met a pencil, and from that moment on he started to play, joke, fight, and make peace with it.