This book tells about the fight to be free and independent.

    He crawls like a catfish, blows bubbles like a swamp monster, but he doesn’t swim in the town pool with me. He’s not allowed. Joe and John Henry are a lot alike. They both like shooting marbles, they both want to be firemen, and they both love to swim. But there’s one important way they're different: Joe is white and John Henry is black, and in the South in 1964, that means John Henry isn’t allowed to do everything his best friend is. Then a law is passed that forbids segregation and opens the town pool to everyone. Joe and John Henry are so excited they race each other there...only to discover that it takes more than a new law to change people’s hearts.

    She and her family have to grow, raise, and make everything they need-including their clothes. The time and effort that takes means that nothing is replaced until it's absolutely necessary. As Sarah helps plant flax and raise sheep throughout the year, her one dress gets tighter and tighter. But in the nick of time, wool is spun, fabric is woven, and a brand-new dress is made just for her. The details of colonial life are captured in lively verse and glowing illustrations, making Sarah's joyful spin in her new dress an ending readers will cheer. Illustrated by Ted Rand.

    This story, about how a young black soldier rescues a white soldier, opens young readers' eyes to the injustices of slavery and the senselessness of war. Highly charged emotionally, this masterful retelling of a true story is seen through the white soldier's eyes.

    This is a book to share at home or in the classroom, sure to spark questions and engage students, especially in third through fifth grade.New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers and Caldecott Honor artist Christopher Myers celebrate the freedom dream that is America: our struggles, our ideals, and our hope that we can live up to them. What is it to be an American? To live in a strange and beautiful land of complexity, with a tumultuous history of epic proportions, among the people who were here first, who came after, who will come tomorrow.Over the centuries, from a blank canvas of mountains, plains, and canyons, the American landscape has been richly carved by revolution, progress, and possibility. Yet its story is still being written.With graceful, lyrical prose and evocative paintings, Newbery Honor author Walter Dean Myers and Coretta Scott King Honor artist Christopher Myers, the father-son team who created Harlem, pay tribute to the spirit and soul that is America.

    Illustrator Christoper Bing adds luminous paintings, historically rich engravings, and other enrichments to Longfellow's poem, tying the fiction into the fact of what really happened on that April night.

    But not everyone knows the harrowing details and narrow escapes that occurred along the way. This timeless and witty book highlights little-known facts about patriot Paul Revere.

    In the 1930s, dangerous black storms swept through the Great Plains. Created by drought and reckless farming, these lethal storms were part of an environmental, economic, and human catastrophe that changed the course of American history. In riveting, accessible prose, an acclaimed historian explains the causes behind the disaster and explores the Dust Bowl's impact, from a rich cultural legacy to the visionary conservation that would finally offer hope to the Plains.

    She took the name Frank Thompson and joined a Michigan army regiment to battle the Confederacy. Sarah excelled as a soldier and nurse on the battlefield. Because of her heroism, she was asked to become a spy. Her story comes to life through the signature illustrations and design of John Hendrix and the exciting storytelling of Marissa Moss.

    Franklin also designed the lightning rod, suggested the idea of daylight savings time, and invented bifocals-all inspired by his common sense and intelligence. In this informative book, Gene Barretta brings Benjamin Franklin's genius to life, deepening our appreciation for one of the most influential figures in American history.Now & Ben is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

    Its walls are rich with stories. Its walls are rich with stories. In this book we hear myriad of those voices. First we follow a young person today. Her great-great-grandmother entered America through Ellis Island. As this young girl walks the halls of the famous site, she wonders about the past, the people, and their hopes, dreams and challenges. Here, too, is the voice of Sera, an Armenian girl from the early 1900s. Fleeing the unthinkable in her home country, she longs to join her father in America. As Sera enters the halls of Ellis Island, she lives those same hopes, dreams, and challenges. The voices of real immigrants -- their suffering in steerage, their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, and their journey through the Great Hall -- complete this touching look into an important part of America's history. A pivotal time and place is brought to life through a combination of many voices speaking in harmony.

    The oxcart man packs his goods - the wool from his sheep, the shawl his wife made, the mittens his daughter knitted, and the linen they wove. He packs the birch brooms his son carved, and even a bag of goose feathers from the barnyard geese.He travels over hills, through valleys, by streams, past farms and villages. At Portsmouth Market he sells his goods, one by one - even his beloved ox. Then, with his pockets full of coins, he wanders through the market, buying provisions for his family, and returns to his home. And the cycle begins again."Like a pastoral symphony translated into picture book format, the stunning combination of text and illustrations recreates the mood of 19-century rural New England."--The Horn Book

    An American sailor courts a young Japanese woman and each tries, in secret, to learn the other's way of eating.

    Looks through the eyes of the fictional marshal of an imaginary town called Dustville to show what life was like on the Great Plains just after the Civil War.This series meets National Curriculum Standards for: Science: History and Nature of Science Social Studies: Time, Continuity, & Change

    "Exceptional." - School Library Journal, starred review