Historical Survival

Maxwell Smart tenía solo once años cuando toda su familia fue asesinada. Pudo haber muerto también, pero su madre le ordenó salvarse. Huyó al bosque, cavó un hoyo para refugiarse y buscó comida en las granjas cercanas. Con la ropa hecha harapos y al borde de la inanición, escapó repetidamente de la muerte a manos de los nazis. Después de meses en soledad, Maxwell se encontró con otro niño que deambulaba por el bosque en busca de comida. Janek, al igual que Maxwell, era huérfano y los dos se hicieron amigos.

A Promise at Sobibór is the story of Fiszel Bialowitz, a teenaged Polish Jew who escaped the Nazi gas chambers. Between April 1942 and October 1943, about 250,000 Jews from European countries and the Soviet Union were sent to the Nazi death camp at Sobibór in occupied Poland. Sobibór was not a transit camp or work camp: Its sole purpose was efficient mass murder. On October 14, 1943, approximately half of the 650 or so prisoners still alive at Sobibór undertook a daring and precisely planned revolt, killing SS officers and fleeing through minefields and machine-gun fire.

Ten-year-old Benny found the drunken cart driver who caused his father's death, but he's got bigger mysteries to solve. A long, sharp knife, a bag of disguises and a savage black stallion don't reassure Benny about his traveling companion to frontier Missouri. Still, Benny can’t shake the Scripture’s promise that God “will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

I starten af 1800-tallet tog den unge dansker Hans Falk afsked fra sit fædreland og stak til søs for at opleve verden. Han levede i mange år et hårdt og dramatisk liv som hvalfanger, før han slog sig ned i New Zealand, hvor han levede blandt de menneskeædende maorier og giftede sig tre gange med maorikvinder. Den danske journalist Preben Dich er selv draget til New Zealand for at lære Hans Falks historie at kende gennem hans efterkommere, der er stolte over deres danske ophav.

Thousands of Black cowpunchers drove cattle up the Chisholm Trail after the Civil War, but only Nat Love wrote about his experiences. Born to slaves in Davidson County, Tennessee, the newly freed Love struck out for Kansas after the war. He was 15 and already endowed with a reckless and romantic readiness. In wide-open Dodge City he joined up with an outfit from the Texas Panhandle to begin a career riding the range and fighting Indians, outlaws, and the elements. Years later he would say, “I had an unusually adventurous life.”

Winter 1943. Teenagers Frank, Joseph and Stephen are Royal Navy recruits on their first mission at sea during the Second World War. Their ship is part of an Arctic Convoy sailing to Russia to deliver supplies to the Soviets. The convoys have to navigate treacherous waters, sailing through a narrow channel between the Arctic ice pack and German bases on the Norwegian coast. Faced with terrifying enemy attacks from both air and sea, as well as life-threatening cold and storms, will all three boys make it home again?

We all come to crossroads in our lives where a step in one direction or another can dictate the rest of our time on the planet. It can happen just once for some, or like Stephen and his son Terry, it can happen often and each time they make a choice, they have half a chance to make the right one. If it is wrong then the next choice, even though it may be fueled by alcohol or drugs, may be a little more complex, and so it goes, life unfolds, and we take what we get.

After 13-year-old Hertz endures World War II, he must now survive Berlin’s devastation. With only Father’s violin as comfort, Hertz scrounges for food with his older sister Elsa, best friend Jakub from Poland, and fellow Berliners. Meanwhile, Soviet soldiers police the streets and blockade people from traveling to the American-controlled areas of Berlin.

War has forced Omar and his mother to leave their home in Afghanistan and venture across the sea to Europe. When their boat sinks, and Omar finds himself alone, with no hope of rescue, it seems as if his story has come to an end. But it is only just beginning. Because in the end, a little hope makes a big difference....

History colliding with the now. These are just some of the stories and personalities featured in the Grave Tales series. Grave Tales: Sydney visits cemeteries to feature people who willingly, or unwillingly, were participants in events that made local and national headlines. They may have lived in the same suburbs, streets, and even the same houses as exist now, or unexpectantly came to rest, in Sydney, Australia.

Hojae Jin is a senior at Tenafly High School in New Jersey. Kevin Kang is a senior at a high school in Rockland County, New York. David Yun is a senior at Ridgewood High School in New Jersey. This book is crucial for understanding the experiences of Korean-American youth. Listeners will share in joys and sorrows of the Korean immigration experience.

Anna's father disappeared months ago. He had to flee the country because the cruel new Communist government wanted to arrest him. The Communists may have arrived like heroes at the end of World War II, saving Czechoslovakia from the Nazis - but since then, things have changed. Now Anna's whole family feels threatened and doesn't know whom to trust, so she and her mother and sister set out to escape, hoping to reunite with Papa.

On August 6th, 1945 Shinji, a Japanese adolescent boy, helps his father below prepare their home for demolition from its roof top, he sees a blinding flash. An Earth-shattering blast with scorching heat sends him into complete darkness and total chaos. An atomic bomb has just exploded only three-quarters of a mile away from him, devastating all of Hiroshima in a blink.

The vicious attack on their wagon train killed almost everyone - except David and his younger sister, whom he calls Queen of Sheba. The two are stranded on the deserted trail and have to live by their wits and whatever supplies they can scavenge. And although David is seriously hurt, he knows that frail Queen of Sheba is counting on him. He can only hope that their parents are somewhere up ahead - if he can find them.

A teenage boy becomes stranded in the remote woodlands of Northern Canada after his bush plane crashes and he is left as the sole survivor. With next to nothing, except the clothes on his back and a few items found from the crash site, he struggles to survive. He faces many dangers, but the biggest danger, one far greater than starvation, hypothermia or the threat of predators, is the danger he never sees coming until it’s almost too late.

Bloodied and barely conscious, a teenage boy wakes up at the side of a railway track in the middle of nowhere. It’s night and the dead of winter–bone-chillingly cold. Where he is and how he got there, he doesn’t remember. Nor does he remember anything else for that matter–not even his own name. The only clue left behind is a backpack covered in a foot of snow lying next to him. The one thing he knows for sure is that if he doesn’t get up and start moving, he’s going to freeze to death.

This audiobook includes a collection of 12 stories and poems drawn from Davis Deen's Trinidadian background. The writing is warm and rich, rooted in and uttering from the Caribbean oral tradition.

Bloodied and barely conscious, a teenage boy wakes up at the side of a railway track in the middle of nowhere. It’s night and the dead of winter–bone-chillingly cold. Where he is and how he got there, he doesn’t remember. Nor does he remember anything else for that matter–not even his own name. The only clue left behind is a backpack covered in a foot of snow lying next to him. The one thing he knows for sure is that if he doesn’t get up and start moving, he’s going to freeze to death.

Run Rachel Run is a true story, not just based on a true story. Rachel Blum was 12 when the Nazis invaded her town. Over the next three years, she witnessed war, risked her life to smuggle food for her family, escaped liquidation, hid with a kind Polish couple whose son worked for the SS, was questioned if she was a Jew by an SS General, and engineered an incredibly dangerous scheme to overturn a moving trainload of 1,000 Nazi soldiers.

When one of their friends is captured and sold into slavery in the land of the Rus, the children of the old chieftain and their comrades decide to risk everything to rescue him. Little do they know what awaits them when they embark on the Viking ship, the Eagle. In addition to the dangers of the sea voyage, they must face the villainy of a traitor, marauding pirates, and robbers, before they end up in a seemingly hopeless situation as slaves in a quarry.