The Ever-After Bird (Book #10)

The Ever-After Bird (Ann Rinaldi, 2007) is an older kids'/YA book about a Pennsylvania girl in 1851 who, when her neglectful abolitionist father dies, is taken in by her uncle, an abolitionist ornithologist who travels the South sketching birds and telling slaves about the Underground Railroad. Cecilia, the heroine, has her doubts about the cause at first, since she resented her father's neglect, and he was murdered while trying to protect runaway slaves. She comes around after seeing the horrors of slavery firsthand--and this is a Message book, designed to educate kids about the evils in our history. But it's well-executed and readable.