They take everything from Max’s family, including the precious painting that began the boys’ friendship.And though they promise to be friends forever,Willy and Max know that something unspeakable is coming between them, and they may never see each other again . . . .Beautiful and heartbreaking, Willy & Max is the powerful story of two boys separated by circumstance, but held together through generations by a simple painting—and the unbreakable spirit of their friendship.

    While many people lived in fear of the Nazis, Irena defied them, even though it could have meant her life. She kept records of the children she helped smuggle away from the Nazis grasp, and when she feared her work might be discovered, she buried her lists in jars, hoping to someday recover them and reunite children with their parents. This gripping true story of a woman who took it upon herself to help save 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust is not only inspirational; it's unforgettable.

    They work hard, surrounded by top security and sworn to secrecy, until finally they take their creation far out into the desert to test it, and afterward the world will never be the same.

    She works day and night to help grow crops for the troops…even when she has to hide in the fields. This is because she knows, like the women who built her and the women who farm with her, that they all must do their part.Inspired by the group of American women collectively known as “Rosie the Riveter” and the British Women’s Land Army, this is a story about taking action and coming together for the greater good.

    during WWII—the only enemy ever to do so—and comes back 20 years later to apologize. The devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, drew the United States into World War II in 1941. But few are aware that several months later, the Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita dropped bombs in the woods outside a small town in coastal Oregon. This is the story of those bombings, and what came after, when Fujita returned to Oregon twenty years later, this time to apologize.      This remarkable true story, beautifully illustrated in watercolor, is an important and moving account of reconciliation after war.

    And YOU CHOOSE what side you're on and what you do next. The choices you make could lead you to survival or to death. In the You Choose Books set, only YOU can CHOOSE which path you take through history. What will it be?Get ready for an adventureÉ

    THE White House.World War II is in full force across the seas. It's 1943, President Roosevelt is in office, and Diana's father, Harry Hopkins, is his chief advisor. And Diana wants to be part of the war effort. After some well-intentioned missteps (her quarantine sign on her father's office door was not well-received), the President requests her help with his newest plan for the country's survival: Victory Gardens!From award-winning author Elisa Carbone comes the true story of how Diana Hopkins started her own Victory Garden on the White House lawn under the tutelage of Eleanor Roosevelt. With dedication and patience, she showed the nation that the war effort started first on the homefront.

    Since he was a young boy, Jean longed to be a pirate, and with the help of his brothers and uncle, he became one when he was just a teenager. Soon the only life he knew was on the high seas—a life full of glory, riches, disaster, and revenge. When he finally settled down in New Orleans, he managed to become a successful businessman and respected citizen, while still pirating. He even helped the United States win the War of 1812 when he alerted the U.S. government to a British plot to invade via New Orleans. With the help of Laffite and his pirates, General Andrew Jackson was able to beat back the British. Praise for Jean Laffite: "Move over, Jack Sparrow, and make way for Jean Laffite. This well-informed narrative gives readers a sense of what was happening in the world at the time as well as what it was like to be a real pirate."--School Library Journal"Cinematic illustrations by Jeff Himmelman add to the excitement. Filled with fascinating facts and dynamic pictures, Jean Laffite: The Pirate Who Saved America is sure to captivate both pirate-loving children and their parents, as well."--Jewish Book Council

    But Chester refused to give up his heritage. Years later, during World War II, Chester—and other Navajo men like him—was recruited by the US Marines to use the Navajo language to create an unbreakable military code. Suddenly the language he had been told to forget was needed to fight a war. This powerful picture book biography contains backmatter including a timeline and a portion of the Navajo code, and also depicts the life of an original Navajo code talker while capturing the importance of heritage.

    Very touching, page turner.

    This is a grand one, told with rightful pride by a boy who was there in the city of Philadelphia in 1777 and was lucky enough to play a role in the American Revolution. John Jacob Mickley, eleven years old, and his father were in the city when the Great Bell began ringing Brong! Brong! BRONG! from atop the State House to warn the citizens: "Redcoats! The Redcoats are coming!" And come the British did -- with their muskets and their cannons and their will to keep the colonies for their king. Looting they came and stealing any metal they could get their hands on to melt down for the making of more weapons. And the prize above all? The Great Bell itself -- metal for many a cannon! But the clever Pensylvanians (yes, the word was spelled like that then) had other plans for keeping the Bell safe from the British. Megan McDonald has aptly caught John Jacob's excited retelling of the story, and Marsha Gray Carrington has relished every wild and wooly moment of it in her pictures -- both funny and carefully researched.

    Advances in technology during the height of World War II provide new methods for spies to keep secrets, steal information, and destroy enemy plans. You're about to go under cover. Will you: Become a resistance fighter in Denmark, revealing Germany's false claims of protection? Work as a Òdouble cross agent, pledging loyalty to one country but actually spying for another? Join the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, shuttling weapons to the Allies and sabotaging German transportation?

    Fighting the heat and dust of the desert, Shorty and his father decide to build a baseball diamond and form a league in order to boost the spirits of the internees. Shorty quickly learns that he is playing not only to win, but to gain dignity and self-respect as well.Baseball Saved Us is the ultimate rite of passage story. It will appeal again and again to readers who enjoy cheering for the underdog.

    But everything changed when the United States went to war with Japan in 1941 and the government forced all people of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes on the West Coast and move to distant prison camps. This included Fred, whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Japan many years before. But Fred refused to go. He knew that what the government was doing was unfair. And when he got put in jail for resisting, he knew he couldn’t give up.Inspired by the award-winning book for adults Wherever There’s a Fight, the Fighting for Justice series introduces young readers to real-life heroes and heroines of social progress. The story of Fred Korematsu’s fight against discrimination explores the life of one courageous person who made the United States a fairer place for all Americans, and it encourages all of us to speak up for justice.

     The tree in the courtyard was a horse chestnut. Her leaves were green stars; her flowers foaming cones of white and pink. Seagulls flocked to her shade. She spread roots and reached skyward in peace. The tree watched a little girl, who played and laughed and wrote in a diary. When strangers invaded the city and warplanes roared overhead, the tree watched the girl peek out of the curtained window of the annex. It watched as she and her family were taken away—and when her father returned after the war, alone. The tree died the summer Anne Frank would have turned eighty-one, but its seeds and saplings have been planted around the world as a symbol of peace.