Overview

Some secrets are buried for a reason. Some treasures are meant to be found. When twelve-year-old Gabrielle Boudreaux visits the Teche country for spring break, she expects crawfish étouffée, Tabasco sauce, and time with her cousin Yvette in New Iberia. What she does not expect is a crumbling letter from 1867, a silver locket with a fierce woman's portrait, and a mystery that stretches back through generations of pain and survival. Céleste was Gabrielle's great-great-great grandmother, an enslaved woman who survived Louisiana's brutal sugar plantations. After freedom came, she taught herself to read and write. She raised seven children. And she buried something on the land where she had suffered, calling it le trésor de la liberté, the treasure of freedom. No one has found it since. Now Gabrielle must walk the same paths her ancestors walked, through the grounds of Shadows-on-the-Teche and the unmarked graves at Grand Côte, through painful history and powerful legacy. With the help of historians at the Iberia African American Historical Society, her family, and the whispers of the land itself, she searches for Céleste's treasure. What she discovers is that the greatest inheritance is not gold or silver. It is knowing who you are and where you come from, the beautiful and the painful, all of it yours to carry forward. Includes a glossary and pronunciation guide for Louisiana Creole French (Kouri-Vini), historical terms, place names, Indigenous nations, and cultural context. Author's note addresses Louisiana sugar plantations and enslaved ancestry for young readers. For readers ages 8-adult. Book 11 in the Light Keeper Legends series by M.K. Mélange.

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