Library History

Through the telling of events from his own life, Wes Moore (author of the best-selling adult title The Other Wes Moore) explores the issues that separate success and failure. He also counterpoints his story with another man, someone who shared the same name, was almost the same age, grew up fatherless in a similar Baltimore neighborhood, but is serving a life sentence for murder. Compelled to write to the other Wes, the author was surprised to receive a reply. And so began a friendship, as letters turned into visits and the two men got to know one another.

Margaret Chase Smith liked to help people, and she knew she could do that as a member of Congress. She became the first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate, where she supported the space program and more opportunities for women. Her hard work and success helped pave the way for generations of women after her to run for office.

Clara Lemlich immigrated to New York to escape danger in Ukraine, where she was born. She started working in clothing factories on the Lower East Side, only to realize that workers were being treated unfairly. So she stood up for the rights of workers, especially girls and women - and she won, changing the way factory workers were treated in America forever!

Sonia Sotomayor is the first Latina Supreme Court Justice in the history of the United States, but her road there wasn't easy. She overcame many challenges along the way, including a diagnosis of diabetes at age seven. But she didn't let that stop her from achieving her dream and inspiring children all over the world to work hard and believe in themselves.

Nellie Bly was a journalist and one of the first investigative reporters ever. She went undercover to expose wrongdoing and famously raced around the world so she could write about the experience for her newspaper. Reaching for her dreams wasn't easy. But Nellie never gave up, no matter how many obstacles she faced - and she helped others along the way.

There weren't many women who tried to become doctors when Virginia Apgar went to medical school - but she didn't let that stop her. After a professor discouraged from becoming a surgeon, she became an anesthesiologist instead and created the famous Apgar test to check the health of newborn babies. It's a test that's still used in hospitals across the world today!

In this chapter book biography by award-winning author Lesa Cline-Ransome, listeners learn about the amazing life of Claudette Colvin - and how she persisted. Before Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin made the same choice. She insisted on standing up - or in her case, sitting down - for what was right, and in doing so, fought for equality, fairness, and justice.

Rod Brown and Julius Lester bring history to life in this profoundly moving exploration of the slave experience. From the Middle Passage to the auction block, from the whipping post to the fight for freedom, this audiobook presents not just historical facts, but the raw emotions of the people who lived them. Inspired by Rod Brown's vivid paintings, Julius Lester has written a story that places each of us squarely inside the skin of both slave and slave owner. It will capture the heart of every listener, black or white, young or old.

Bat 6 - that’s the softball game played every year between the sixth-grade girls of Barlow and Bear Creek Ridge. All the girls - Beautiful Hair Hallie, Manzanita who gets the spirit, the twins Lola and Lila, Tootie, Shadean - they’ve been waiting for their turn at Bat 6 since they could first toss a ball. This time there’s a newcomer on each team: Aki, at first base for the Ridgers, who just returned with her family from a place she’s too embarrassed to talk about. And Shazam, center field for Barlow, who’s been shunted around by her mother since her father was killed.

Daniel has escaped Nazi Germany with nothing but a desperate dream that he might one day find his parents again. But that golden land called New York has turned away the ship full of refugees, and Daniel finds himself in Cuba. As the tropical island begins to work its magic on him, the young refugee befriends a local girl with some painful secrets of her own. Yet even in Cuba, the Nazi darkness is never far away.

When Ruben and Jed find a dead body on the Rhode Island shore, they are certain it has something to do with smuggling liquor. It's the 1920s, Prohibition and bootlegging is in full swing, and almost everyone in the shore community is involved. Suddenly, the boys find themselves involved as well: didn't the dead man have something on him, and didn't they take it? It isn't long before Ruben is actually on the legendary Black Duck itself, caught in a war between two ferocious prohibition gangs.

Meggie Dillon's life has been turned upside down by World War II. Her older brother Eddie enlisted and was shipped off to fight in Europe. And people say that anywhere else Grandpa would be turned in because he's German, and people might think he's a spy. Is it true? Could Grandpa be taken away?

This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great - the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. This audiobook features Frida Kahlo, the renowned Mexican painter and activist. After surviving a bus crash, she made her mark in art history for her unique way of looking at the world and integrating her own image and life into her paintings.

In this chapter book biography by award-winning author Atia Abawi, listeners learn about the amazing life of Sally Ride - and how she persisted. As the first American woman in space, Sally Ride broke barriers and made her dreams come true. But she wanted to do even more! After leaving NASA, she created science and engineering programs that would help other girls and women make their dreams come true as well.

Born enslaved, Harriet Tubman rose up to become one of the most successful, determined, and well-known conductors of the Underground Railroad. With her family's love planted firmly in her heart, Harriet looked to the North Star for guidance - and its light helped guide her way out of slavery. Her courage made it possible for her to help others reach freedom, too.

What is a bravey? For Alexi Pappas, it means to chase the goals that seem scary. She has not shied away from the challenge. In this honest and hopeful memoir written especially for young listeners, Alexi Pappas details key moments that had profound effects on her life, including the loss of her mother when she was just four years old, to her formative years at school where she felt different from her peers, and into her young adult life, including the incredible year she experienced in 2016 when she made her Olympic debut as a distance runner.

Can science ultimately explain consciousness? This little book explores the subject from both a purely physicalist perspective and also from an Eastern philosophy angle.

In the summer of 1910, a race began, a race to be the first man at the South Pole, in Antarctica. Robert Falcon Scott, an Englishman, left London in his ship, the Terra Nova, and began the long journey south. Five days later, another ship also began to travel south. And on this ship was Roald Amundsen's, a Norwegian. But Antarctica is the coldest place on earth, and it is a long, hard journey over the ice to the South Pole....

In Lincoln and the Civil War, Michael Burlingame explores the experiences and qualities that made Abraham Lincoln one of America's most revered leaders. This volume provides an illuminating overview of the entirety of the Civil War and Lincoln's administration, focusing on the ways in which Lincoln's unique combination of psychological maturity, steely determination, and political wisdom made him the North's secret weapon that ultimately led to supremacy over the Confederacy.

In Voyagers, the distinguished anthropologist Nick Thomas charts the course of the seaborne migrations that populated the islands between the Americas and the western coast of Asia from late prehistory onwards: firstly the colonization by speakers of Austronesian languages of the western Pacific littoral, from around 3000 BC, of the Philippines, Indonesia, Micronesia and Melanesia; followed by the later settlement, by Polynesian peoples, of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, the Marquesas, Easter Island and eventually New Zealand, up to AD 1250.