Rachel Lane, age 12, dreams of becoming a teacher. But as a free Black child living in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1832, her dream is unlikely to become reality. Although she is not enslaved, she lives in a white-controlled society that maintains many restrictions on Black people, free or not. She must hide her ability to read and write because literacy is illegal for Blacks. The uncertainty in Rachel's life builds as she navigates the potentially dangerous border between freedom and slavery.

Characters in Rachel's Dream are based on real people presented in the author's previous book, A Different Story: A Black History of Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania, Virginia.