Primary History

It's 1953 and 11-year-old Penny dreams of a summer of butter pecan ice cream, swimming, and baseball. But nothing's that easy in Penny's family. For starters, she can't go swimming because her mother's afraid she'll catch polio at the pool. To make matters worse, her favorite uncle is living in a car. Her Nonny cries every time her father's name is mentioned. And the two sides of her family aren?t speaking to each other!

Richard Peck is a master of stories about people in transition, but perhaps never before has he told a tale of such dramatic change as this one, set during the first year of the Civil War. The whole country is changing in 1861, even the folks from a muddy little Illinois settlement on the banks of the Mississippi. Here, 15-year-old Tilly Pruitt frets over the fact that her brother is dreaming of being a soldier and that her sister is prone to supernatural visions.

In his first book for young adults, best-selling author Walter Mosley deftly weaves historical and speculative fiction into a powerful narrative about the nature of freedom.

It's the year 1910 in Pownal, Vermont. At 12, Grace and her best friend, Arthur, must leave school and go to work on the looms in the mill. Together they write a secret letter to the Child Labor Board about underage children working in their town, and a few weeks later a man with a camera shows up. It is the famous reformer Lewis Hine, undercover, collecting evidence for the Child Labor Board.

Not only is Turner Buckminster the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, he is shunned for playing baseball differently than the local boys. Then he befriends smart and lively Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves. Lizzie shows Turner a new world along the Maine coast from digging clams to rowing a boat next to a whale. When the powerful town elders, including Turner’s father, decide to drive the people off the island to set up a tourist business, Turner stands alone against them.

Hattie Owen prefers to be steeped in the familiarity of her small-town life than to think about the vast world beyond her own. Her family's boarding house is where she feels most at home, with its eccentric tenants and predictable routines, so different from the controlling and repressive home of her well-to-do grandparents who live nearby.

After Sir Walter Raleigh failed in his attempt to found a settlement at Roanoke, a colony on the Chesapeake Bay was successfully established. Primary source materials enhance lively text to give students an in-depth look at what led to the formation and success of the colony of Virginia. No other colony - except Massachusetts - was more influential in the formation of America as a nation.

Young Cedric Errol lives in poverty in New York with his mother. When his father, who was disinherited for marrying an American, dies, Cedric is summoned to his grandfather's English estate. While the crotchety old Earl planned to transform the boy into a docile, traditional lording, it is Little Lord Fauntleroy who does the converting.

Georgia: Using primary source documents, this fascinating book traces the history of the colony from its founding to becoming the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1788.

Maryland: This exciting book recounts the history of the colony from its founding to the challenges of the colony's early years, the religious and political upheavals, death, disease, and hard labor endured by the colonists, through the wealthy years of the Maryland tobacco plantations, discontent with England, and finally to Maryland's vote for independence in 1776.

This is a vibrant and fascinating look at the history of the colony of New York. From the discovery of the island of Manhattan and the founding of a tiny Dutch trading village, to New York's emergence as one of the world's most influential cities, the history of the colony of New York is traced through primary source documents.

Using primary source materials to enhance the text, this audiobook tells the provocative story of the Connecticut colony and its first inhabitants. Included are the first constitution and the Fundamental Orders of 1639, which helped to create a representative self-government.

The Massachusetts colony would be the first to organize and unite with other colonies, and one of the first to take a stand when troubles developed with England, thereby leading the cause for independence. It was John Hancock of Massachusetts who would propose the Bill of Rights that still protects and guarantees the basic freedoms of Americans.

In 1681, King Charles II granted William Penn, a Quaker, sole proprietorship of more than 450,000 acres of land. The colony of Pennsylvania soon offered thousands of European settlers the civil liberties, representative government, and affordable land they wanted.

The earliest settlers in this region were confronted by food shortages, conflicts with native tribes, and the difficulties of settling a new land with little support. Through the use of primary source materials, this audiobook provides the compelling story of the Delaware colony and the conflicts faced by its various leaders, up to and including the early moments of the American Revolutionary period.

Though troubled by violent border disputes with Massachusetts and bloody wars with Native American tribes, New Hampshire was settled by knowledgeable merchants and disgraced ministers. They quickly infused the colony with a spirit of rugged industriousness and defiant individualism that persists to this day. This engaging audiobook details the rise of that spirit as New Hampshire grew.

New Jersey has a fascinating history. The story of New Jersey spans its time as home to a variety of Native American tribes to an area coveted by the Dutch, Swedes, and English, and finally to its modern-day status as the Garden State.

Established on a culture of entrepreneurship as well as religious and political freedom, South Carolina's foundations might be seen as a microcosm of the founding of America. This compelling audiobook provides the background and history of this colony which would become a major factor in the French and Indian War, the American Revolutionary War, and later the Civil War.

Returning to Roanoke in 1590 after a three-year absence, Governor John White was shocked to find all of the colonists gone. This book examines the Lost Colony of Roanoke from its 1584 exploration, to the failed first settlement, to the mystery of the 1587 colony. Several of White's drawings are included.

North Carolina attracted settlers from Europe as well as from other American colonies. In this volume, learn about the resulting troubled relations with the Native Americans in that area, Bluebeard's piracy, and the colonist's rebellion against England.