Mussolini: History in an Hour


Rupert Colley - 2014
    Famed for his dictatorial style, his political cunning and admired – initially – by Hitler, Mussolini led the National Fascist Party and ruled Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 until his ousting in 1943. In so doing, he paved the way towards Italy’s defeat in World War Two, and some of the 20th century’s most destructive ideologies and practices.Following expulsion from Italian Socialist Party, Mussolini denounced all efforts of class conflict, and instead later commanded a Fascist March on Rome to become the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history. Thereafter he set about dismantling the apparatus of democracy and initiated what would become known as the one-party totalitarian state. With World War II came defeat, humiliation and his bloody deposing. Explaining his ideologies, policies, actions and flaws, ‘Mussolini: History in an Hour’ is the concise life of the man whose ideas helped create some of the worst horrors of the modern history.Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…

Coretta Scott


Ntozake Shange - 2008
    Walking many miles to school in the dusty road, young Coretta knew, too well, the unfairness of life in the segregated south.A yearning for equality began to grow.Together with Martin Luther King, Jr., she gave birth to a vision and a journey—with dreams of freedom for all.This extraordinary union of poetic text by Ntozake Shange and monumental artwork by Kadir Nelson captures the movement for civil rights in the United States and honors its most elegant inspiration, Coretta Scott.

A Lady Has the Floor: Belva Lockwood Speaks Out for Women's Rights


Kate Hannigan - 2018
    Supreme Court. She fought for equality for women in the classroom, in the courtroom, and in politics. In her quest for fairness and parity, Lockwood ran for President of the United States, becoming the first woman on the ballot. In this riveting nonfiction picture book biography, award-winning author Kate Hannigan and celebrated artist Alison Jay illuminate the life of Lockwood, a woman who was never afraid to take the floor and speak her mind.

Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail


Jonathan Chait - 2016
    His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to tens of millions who previously could not afford it, negotiated an unprecedented nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking international climate accord, reined in Wall Street, launched a fundamental overhaul of our education system, and formulated a new vision of racial progress. He has done all of this despite a left that frequently disdained him as a sellout, and a hysterical right that did everything possible to destroy his agenda, even in instances when they actually agreed with what he was doing before Obama was the one doing it.Now, as the page turns to possibly the most dangerous Commander in Chief in our history, Jonathan Chait, one of America’s most incisive and meticulous political commentators, digs deep into Obama’s record on major policy fronts—the economy, the environment, domestic reform, health care, race, and foreign policy—to demonstrate why history will judge our forty-fourth president as among our greatest. Chait explains why so many observers, from cynical journalists to disheartened Democrats, missed the enormous evidence of progress amidst the smoke screen of extremist propaganda and the confinement of short-term perspective. He also reveals why Obama’s accomplishments will last despite the reactionary effort by Donald Trump and the Republicans to extinguish them. And in its resounding defense of Obama’s tenure, Audacity both makes clear his victories, and what we need to fight for next.

Worst of Friends: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the True Story of an American Feud


Suzanne Tripp Jurmain - 2011
    But their differing views on how to run the newly created United States turned them into the worst of friends. They each became leaders of opposing political parties, and their rivalry followed them to the White House. Full of both history and humor, this is the story of two of America's most well-known presidents and how they learned to put their political differences aside for the sake of friendship.

The Unarmed Truth: My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious


John Dodson - 2013
    In 2007, following the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech, John Dodson walked through the classrooms, heartbroken, to cover up the bodies of the victims. Then came Arizona. The American border. Ten days before Christmas, 2010, ATF agent John Dodson awoke to the news he had dreaded every day as a member of the elite team called the Group VII Strike Force: a U.S. border patrol agent named Brian Terry had been shot dead by bandits armed with guns that had been supplied to them by ATF. Was this an inevitable consequence of the Obama administration’s Project Gunrunner, set in place one year earlier ostensibly to track Mexican drug cartels? Brian Terry’s murder would not only change John Dodson’s life forever; it would reveal a scandal so unthinkably unpatriotic that it forced President Barack Obama to claim executive privilege and caused Attorney General Eric Holder to be held in contempt of Congress. Federal Agent John Dodson, an ex-military man, took an oath to defend the world’s greatest country, and proudly considered himself a walking patriotic example of the American Dream. Brian Terry, ex-military like Dodson, was only forty years old, a family man who served his country by working for the government. Dodson was terrified when the next phone call came, one with the potential to destroy his career, his family, and his life. CBS investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson asked Dodson to go public with what he knew about Fast and Furious. To Agent Dodson, this meant blowing the whistle. But to the family of Agent Terry, it was a chance to save lives and right a wrong. As he took a fight from the border towns of Arizona to a showdown in the halls of Congress, John Dodson clung to the hope that truth would prevail, that he would be redeemed, and that Brian Terry’s death would not be in vain. Like whistle-blowers before him, John would not be welcome back on the job. But he found strength in his conscience, in the support of the American public, and in Senators Darryl Issa and Chuck Grassley. When his first-amendment rights to publicly tell his story were threatened, the ACLU took up his case. For her report revealing John Dodson as the key whistle-blower in Fast and Furious, Sharyl Attkisson received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. Ultimately, John Dodson was cleared by the Inspector General’s office, publicly heralded as a hero, and returned to Arizona. Perhaps a lesson gleaned from John Dodson’s powerful account is well stated by former Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn: “If you always tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said.”

John Henry


Julius Lester - 1994
    It's a deadly contest of man-vs-machine written with such power that this African-American folk hero becomes as awesome as a force of nature, yet as familiar as an older brother. Pinkney's stunning art shows John Henry's energy bursting from nature. Full color.

Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad


Ellen Levine - 2007
    Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems farther away than ever when he is torn from his family and put to work in a warehouse. Henry grows up and marries, but he is again devastated when his family is sold at the slave market. Then one day, as he lifts a crate at the warehouse, he knows exactly what he must do: He will mail himself to the North. After an arduous journey in the crate, Henry finally has a birthday -- his first day of freedom.

When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country


G. Gordon Liddy - 2002
    Gordon Liddy offers his unabashedly politically incorrect view on America.

Say It Louder!: Black Voters, Voices & the Shaping of American Democracy


Tiffany Cross - 2020
    In fact, 90 percent of Black voters supported Democratic House candidates, compared to just 53 percent of all voters. Despite media narratives, this was not a fluke. Throughout U.S. history, Black people have played a crucial role in the shaping of the American experiment. Yet still, this powerful voting bloc is often dismissed as some "amorphous" deviation, argues Tiffany Cross.Say It Loud! is her explosive examination of how America's composition was designed to exclude Black voters, but paradoxically would likely cease to exist without them. With multiple tentacles stretching into the cable news echo chamber, campaign leadership, and Black voter data, Cross creates a wrinkle in time with a reflective look at the timeless efforts endlessly attempting to deny people of color the right to vote--a basic tenet of American democracy.And yet as the demographics of the country are changing, so too is the electoral power construct--by evolution and by force, Cross declares. Grounded in the most-up-to-date research, Say It Loud! is a vital tool for a wide swath of constituencies.

Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein


Don Brown - 2004
    When he was older, he hit his sister, frustrated his teachers, and had few friends. But Albert’s strange childhood also included his brilliant capacity for puzzles and problem solving: the mystery of a compass’s swirling needle, the intricacies of Mozart’s music, the secrets of geometry — set his mind spinning with ideas. In fact, Albert Einstein’s ideas were destined to change the way we know and understand the world and our place in the universe. In spare, precise text filled with graceful detail and accompanied by sometimes humorous, sometimes lonely portraits, Don Brown introduces us to the less than magnificent beginnings of an odd boy out. The result is a tender rendering of the adventures of growing up for one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century.

The Story of Napoleon (The Children's Heroes)


H.E. Marshall - 2007
    Focuses on his military exploits, including his victories in battle after battle, followed by his exile to the island of Elba, his subsequent return to lead the disastrous Russian campaign, his final loss at Waterloo, and his last days on the lonely island of St. Helena. A volume in the highly-acclaimed Children's Heroes series, edited by John Lang.

Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees


Franck Prévot - 2011
    Her organization planted over thirty million trees in thirty years. This beautiful picture book tells the story of an amazing woman and an inspiring idea.

Who Was Daniel Boone?


Sydelle Kramer - 2006
    A symbol of America's pioneering spirit Boone was a skilled outdoorsman and an avid reader although he never attended school. Sydelle Kramer skillfully recounts Boone's many adventures such as the day he rescued his own daughter from kidnappers.

Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years


Cynthia Rylant - 2002
    But there were two years she didn't write about, two missing years that take place between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake.Now, Newbery Award-winning author Cynthia Rylant has imagined what those lost Little House years were like, based on Laura's unpublished memoirs. The result is the first Little House novel about Laura as a young girl in almost 60 years, and a wonderful addition to the classic series.When the grasshopper plague returns to Plum Creek, Pa knows all the crops will be destroyed again. He decides to take the family east to Burr Oak, Iowa, where he has found work running a hotel. But Laura longs to return to the tall-grass prairie and the unsettled west, to a place where Pa can play his fiddle in the open air and where she can feel free again.Old Town in the Green Groves continues the story about Laura Ingalls -- a story whose wonder and adventure have delighted millions of readers.