One wouldn’t suspect a modern-day teenager would have much in common with a nineteenth century slave, but sometimes life’s circumstances can create bonds between the least likely of people as Maddie Bergamo finds out in C. E. Edmonson’s new novel "Golden’s Rule" (ISBN 9781414113784, Pleasant 
Word, 2009).
Fourteen-year-old Maddie is the Montclair Flash—the fastest girl in town and star of her middle-school’s basketball team. She seems to have it all—brains, mad moves on the basketball court, a major crush, true friends, understanding parents and dreams as broad as the sky is wide.
But one day a disease topples her dreams, and Maddie finds herself caught in a fight for her life. In this darkest hour, Maddie receives inspiration from the most unlikely of sources: the diary of her great-great-great-grandmother’s extraordinary life as a slave girl.
As Maddie reads the incredible story of her ancestor’s courage, she becomes resolved not to give up in the face of her own obstacles. The two young girls, though generations apart, parallel each other with their dire circumstances, providing a double-dose of inspiration to readers of "Golden’s Rule" and an understanding that there is always hope.
