History For Teens

One early morning in 1754 an Indian raid on a small New Hampshire settlement shatters all young Miriam Willard’s hopes and dreams. Suddenly she and her family are victims of the French and Indian War. Forced to march north to Canada, they will either be held captive by the Indians or sold to the French as slaves. After the nerve-wracking experience of running an Indian gauntlet, Miriam is sold to a wealthy French family in Montreal. Held captive for a ransom that may never arrive, she longs for the handsome young soldier she left behind.

"We've got millions!" the prospectors roared to the throng at Seattles' docks. "The Klondike is the richest goldfield in the world!" Within moments, the telegraph is humming the news. Within hours,15-year-old Jason Hawthorn is rushing west from New York City with a bad case of Klondike fever.

Today, everyone is familiar with Neil Armstrong's famous words as he first set foot on the moon: "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." But America's journey to the moon was anything but simple. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite, into orbit; later that year, America's first attempt was such a failure that the media nicknamed it "Kaputnik." Still, we didn't give up. With each failure, we gleaned valuable information about what went wrong, and how to avoid it in the future. So we tried again. And again. And each time we failed, we failed a little bit better.

As the armed conflicts between the English colonies in North America and the French settlements raged in the 1700s, a young Puritan girl, Eunice Williams, is kidnapped by Mohawk people and taken to Canada. She is adopted into a new family, a new culture, and a new set of traditions that will define her life. As Eunice spends her days learning the Mohawk language and the roles of women and girls in the community, she gains a deeper understanding of her Mohawk family.

This book chronicles the long history of the fight for women's voting rights, beginning in 1848, with a focus on the years between 1913 and 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed. The book includes profiles of notable women in the struggle.

For more than 200 years, the wreck of the Whydah (and the riches that went down with it) eluded treasure seekers, until the ship was finally found in 1984 by marine archaeologists. The artifacts brought up from the ocean floor are priceless, both in value and in the picture they reveal of life in that much-mythologized era, changing much of what we know about pirates.

Chris Brabson hates the Union troops. Yankee riders in the Tennessee mountains have stolen his family's newly harvested crops and their only horse. In spite of this, Chris' brother joins the Union army, and his parents refuse to take either side. But Chris has no doubts, he would fight for the Confederacy. The Perilous Road, a Newbery Honor book, powerfully illustrates the senseless waste of war and the true meaning of courage and tolerance.

Two teenagers are catapulted back in time to alter history and save the medieval kingdom of Wales ... David and his man-at-arms, Ieuan, find themselves alone and on the run from a company of English soldiers who've sworn vengeance for the recent death of their king. Meanwhile, Llywelyn lays on his deathbed, wounded by a traitor's arrow. And once again, it is David and Anna, and all that they represent, that holds the key to the survival of Wales.

New York Times best-selling novelist Brian Jacques, creator of the beloved Redwall books and one of the most popular children's authors in the world, delivers the second rousing escapade from his Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series. This time around, the immortal Ben and Ned are high in the Pyrenees Mountains, where they make new allies and fight to save a man from a legendary tribe strong in the black arts.

Brie's life ends at sixteen: Her boyfriend tells her he doesn't love her, and the news breaks her heart - literally. But now that she's in heaven, Brie is about to discover that love is way more complicated than she ever imagined. Back in Half Moon Bay, her family has begun to unravel. Her best friend knows a secret about Jacob, the boy she loved and lost - and the truth behind his shattering betrayal. And then there's Patrick, Brie's mysterious new guide and resident Lost Soul...

In this haunting and compelling follow-up to the instant classic The Secret of Nightingale Wood, Lucy Strange takes a seafaring myth and grounds it in the stark reality of World War II. Growing up in a lighthouse, 11-year-old Pet's world has been one of storms, secret tunnels, and stories about sea monsters. But now the country is at war and the clifftops are a terrifying battleground. Pet will need to muster all her bravery to uncover why her family is being torn apart.

November 1288. Bereft of a king or rightful heir, England hurtles towards civil war for the second time in a generation. When David, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Lili, travel to London to attend the wedding of William de Bohun and Princess Joan, they have no intention of involving themselves in local politics. But as infighting leads to murder, David and Lili find themselves at the center of a far-reaching conspiracy.

Six years ago, sisters Evelyn and Philippa Hapwell were swept away to a strange and beautiful kingdom called the Woodlands, where they lived for years. But they have struggled to adjust ever since they returned to their lives in post-WWII England. Ev desperately wants to return to the Woodlands, and Philippa just wants to move on. When Ev goes missing, Philippa must confront the depth of her sister’s despair and the painful truths from which they’ve been running. As the weeks unfold, Philippa wonders if Ev truly did find a way home or if the weight of their worlds pulled her under.

Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Tilley and her family have been waiting for this day for months - the day the Mayflower sets sail from England. The late start means uncertain weather and a long, hard journey for everyone. But the trip seems especially rough for Dorothy Bradford, the frail young wife of William Bradford. One night, Elizabeth discovers Dorothy alone on deck. Thinking the woman wants to be alone, Elizabeth returns to bed. But the next morning, she awakes to the news that Dorothy has disappeared!

A mystical and transcendent journey of two wanderers, an 11-year-old boy and an old man to whom the boy has been entrusted by his father, a Jew, fleeing the ravages of the war by the late award winning author, Aharon Appelfeld. The old man is a former Ukrainian commander, revered by the soldiers under his command, who has gone blind and chosen the life of a wanderer as his last spiritual adventure.

By February 1945, the United States had been fighting World War II for more than three years. Soldiers were worn down from battle, and civilians were drained by sacrifice. But a photograph of Marines raising an American flag on Japanese soil gave a wearied nation a renewed sense of pride and hope.

It didn't seem possible. Four college students shot dead May 4, 1970, by Ohio National Guardsmen during a protest against the Vietnam War. The shootings at Kent State University would shock the nation and spark a mass student strike across the country, the only one in U.S. history.

When it went down in flames, the Hindenburg went down in history. The era of airship travel ended with a disastrous explosion May 6, 1937. Sam Shere's photo of the Hindenburg in flames has been called the most famous news photograph ever taken....

It is a bizarrely beautiful image: A man in a spacesuit stands isolated in an alien world. His companion, the photographer, and their landing craft are reflected in his visor. This photograph, taken by Neil Armstrong of fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin, is the most famous documentation of America’s 1969 moon landing. But to people in every country on Earth, it represented and still does so much more.

World War II was in its early days when brutal German dictator Adolf Hitler paid a visit to Paris, the capital of France. Only days before, on June 14, 1940, German soldiers had overrun the city, shocking the world. Hitler now viewed the city’s cultural treasures as his own. He posed for a photo in front of the Eiffel Tower, the beloved symbol of France and the country’s free, democratic people. The photo, taken by his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, would show the world that Nazi Germany had triumphed over its bitter enemy.