Book picks similar to
Egyptian Town by Franklin Watts


history
historical
homeschool-sotw-ancient-history
new-shelf

The Last Wilderness


Murray Morgan - 1955
    First published in 1955, this book tells the lively and entertaining story of the Olympic Peninsula, "the fist of land thrust north between Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean, a wilderness area of six thousand square miles, as large as the state of Massachusetts, more rugged than the Rockies, its lowlands blanketed by a cool jungle of fir and pine and cedar, its peaks bearing hundreds of miles of living ice that gave rise to swift rivers alive with giant salmon; the first land in the Pacific Northwest to be reported by explorers, the last to be mapped--the last wilderness." Murray Morgan has recorded the epic adventures of the pioneers of this remote region in this rousing and humor-filled saga, one that should capture the imagination of Americans everywhere.

Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas


Jim Ottaviani - 2013
    These three ground-breaking researchers were all students of the great Louis Leakey, and each made profound contributions to primatology—and to our own understanding of ourselves.Tackling Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas in turn, and covering the highlights of their respective careers, Primates is an accessible, entertaining, and informative look at the field of primatology and at the lives of three of the most remarkable women scientists of the twentieth century. Thanks to the charming and inviting illustrations by Maris Wicks, this is a nonfiction graphic novel with broad appeal.

The Swiss Family Robinson


Johann David Wyss - 1812
    But things do not turn out as they had expected. The sole survivors of a terrible shipwreck, they wash ashore to learn that the danger has only begun. Their new world will test their courage, cleverness, endurance, and faith as they struggle to survive and create a civilization of their own in the wilderness. Note: This Townsend Library classic has been carefully edited to be more accessible to today's students. It includes a brief author's biography and an afterword that provides important context about the work.

The Big Wave


Pearl S. Buck - 1947
    His friend, Jiya, lives in a fishing village below. Everyone, including Kino and Jiya, has heard of the big wave. No one suspects it will wipe out the whole village and Jiya's family, too. As Jiya struggles to overcome his sorrow, he understands it is in the presence of danger that one learns to be brave, and to appreciate how wonderful life can be.The famous story of a Japanese boy who must face life after escaping the tidal wave destruction of his family and village.

All About You: An Adopted Child's Memoir


Liz Butler Duren - 2017
    She was adopted. This discovery leads Liz on a 29-year journey to find the mother who gave her away. Like a master detective, she deciphers decades-old agency documents to decode the truths within. Fraught with dead ends and disappointments, her journey threatens to reveal secrets that have long defined the lives of her loved ones. Told with heart, humor and bittersweet reflections of a South Carolina girlhood, All About You will resonate with any reader struggling to find their place in the world.

Lost In the Yellowstone: Truman Everts's Thirty Seven Days of Peril


Truman Everts - 2002
    Scattered reports of a mostly unexplored wilderness filled with natural wonders caught the public’s—and Evert’s—attention. Although fifty-four, nearsighted, and an inexperienced woodsman, he joined the expedition determined to map and investigate the mysterious Yellowstone.Separated from his party, and then abandoned by his horse, Evert embarked on one of the most grueling survival adventures recorded on the American frontier. For thirty-seven days he wandered Yellowstone alone, injured, and without food save that which he could scrape from an unfriendly land.Truman Evert’s story manifests the qualities we associate with the great explorers: endurance, determination, inventiveness, and courage in the face of unendurable hardship. Lost in the Yellowstone is an inspiration, and a testament to one man’s will to survive.

Gone: Catastrophe in Paradise


O.J. Modjeska - 2017
    Within hours, hundreds are dead. What happened? The true story of one of history's most tragic and shocking disasters...in which aviation, terrorism, a sudden change in the weather and plain old bad luck made for a ruinous mix. This gripping novella length work unravels the mind-boggling facts of this catastrophe as a compelling, action-packed and haunting tale of the human condition that will have you turning the pages to the very end.

Paddle-to-the-Sea


Holling Clancy Holling - 1941
    Paddle's journey, in text and pictures, through the Great lakes to the Atlantic Ocean provides an excellent geographic and historical picture of the region.

Rascal


Sterling North - 1963
    Rascal is only a baby when Sterling brings him home, but soon the two are best friends, doing everything together--until the spring day when everything suddenly changes.Rascal is a heartwarming boyhood memoir that continues to find its way into the hearts of readers fifty years later. This special anniversary edition includes the book's classic illustrations restored to their original splendor, as well as a letter from the author's daughter, and material from the illustrator's personal collection."Everyone should knock off work, sit beneath the nearest tree, and enjoy Rascal from cover to cover."—Chicago Tribune

Annie's Girl: How an Abandoned Orphan Finally Discovered the Truth About Her Mother


Maureen Coppinger - 2009
    She was just three years old.      She remained in the orphanage until the age of 16, subjected to cruelty and neglect, and starved of love and affection. One of her closest friends was taken away to an asylum after her spirit was broken by repeated beatings, and Maureen herself faced a constant battle against despair. It was an environment from which no one emerged unscathed.      Throughout these tormented years, Maureen dreamed only of escape, and when she was contacted again by her mammy she believed all her dreams were about to come true. Life in the outside world brought its own challenges, however, and Maureen was thrown into turmoil when she discovered that the truth about her past was more murky than she had ever realised.      Annie's Girl stands apart as a poignant testimony to the resilience of the human heart. This touching and evocative memoir is the incredible story of an illegitimate industrial-school survivor's profound struggle to overcome a shame-filled past and solve the mystery of her origins.

Don't Know Much About American History


Kenneth C. Davis - 2003
    Davis knows, history can be fun, fascinating, and memorable. When his don't know much about® history was published in 1990, it was a sensation. The book delivered a fresh take on history with its wit and unusual detail. Davis now does for young people what his earlier book did for adults. In his trademark question-and-answer style -- peppered with surprising facts, historic reproductions, and Matt Faulkner's lively illustrations -- Davis introduces our ancestors who settled the East and expanded the West, as well as those who had been living here all along. His sure touch brings the drama and excitement of the American story vividly to life.

Once


Morris Gleitzman - 2005
    At least Once.Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.Once I made a Nazi with a toothache laugh.My name is Felix. This is my story.Once is the first in a series of children's novels about Felix, a Jewish orphan caught in the middle of the Holocaust, from Australian author Morris Gleitzman - author of Bumface and Boy Overboard. The next books in the series Then, Now and After are also available from Puffin.

Blue Sky White Stars


Sarvinder Naberhaus - 2017
    Each spread, sumptuously illustrated by award-winning artist Kadir Nelson, depicts a stirring tableau, from the view of the Statue of Library at Ellis Island to civil rights marchers shoulder to shoulder, to a spacecraft at Cape Canaveral blasting off. This book is an ode to America then and now, from sea to shining sea.

Where the World Ends


Geraldine McCaughrean - 2017
    If he went home at all, that is...In the summer of 1727, a group of men and boys are put ashore on a remote sea stac to harvest birds for food. No one returns to collect them. Why? Surely nothing but the end of the world can explain why they have been abandoned to endure storms, starvation and terror. And how can they survive, housed in stone and imprisoned on every side by the ocean?

The Madman of Piney Woods


Christopher Paul Curtis - 2014
    They aren't friends. They don't even live in the same town. But their fates are entwined. A chance meeting leads the boys to discover that they have more in common than meets the eye. Both of them have encountered a strange presence in the forest, watching them, tracking them. Could the Madman of Piney Woods be real?