English Heritage

You know the Super Soaker. It's one of the top 20 toys of all time. And it was an accidental discovery that brought it into being. Trying to create a new cooling system for refrigerators and air conditioners, inventor Lonnie Johnson instead created the mechanics for the iconic toy. A love of rockets, robots, and inventions and a mind for creativity were present in Lonnie Johnson's early life.

From Chelsea House’s Black Americans of Achievement series comes this biography of the legendary anti-slavery activist.

Young listeners learn about the early traditions which have led to our present-day celebration of Valentine's Day.

Wet rice paddies and steaming jungles. Noodles, lacquer art, and water puppet theater. Learn the ABCs of Vietnam and what makes this s-shaped country so fascinating.

How do the emergency services in different countries of the world rescue people? How do they travel and what equipment do they use? This book looks at the work of firefighters around the world, including how they rescue people from burning buildings as well as the different types of fires they tackle.

You may know of Pocahontas, but there is more to her story. Learn about life in the time that Pocahontas lived, and how she impacted the First Colonies.

Do you crack open a piñata on your birthday? Do you eat long noodles? Learn all about different birthday customs of children around the world.

It’s time to celebrate Kwanzaa! Light the kinara. Eat a big feast with your family. During Kwanzaa, people come together. They celebrate African-American heritage.

Chief Joseph wanted peace for his people. But the US Army had different ideas. As the headman and spokesperson for the Nez Perce, Chief Joseph tried to do what was best for his people. Join him as he leads his people over vast plains and rugged mountains on the run from the US Army.

You may know of many Native American tribes, but there is more to their story. Learn about life in the time that the First Americans lived.

How do you grieve, if your family doesn’t talk about feelings? This is the question the unnamed protagonist of GhostForest considers after her father dies. One of the many Hong Kong “astronaut” fathers, he stays there to work, while the rest of the family immigrated to Canada before the 1997 Handover, when the British returned sovereignty over Hong Kong to China. As she revisits memories of her father through the years, she struggles with unresolved questions and misunderstandings.

After her parents moved her and her brother to America, Preeti Desai never meant to tear her family apart. All she did was fall in love with a white Christian carnivore instead of a conventional Indian boy. Years later, with her parents not speaking to her and her controversial relationship in tatters, all Preeti has left is her career at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm. But when Preeti receives word of a terrible accident in the city where she was born, she returns to India, where she’ll have to face her estranged parents...and the complicated past they left behind.

Peter Frankopan, number one best-selling author and historian, explores the connections made by people, trade, disease, war, religion, adventure, science and technology in this extraordinary book about how the East married the West with a remarkable voyage at its heart - the journey along the Silk Roads.

David Kherdian re-creates his mother's voice in telling the true story of a childhood interrupted by one of the most devastating holocausts of our century....Vernon Dumehjian Kherdian was born into a loving and prosperous family. Then, in the year 1915, the Turkish government began the systematic destruction of its Armenian population.

This is the memoir written by Bella Kuligowska Zucker, the only person in her family to survive the Holocaust. In September 1939, Bella was a carefree teenager living in Poland when the German army struck. She was rounded up with her friends and family and sent to a series of grim Jewish ghettos. After loved ones were separated and lost through the war years, Bella survived by changing her identity. After finding the birth certificate of a Catholic girl five years her senior, she became Sabina Mazurek. Then she went into the eye of the storm, Germany.

Winter is a season of celebration! Join the fun with twelve festive crafts that celebrate holidays from around the world. Construct a papier-mâché lantern to mark Chinese New Year. Design colorful bunting to honor Black History Month. It’s always the season for crafting!

Fall is a season of celebration! Join the fun with twelve festive crafts that celebrate holidays from around the world. Create yarn apples for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. Mix soothing slime to mark World Mental Health Day.

It’s always the season for crafting!

Happy birthday! Let's celebrate! All around the world people are turning another year older. What are some ways birthdays are celebrated in Asia? Or in South America? Discover the ways people celebrate birthdays in this engaging series that develops kids' understanding of our diverse global community and their place in it.

Unapologetically punk, the essays in Thunder Song segue from the miraculous to the mundane, from the spiritual to the physical, as they examine the role of art—in particular music—and community in helping a new generation of indigenous people claim the strength of their heritage while defining their own path in the contemporary world.

Emmy Award-winning international journalist Hala Gorani weaves stories from her time as a globe-trotting anchor and correspondent with her own lifelong search for identity as the daughter of Syrian immigrants. As a journalist, Gorani has traveled to some of the most dangerous places in the world, but through it all, she came to understand that finding herself meant not only looking inward, but tracing a long family history of uprooted ancestors.