Eleanor


Barbara Cooney - 1996
    Years passed before Eleanor began to discover in herself the qualities of intelligence, compassion, and strength that made her a remarkable woman. In Eleanor, two-time Caldecott Medal winner Barbara Cooney paints a meticulously researched, lushly detailed picture of Eleanor's childhood world--but most importantly, she captures the essence of the little girl whose indomitable spirit would make her one of the greatest and most beloved first ladies of all time. "There are many biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt, but this one is special?Cooney is at her artistic best." --Booklist

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn


Mark Twain - 1884
    It is a dreamlike summertime world of hooky and adventure, pranks and punishment, villains and first love, filled with memorable characters. Adults and young readers alike continue to enjoy this delightful classic of the promise and dreams of youth from one of America’s most beloved authors. ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINNHe has no mother, his father is a brutal drunkard, and he sleeps in a barrel. He’s Huck Finn—liar, sometime thief, and rebel against respectability. But when Huck meets a runaway slave named Jim, his life changes forever. On their exciting flight down the Mississippi aboard a raft, the boy nobody wanted matures into a young man of courage and conviction. As Ernest Hemingway said of this glorious novel, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”--back cover

Escape from Shangri-La


Michael Morpurgo - 1998
    Only Cessie loves him and is determined to help him escape and unravel the truth of his past. A past that comes to him only in glimpses – a lifeboat, a tin of condensed milk, a terrifying night on the beaches of Dunkirk in World War II …Former Children’s Laureate and award-winning author of War Horse, Michael Morpurgo, demonstrates why he is considered to be the master story teller with this tale of strife and loss in World War II.

Johnny Appleseed: A Tall Tale


Steven Kellogg - 1988
    Along the way, he cleared land and planted orchards so he could supply apples to the settlers he knew would follow. When the settlers did arrive, John befriended them, often giving away his trees. Soon he became known as Johnny Appleseed.Legends about him spread quickly: It was said that he slept in a tree-top hammock, that he had a pet wolf, that he played with a bear family. Everyone seemed to know a story about Johnny Appleseed. And even today people claim to have seen him.In vivid prose and magnificent pictures that spring off the pages, Steven Kellogg tells the lively story of a true American Hero.

Pocahontas


Ingri d'Aulaire - 1946
    When the Natives judge the white man's magic as evil, John Smith is condemned to death— - only the intervention of Pocahontas saves his life and a tentative friendship is established between Pocahontas's tribe and the new colonists. The King of England sends a crown, rich robes and a royal bed to honor Powhatan and he is pleased, but the white man's insistence that the Indians give them corn to sustain them through the long winters threatens their tenuous relationship. Pocahontas's ultimate marriage to John Rolfe, the birth of their son, their voyage to England and presentation to the King and Queen is the stuff of fairy tales except that it is one of the great true stories of America's earliest days. 46pg

Jackaroo


Cynthia Voigt - 1985
    Gwyn, the innkeeper's lively daughter, pays little attention to the tales. But when she is stranded during a snowstorm in a cabin with the lordling Gaderian, and finds a strange garment that resembles the costume Jackaroo is said to wear, she begins to wonder....

Jacky Daydream


Jacqueline Wilson - 2007
    With photographs and new illustrations by Nick Sharratt, this book will delight all of Jacky’s fans — and be a treat for new readers too.

Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens


Jane Dunn - 2003
    But few books have brought to life more vividly the exquisite texture of two women's rivalry, spurred on by the ambitions and machinations of the forceful men who surrounded them. The drama has terrific resonance even now as women continue to struggle in their bid for executive power.Against the backdrop of sixteenth-century England, Scotland, and France, Dunn paints portraits of a pair of protagonists whose formidable strengths were placed in relentless opposition. Protestant Elizabeth, the bastard daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose legitimacy had to be vouchsafed by legal means, glowed with executive ability and a visionary energy as bright as her red hair. Mary, the Catholic successor whom England's rivals wished to see on the throne, was charming, feminine, and deeply persuasive. That two such women, queens in their own right, should have been contemporaries and neighbours sets in motion a joint biography of rare spark and page-turning power.

Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's Unwanted Wife


Sarah-Beth Watkins - 2018
    She was never brought up to be a queen yet out of many possible choices, she was the bride Henry VIII chose as his fourth wife. Yet from their first meeting the king decided he liked her not and sought an immediate divorce. After just six months their marriage was annulled, leaving Anne one of the wealthiest women in England. This is the story of Anne's marriage to Henry, how the daughter of Cleves survived him and her life afterwards.

A Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl, Belmont Plantation, Virginia 1859


Patricia C. McKissack - 1997
    Down in the Quarters people pray for freedom - they sing 'bout freedom, but to keep Mas' Henley from knowin' their true feelings, they call freedom "heaven." Everybody's mind is on freedom.But it is a word that aine never showed me no picture. While fannin' this afternoon, my eyes fell on "freedom" in a book William was readin'. No wonder I don't see nothin'. I been spellin' it F-R-E-D-U-M.I put the right letters in my head to make sure I remembered their place. F-R-E-E-D-O-M. I just now wrote it. Still no picture...

Motel of the Mysteries


David Macaulay - 1979
    Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization.

Susan B. Anthony: Champion of Women's Rights


Helen Albee Monsell - 1980
    Anthony: Champions of Women's Rights is the next installment in the Childhood of Famous Americans series.Using simple language that beginning readers can understand, this lively, inspiring, and believable biography looks at the childhood of Susan B. Anthony, who grew up to fight for women's equality and the right to suffrage.

Tudor: The Family Story


Leanda de Lisle - 2013
    But, as Leanda de Lisle’s gripping new history reveals, they are a family still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew.The Tudor canon typically starts with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, before speeding on to Henry VIII and the Reformation. But this leaves out the family’s obscure Welsh origins, the ordinary man known as Owen Tudor who would fall (literally) into a Queen’s lap—and later her bed. It passes by the courage of Margaret Beaufort, the pregnant thirteen-year-old girl who would help found the Tudor dynasty, and the childhood and painful exile of her son, the future Henry VII. It ignores the fact that the Tudors were shaped by their past—those parts they wished to remember and those they wished to forget.By creating a full family portrait set against the background of this past, de Lisle enables us to see the Tudor dynasty in its own terms, and presents new perspectives and revelations on key figures and events. De Lisle discovers a family dominated by remarkable women doing everything possible to secure its future; shows why the princes in the Tower had to vanish; and reexamines the bloodiness of Mary’s reign, Elizabeth’s fraught relationships with her cousins, and the true significance of previously overlooked figures. Throughout the Tudor story, Leanda de Lisle emphasizes the supreme importance of achieving peace and stability in a violent and uncertain world, and of protecting and securing the bloodline.Tudor is bristling with religious and political intrigue but at heart is a thrilling story of one family’s determined and flamboyant ambition.

For Freedom: The Story of a French Spy


Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - 2003
    Until then the war had seemed far away, not something that would touch her or her teenage friends. Now Suzanne's family is kicked out onto the street as German soldiers take over their house as a barracks.Suzanne clings to the one thing she really loves--singing. Her voice is so amazing that she is training to become an opera singer. As Suzanne travels around for rehearsals, costume fittings, or lessons, she learns more about what the Nazis are doing and about the people who are "disappearing." Her travels are noticed by someone else, an organizer of the French Resistance. Soon Suzanne is a secret courier, a spy fighting for France and risking her own life for freedom.

Sŏndŏk: Princess of the Moon and Stars, Korea, A.D. 595


Sheri Holman - 2002
    Three kingdoms (Silla, Koguryo, and Paekche) fought for supremacy, and three faiths (Shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) battled for dominance. Princess Sondok, the eldest daughter of King Chinp-yong of Silla, must contemplate problems that few other 14-year-olds ever to think of. Another expertly crafted addition to the Royal Diaries series.