LLife is unpredictable. Like a hurricane that descends without warning wreaking havoc, destroying fields and property, an event over which we have no control will dramatically affect our lives. Amos and Amelia, surrogate children of Robert Stafford, a wealthy planter from Cumberland Island, Georgia, grow from youth into adulthood during the Civil War. Master Robert is eccentric. He has northern sympathies yet lives in the South, marries his mulatto slave, sires six children, and creates a "peculiar" society. His slaves have more freedom than any plantation in the South. The precipitous events of the war threaten his plantation and life. Amos and Amelia witness the evacuation of Fernandina, the largest naval invasion in history, the burning of Master Robert"s cotton shed, carry a message to a blockade runner, celebrate Jonkonnu, a slave holiday, and grieve at their mother"s funeral. Master Robert captures the life and spirit of plantation life during the Civil War. It is also a...