Book excerpt: Newbery Medalist Virginia Hamilton presents a novella that brings together the slave past and multi-generational present life of a young girl in Ohio. From picking berries with her cousins to surviving a tornado to being dissed by a white, bigoted teacher, the daily life of Valena is drawn here with quiet dignity. Time Pieces are places in time, including chapters moving back to Hamilton's autobiographical family story of her grandfather's escape from slavery in Virginia, when he was brought to Ohio by his mother, a native American. A strong work of fiction from a master storyteller.