North America Culture

Long before they became famous writers, Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) and Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) were childhood friends in Monroeville, Alabama. This fictionalized account of their time together opens at the beginning of the Great Depression, when Tru is seven and Nelle is six. They love playing pirates, but they like playing Sherlock and Watson-style detectives even more. It’s their pursuit of a case of drugstore theft that lands the daring duo in real trouble. Humor and heartache intermingle in this lively look at two budding writers in the 1930s South.

What if Jack and Jill had been playing on a nice soft sand dune instead of that treacherous hill? And suppose Mary's pet wasn't really a lamb. What if Mary had a little...clam? Those questions - and more - are gleefully answered in Mother Osprey: Nursery Rhymes for Buoys & Gulls. This collection retells Mother Goose rhymes and celebrates America's coastlines and waterways - from sea to shining sea.

Explore the beautiful state of California. Learn about Alcatraz, San Francisco, how California got its name, and many, many more things.

Here second book in a series about an RV living homeschooling family. Each month brings the Wright family to a new state with a new educational theme to explore and play with. They prove that learning can happen all the time, anywhere, and that being with family is fun! Explore a dinosaur dig with the Wrights as they road school in Utah. What will Aidan and Nadia discover about the mysterious device they found in Arizona?

Carefully leveled text engages young listeners in learning about the traditions and celebrations of the holiday of Thanksgiving. Age-appropriate critical thinking questions help build nonfiction learning skills.

Butterflies bloom as delicately as flowers in this magnificent story of beginnings, middles and ends: eggs, caterpillars, and finally butterflies.

At the age of 14, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for 20 hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice.

Drawing from his own experiences of rural childhood poverty in Texas, to prominent roles as a government official, and now as an acclaimed educational leader, Dr. Ivery demonstrates his motivational gifts, as he seeks to inspire young men to live lives of purpose and integrity.

Because Yumi Ruíz-Hirsch has grandparents from Japan, Cuba, and Brooklyn, her mother calls her a poster child for the 21st century. Yumi would laugh if only her life wasn't getting as complicated as her heritage. All of a sudden she's starting eighth grade with a girl who collects tinfoil and a boy who dresses like a squid.

Funny Bones tells the story of how the amusing calaveras - skeletons performing various everyday or festive activities - came to be. They are the creation of Mexican artist Jose Guadalupe (Lupe) Posada (1852-1913). In a country that was not known for freedom of speech, he first drew political cartoons, much to the amusement of the local population but not the politicians. He continued to draw cartoons throughout much of his life, but he is best known today for his calavera drawings.

Did you know that many of America's Founding Fathers - who fought for liberty and justice for all - were slave owners? Through the powerful stories of five enslaved people who were "owned" by four of our greatest presidents, this book helps set the record straight about the role slavery played in the founding of America. From Billy Lee, valet to George Washington, to Alfred Jackson, faithful servant of Andrew Jackson, these dramatic narratives explore our country's great tragedy - that a nation "conceived in liberty" was also born in shackles.

In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana territory from the French for $15,000,000. The purchase made President Jefferson's dream of extending the US west of the Mississippi River come true. Now the much larger United States had difficult questions to answer: How would Louisiana be governed? How would it be divided into states? Would those states be free states or slave states? What would happen to the Native Americans? Find out.

From the perspective of the young adult he was then, Francisco Jiménez describes the challenges he faced in his efforts to continue his education. During his college years, the very family solidarity that allowed Francisco to survive as a child is tested. Not only must he leave his family behind when he goes to Santa Clara University, but while Francisco is there, his father abandons the family and returns to Mexico.

How did the colonists of Jamestown and Maryland live and die? Forensic anthropology provides an incredible array of answers. Scientists can look into a grave and determine the skeleton's gender, age at time of death, nationality, and sometimes even economic standing within minutes. Laboratory studies can provide cause of death information.

Book one of 50 in the Junior Geography Detective Squad, 50-state, mystery, trivia series.

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.

As children, Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were both social outcasts. They were also one another's only friend. So when Cameron disappears without warning, Jennifer thinks she's lost the only person who will ever understand her. Now in high school, Jennifer has been transformed. Known as Jenna, she's popular, happy, and dating, everything "Jennifer" couldn't be - but she still can't shake the memory of her long-lost friend.

Eleven-year-old Rosey Sachs is worried about her school writing assignment. How can she write anything interesting about her ordinary life in Brooklyn? A poem might have made her neighborhood sound a little more exciting, but to Rosey's dismay, she quickly discovers that Brooklyn doesn't rhyme with anything.

For this striking, stripped-down account of youth immigration, Villalobos interviewed teens at various stages of the immigration process to illustrate their stories - the physical and emotional difficulties of their travels. He then changed certain elements of these stories in order to protect the children's identities. Each chapter brings forth the voice of one young immigrant's experience, from crossing the Mexican desert to gang violence to the freezers at ICE detention centers.

Rivers wind through the earth, cutting down and eroding the soil for millions of years, creating a cavity in the ground 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, and more than a mile deep known as the Grand Canyon. Home to an astonishing variety of plants and animals that have lived and evolved within its walls for millennia, the Grand Canyon is much more than just a hole in the ground. Follow a father and daughter as they make their way through the cavernous wonder, discovering life both present and past.