History For Teens

No one knew his name. But soon millions would know about his bravery. For almost two months in spring 1989, Beijing’s Tiananmen Square had been the site of growing protests against China's hardline communist government.

Although less well known than his famous flight over the North Pole, Admiral Richard E. Byrd's adventures in Antarctica are just as remarkable. Wide-eyed youngsters will feel the excitement and danger as they learn about the isolated and tight little manned station where Byrd lived, separated from his crew; the temperatures that plunged to 60 degrees below zero; and Byrd's brush with death when a small stove he needed to keep warm - and stay alive - filled the air with carbon monoxide.

Jacky Faber, rich from her exploits diving for Spanish gold, has purchased the Lorelei Lee to carry passengers across the Atlantic. Believing she has been absolved of past sins against the Crown, Jacky docks in London to take on her crew, but is instead arrested and sentenced to life in the newly formed penal colony in Australia. To add insult to injury, the Lorelei Lee is confiscated to carry Jacky and more than 200 female convicts to populate New South Wales.

In this historical fairy-tale romance audiobook from best-selling author Melanie Dickerson, based on The Princess and the Frog, Margaretha hopes to find her prince...but when a man claiming to be an English lord arrives at the castle, she finds herself questioning her heart as she uncovers secrets about her current suitor that cast the mysterious lord in a new light. Margaretha has always been a romantic, and hopes her newest suitor, Lord Claybrook, will be her one true love.

kira-kira (kee' ra kee' ra): glittering; shining

Glittering. That's how Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. The sky is kira-kira because its color is deep but see-through at the same time. The sea is kira-kira for the same reason. And so are people's eyes. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it's Lynn who explains to her why people stop them on the street to stare.

As a young adult in wartime Vienna, Georg Rauch helped his mother hide dozens of Jews from the Nazis behind false walls in their top-floor apartment and arrange for their safe transport out of the country. His family was among the few who worked underground to resist Nazi rule. Then came the day he was shipped out to fight on the eastern front as part of the German infantry—in spite of his having confessed his own Jewish ancestry.

Audrey Rose Wadsworth and her partner-in-crime-investigation, Thomas Cresswell, are en route to New York to help solve another blood-soaked mystery. Embarking on a week-long voyage across the Atlantic on the opulent RMS Etruria, they're delighted to discover a traveling troupe of circus performers, fortune tellers, and a certain charismatic young escape artist entertaining the first-class passengers nightly. But then, privileged young women begin to go missing without explanation, and a series of brutal slayings shocks the entire ship.

Clever, headstrong Elizabeth Rose Camperdowne knows her duty. As the sole heiress to an old but impoverished noble family, Eliza must marry a man of wealth and title - it's the only fate for a girl of her standing. But when a surprising turn of events lands her in the royal court as a maid of honor to Anne of Cleves, Eliza is drawn into the dizzying, dangerous orbit of Henry the Eighth and struggles to distinguish friend from foe.

Disguised as a peasant, Cecilia has been hiding for years from the evil people who killed her parents. Now the time has come to reclaim her title. There's just one problem. Princess Desmia - supposedly Cecilia's decoy - believes a different version of the story.

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....

Rome, une ville éternelle, une société ingénieuse formée d'ethnies disparates sous la protection des dieux. Une petite bourgade aménagée sur une colline entourée de marécages qui en un millénaire a bâti un Empire de 5 millions de kilomètres carrés d'espace, sillonné de 90 000 kilomètres de routes. Rome, c'est la guerre incessante, mais aussi la joie et l'art de vivre hérités de la civilisation étrusque ; la littérature et la poésie inspirées de la culture grecque.

Igraine, who turns 12 tomorrow, dreams of becoming a famous knight. But today, like most days, life at the family castle remains...rather boring.

The year is 1453, and all signs point to it being the end of the world. Accused of heresy and expelled from his monastery, handsome seventeen-year-old Luca Vero is recruited by a mysterious stranger to record the end of times across Europe. Commanded by sealed orders, Luca is sent to map the fears of Christendom and travel to the very frontier of good and evil.

Brienna is a mistress of knowledge and is beginning to settle into her role as the daughter of the once-disgraced Lord Davin MacQuinn. Though she’d just survived a revolution that will return a queen to the throne, she faces yet another challenge: acceptance by the MacQuinns. But as Queen Isolde Kavanagh’s closest confidant, she’ll have to balance serving her father’s house as well as her country.

Eleven-year-old Adam loved to travel throughout 13th-century England with his father, a wandering minstrel, and his dog, Nick. But when Nick is stolen and his father disappears, Adam suddenly finds himself alone.

Trusting an overly optimistic guidebook, the Donner Party sets out for the Promised Land in May of 1846 - unaware that they're following only rumor-fueled speculations. But after betting their lives on a bogus shortcut, the starving travelers soon struggle to survive the November snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Praying for a miraculous rescue, 48 of the original 88 escape certain death by living off the flesh of their dead comrades.

This program includes a bonus interview with the author. Paris, 1889: The world is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. In this city, no one keeps tabs on secrets better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. But when the all-powerful society the Order of Babel seeks him out for help, Séverin is offered a treasure he never imagined: his true inheritance.

With a language disappearing every two weeks and neologisms springing up almost daily, an understanding of the origins and currency of language has never seemed more relevant. In this charming volume, a narrative history written explicitly for a young audience, expert linguist David Crystal proves why the story of language deserves retelling. From the first words of an infant to the peculiar modern dialect of text messaging, A Little Book of Language ranges widely, revealing language's myriad intricacies and quirks.

Frankie Laundau-Banks is no longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer. Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society. Not when her ex boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places. Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them.

In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned three continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, one brilliant group of scientists was hidden away at a remote site at Los Alamos.