History For Teens

In 1942, when Mahatma Gandhi asks Indians to give one family member to the freedom movement, 10-year-old Anjali is devastated to think of her father risking his life for the freedom struggle. But it turns out he isn't the one joining. Anjali's mother is. And with this change comes many more adjustments designed to improve their country and use "ahimsa" - non-violent resistance - to stand up to the British government. First the family must trade in their fine foreign-made clothes for homespun cotton, so Anjali has to give up her prettiest belongings.

This favorite book for children, based on the author's own youthful experiences, describes the family life of the Marches in a small New England community. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother, Marmee, while their father serves as a chaplain during the Civil War. The story explores their domestic adventures, their attempts to increase the family's income, their friendship with the neighboring Laurence family, and their later love affairs and destinies as women.

After eight years, Evadne will finally be reunited with her older sister, Halcyon, who has been serving in the queen’s army. But when Halcyon unexpectedly appears a day early, Eva knows something is wrong. Halcyon has charged with a heinous crime, and though her life is spared, she is sentenced to 15 years. Suspicious of the charges, brought forth by Halcyon’s army commander, as well as the details of the crime, Eva volunteers to take part of her sister’s sentence. If there’s a way to absolve Halcyon, she’ll find it.

When Amos Fortune was only 15 years old, he was captured by slave traders and brought to Massachusetts, where he was sold at auction. Although his freedom had been taken, Amos never lost his dignity and courage. For 45 years, Amos worked as a slave and dreamed of freedom. And, at age 60, he finally began to see those dreams come true.

Here is the tumultuous, heartrending, true story of the Romanovs - at once an intimate portrait of Russia's last royal family and a gripping account of its undoing. Using captivating photos and compelling first person accounts, award-winning author Candace Fleming (Amelia Lost; The Lincolns) deftly maneuvers between the imperial family’s extravagant lives and the plight of Russia's poor masses, making this an utterly mesmerizing listen as well as a perfect resource for meeting Common Core standards.

In the shocking finale to the best-selling series that began with Stalking Jack the Ripper, Audrey Rose and Thomas are on the hunt for the depraved, elusive killer known as the White City Devil. A deadly game of cat-and-mouse has them fighting to stay one step ahead of the brilliant serial killer - or see their fateful romance cut short by unspeakable tragedy.

Ten-year-old Pinchas is separated from his parents and twin sister when they are deported from the Warsaw ghetto to the killing site of Majdanek. As Pinchas is sent on to a series of concentration camps, he shuts himself off to the terrors surrounding him and tries his best not to be noticed, to become almost invisible.

In the summer of 1899, U.S. forces in Cuba discover the island is rampant with Yellow Fever. So the U.S. government sends a group of four elite Army doctors headed by Dr. Walter Reed to determine what is causing the outbreak.

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.

A finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award, Sue Macy’s Wheels of Change offers young listeners an ear-opening account of how, beginning in the late 19th century, the bicycle helped change the course of women’s history. Macy meticulously documents how women used the freedom of their newfound mobility to effect social change, even in the face of constant challenges.

In 1945, at the end of World War II, Adolf Eichmann, the head of operations for the Final Solution, walked into the mountains of Germany and vanished from view. Sixteen years later an elite team of spies captured him at a bus stop in Argentina and smuggled him to Israel, resulting in one of the century's most important trials - one that cemented the Holocaust in the public imagination.

This 1872 sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland finds Carroll's inquisitive heroine in a fantastic land where everything is reversed. Whereas the first book has the deck of cards as a theme, this book is loosely based on a game of chess, played on a giant chessboard with fields for squares. Alice encounters talking flowers, madcap kings and queens, and strange mythological characters when she becomes a pawn in a bizarre chess game.

A collective of Blackfoot authors share their stories that come both from legend and from their personal experiences, with many of the stories translated into English from the Blackfoot language. The book is illustrated with beautiful full-color pictures and photos, which help convey the inspiring stories of Blackfoot traditional and contemporary traditions and cultures. The Blackfoot Confederacy is made up of the Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, and Amskapi Piikuni Nations of Southern Alberta and Montana.

This is the incredible story of the world's greatest conqueror, a man who single handedly changed the course of history...and who was worshipped as a god. There have been many attempts in the 2,300 years since Alexander's death to tell the epic story of this enigmatic soldier. His deeds read like the stuff of legends. Of all the chroniclers of Alexander, and there have been many famous ones, including Plutarch and Ptolemy, none have given us a clearer and truer account than the one by Arrian.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother. But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

Using his father's watch as a key, Jake intends to return to Calypsos. Instead he's thrust into a strange desert land where he's joined by his friends Marika, Pindor, and Bach'uuk and his sister, Kady. As they try to figure out what to do next, a surprise attack by the beautiful young Princess Nefertiti takes them all captive. Soon even she is battling the Skull King's minions. For Jake has something the Skull King wants - a prize that will give its owner awesome power, including control of the fearsome Howling Sphinx.

Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who is forced at age 12 to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly recreates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his "brothers".

Anne Shirley, the mischievous, carrot-topped waif of Anne of Green Gables, has grown into a lovely young woman who leaves the security of Prince Edward Island to enroll at Redmond College. There, she discovers a professor who believes education is wasted on women, ponders the security offered in marriage proposals, and a host of other questions of young adulthood.

Tree-ear is an orphan boy in a 12th-century Korean potters’ village. When he accidentally breaks a pot, he must work for the master to pay for the damage by setting off on a difficult and dangerous journey that will change his life forever.

Danger is never far from Audra’s family farm in Lithuania. She always avoids the occupying Russian Cossack soldiers, who insist that everyone must become Russian - they have banned Lithuanian books, religion, culture, and even the language. But Audra knows her parents are involved in something secret and perilous. When Cossacks arrive abruptly at their door, Audra’s parents insist that she flee, taking with her an important package and instructions for where to deliver it. But escape means abandoning her parents to a terrible fate.