An awe-inspiring African American woman! A talented seamstress, born a slave, bought freedom for herself and her son. This picture book biography weaves together historical details, vibrant collages, and the words of her own journals to bring to light the life and beautiful work Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, the seamstress who bought herself and son out of slavery. Lizzy’s story of hardship and resilience offers an untold side of history during a time of great injustice and change. Born enslaved in 1818 on a Virginian plantation, Lizzy experienced and witnessed unspeakable cruelty. When she was sent to workfor a tailor, her wages went to her master, not Lizzy. However, the beautiful gowns that Lizzy created attracted the attention of the wealthiest women in Virginia, even Mrs. Jefferson Davis. With money from her patrons, Lizzy bought her freedom and her son’s freedom working tirelessly stitch by stitch, going on to design gowns for the First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and grow an influentialcareer. This inspiring story about an unsung hero is beautifully illustrated with oil paint, cut paper and fabric collage and hand-embroidery by Elizabeth Zunon that brings Lizzy’s dresses to life. Connie Morrison writes with straightforward honesty and clarity, seamlesslyincluding research on fashion, life, and politics of the time. The backmatter includes a bibliography for further reading.

Biblical books, which were transmitted on separate scrolls in antiquity, are not necessarily identical with books in the modern sense of a coherent and self-contained compositional unit. The books of the Primary History especially constitute a larger master narrative. This raises the question of how the distribution of the text to different scrolls relates to its compositional history. Were the respective books conceived as physically separate parts of a multivolume composition (whether Pentateuch, Hexateuch, Deuteronomistic History or Enneateuch) from the outset, or are we dealing with a more complex development of originally independent compositional units that were only connected or separated by later redaction? The present volume addresses these issues with respect to the transitions between the books of Genesis/Exodus and Joshua/Judges, which have obviously developed in dependency upon each other.