Book picks similar to
The Little Ships: The Heroic Rescue at Dunkirk in World War II by Louise Borden
picture-books
historical-fiction
history
ww2
Duel!: Burr and Hamilton's Deadly War of Words
Dennis Brindell Fradin - 2008
One was the U.S. vice president, Aaron Burr, and the other was Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury. They were ready to fight to the death for honor.These Founding Fathers, once friends and colleagues, had become the bitterest of enemies. After years of escalating tension, Burr had finally challenged Hamilton to a duel. In the end, only one man survived, but their infamous rivalry lives on.
Roanoke, the Lost Colony: An Unsolved Mystery from History
Jane Yolen - 2003
After bringing many men, women, and children to the new land, White went back to England to gather supplies for the long winter. But when he finally returned to the fort almost three years later, he found that all of the colonists had vanished. The only signs of life left were the letters CRO carved into a tree and the word CROATOAN carved into one of the fort's posts. Some people think that the Spanish army captured the colonists; some people think that the local native people murdered them; others think that the colonists went off to live with the native people and start a new life. Still others think that the colonists tried to sail home to England and were lost at sea. No one knows for sure. Become a detective as you read this true story, study the clues, and try to figure out the fate of the lost colony of Roanoke. The Unsolved Mystery from History series is written by acclaimed author Jane Yolen and former private investigator Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple. Read carefully and check your clues. You might be the first to solve a puzzle that has baffled people for years.
Emma's Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty
Linda Glaser - 2010
Give me your tired, your poorYour huddled masses yearning to breathe free...Who wrote these words? And why? In 1883, Emma Lazarus, deeply moved by an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, wrote a sonnet that was to give voice to the Statue of Liberty. Originally a gift from France to celebrate our shared national struggles for liberty, the Statue, thanks to Emma's poem, slowly came to shape our hearts, defining us as a nation that welcomes and gives refuge to those who come to our shores. This title has been selected as a Common Core Text Exemplar (Grades 4-5, Poetry)
Elly: My True Story of the Holocaust
Elly Berkovits Gross - 2007
On the day they arrived at Auschwitz, a soldier directed Elly to the right; her mother and brother were sent to the left. She never saw her family alive again. Elly later learned that her father also had been killed in a forced-labor camp.
Shooting at the Stars
John Hendrix - 2014
In a letter home to his mother, he describes how, despite fierce fighting earlier from both sides, Allied and German soldiers ceased firing and came together on the battlefield to celebrate the holiday. They sang carols, exchanged gifts, and even lit Christmas trees. But as the holiday came to a close, they returned to their separate trenches to await orders for the war to begin again.John Hendrix wonderfully brings this story to life, interweaving fact and fiction along with his detailed illustrations and hand-lettered text. His story celebrates the humanity and kindness that can persist even during the darkest periods of our history. Back matter includes a glossary, additional information about World War I and the Christmas Truce and its aftermath, and an archival photograph taken during the Truce.
The Klipfish Code
Mary Casanova - 2007
Twelve-year-old Marit has decided to take action, despite her grandfather’s warnings. But will her plan work? Can she really complete her part of this secret code? And even if she can, would it make any difference to the Resistance?As this novel reveals what Norwegian people did to preserve their dignity and freedoms, it uncovers a startling statistic: the German secret police systematically rounded up one teacher in ten and sent them to concentration camps for their refusal to teach Nazi propaganda to Norwegian schoolchildren. Set on an island of sturdy fishing trawlers and brightly painted homes, with smells of kelp and salt water, here is a riveting novel about risks taken, secrets kept, and, always, questions about whom to trust.
Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie
Peter Roop - 1985
In the winter of 1856, a storm delays the lighthouse keeper's return to an island off the coast of Maine, and his daughter Abbie must keep the lights burning by herself.
A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat
Emily Jenkins - 2015
This richly detailed book ingeniously shows how food, technology, and even families have changed throughout American history. In 1710, a girl and her mother in Lyme, England, prepare a blackberry fool, picking wild blackberries and beating cream from their cow with a bundle of twigs. The same dessert is prepared by an enslaved girl and her mother in 1810 in Charleston, South Carolina; by a mother and daughter in 1910 in Boston; and finally by a boy and his father in present-day San Diego. Kids and parents alike will delight in discovering the differences in daily life over the course of four centuries. Includes a recipe for blackberry fool and notes from the author and illustrator about their research.From the Hardcover edition.
Abe Lincoln's Hat (Step Into Reading)
Martha F. Brenner - 1994
Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents, started out in life as an absent-minded frontier lawyer. How did he nudge his memory? He stuck letters, court notes, contracts, and even his checkbook in his trademark top hat. When he took off his hat, it was all there!
Me on the Map
Joan Sweeney - 1996
In this playful introduction to maps and geography, step by simple step, a young girl shows readers herself on a map of her room, her room on the map of her house, her house on the map of her street--all the way to her country on a map of the world. Once the reader is familiar with the maps, she demonstrates how readers can find their own country, state, and town--all the way back to their room--on each colorful map. Easy-to-read text, bright artwork, and charming details give children a lot to search for and will have them eager to help navigate on the next family vacation. From the Hardcover Library Binding edition.
Five True Dog Stories
Margaret Davidson - 1977
Dox finds jewels, and criminals. Grip picks pockets, and Barry rescues people from the snow. Adventure, suspense, and animals are all here.
From a Small Seed―The Story of Eliza Hamilton
Camille Andros - 2019
Tessa Blackham will illustrate; publication is planned for 2019.
Prisoner B-3087
Alan Gratz - 2013
At any cost.10 concentration camps.10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly.It's something no one could imagine surviving.But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face.As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner -- his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087.He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages all around him. He encounters evil he could have never imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror. He just barely escapes death, only to confront it again seconds later.Can Yanek make it through the terror without losing his hope, his will -- and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside?Based on an astonishing true story.
Henry Knox: Bookseller, Soldier, Patriot
Anita Silvey - 2010
A bookseller whose customers included both British officers and American colonists, he married into a Loyalist family. He always wore a silk handkerchief around his hand to conceal an old injury.An unlikely Revolutionary War hero? Perhaps. But Henry Knox was an ardent patriot. He devoted himself to the service of his country and of General George Washington. And it was Henry Knox who devised a plan to bring heavy artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to relieve the siege of Boston—and managed, despite all obstacles, to make it work.Described here in brief chapters and beautifully detailed paintings, Henry Knox's heroic undertaking is a little known but thrilling chapter in the story of American independence.
Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine
Laurie Wallmark - 2015
When she meets Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first mechanical computer, Ada understands the machine better than anyone else and writes the world's first computer program in order to demonstrate its capabilities.