As the loaded wagons rumble down the streets of Springfield, Illinois, an air of foreboding sweeps over those who watch the procession. The prosperous Donner brothers and their friend, confident in their preparations, are leading their numerous children and grandchildren on a treacherous 2,500-mile trek to California. 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. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, acclaimed historian David Lavender has penned more than two dozen histories-many still considered the definitive works on their subjects. In this riveting saga of hardship, death, and survival, George Guidall's masterful narration holds listeners in rapt attention.
The action-packed true story of President Theodore Roosevelt's dangerous adventure down one of the most treacherous rivers on Earth.
Death on the River of Doubt takes readers inside the thrilling journey that unfolds as Theodore Roosevelt and his companions navigate the Amazonian River of Doubt through an unforgiving and unpredictable jungle. With new threats at every turn, from blood-thirsty piranhas and raging rapids to starvation, disease, and a traitor in their own ranks, it seems that not everyone will make it out alive.
Through it all, the indomitable Teddy Roosevelt remained determined to complete their mission and rewrite the map of the world. Or die trying.
With letters, diary entries, maps, photos, and more, Death on the River of Doubt is a comprehensive narrative nonfiction thriller and the first young adult book to tell this unbelievable tale.
Lynne Barasch is the acclaimed authorllustrator of picture books, including the ALA Notable Children's Book Radio Rescue. She takes readers back to the small 1940s country schoolhouse where Grandpa went to school. The children in his tiny three-room school participated in all sorts of fun activities-spelling bees, geography bees, history bees, even multiplication bees. And at recess they had snowball fights or played baseball or ring-a-levio. But everything changed when a new girl named Kaye came to school.
Eleven-year-old Amelia Fairwick is eagerly waiting for her widowed father to return from his business trip. But a letter arrives with shattering news - Papa has been lost in a terrible hotel fire. Now Amelia must leave her London home to live in America with a relative she has never met. Amelia thinks things can't get much worse when stern Cousin Charlotte travels with her on the voyage across the Atlantic. Amelia must stay alone in the cabin, talking to no one.
But the day the ship arrives in New York City is worst of all. As Amelia waits on the pier for her trunk, Cousin Charlotte disappears! Edgar Award-winning author Barbara Brooks Wallace creates thrilling mysteries filled with authentic historical details.
In Cousins in the Castle, she tells the suspenseful tale of a youngster plucked from a pampered existence and plunged into a dangerous world where villains plot beneath flickering gaslights. Steven Crossley's dramatic performance transports you from genteel Victorian London to the seamy slums of New York City.
Lisa Fiedler gives a feminine twist to Shakespeare's Hamlet with Dating Hamlet, which garnered rave reviews from KLIATT, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal. Hamlet's uncle Claudius has murdered his father and overtaken the throne. Ophelia, Hamlet's girlfriend, takes an active role in Hamlet's quest for revenge. She'll do anything--including feign madness--to help Hamlet get Claudius to admit his atrocities.
Natural and man-made disasters have the power to destroy thousands of lives very quickly. Both as they unfold and in the aftermath, these forces of nature astonish the rest of the world with their incredible devastation and magnitude. In this collection of ten well-known catastrophes such as the great Chicago fire, the sinking of the Titanic, and hurricane Katrina, Brenda Guiberson explores the causes and effects, as well as the local and global reverberations of these calamitous events. Highlighted with photographs and drawings, each compelling account tells the story of destruction and devastation, and most especially, the power of mankind to persevere in the face of adversity.
In the immediate aftermath of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, 12-year-old Clara and her family find an abandoned baby, apparently orphaned in the quake, on the steps of their boarding house home. But Clara suspects that something about the baby is not as it seems. Following her suspicions through a city consumed with fire and devastation, Clara discovers that while the earthquake has brought out the best in some people, it has brought out the worst in others.
Best-selling author Avi has won numerous honors, including the Newbery Medal for Crispin: The Cross of Lead. In The Traitors' Gate, Avi spins a Dickensian tale of 19th-century London. Young John Huffam is having a disastrous time. His father has been jailed and John himself is being followed by Inspector Copperfield-just one of the many eccentric characters in this delightfully Victorian tale. "[This] is the novel I've always wanted to write. It was inspired by the true tale of young Charles Dickens ..."-Avi
Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian Era, a period of industrial, cultural, scientific, and political change that was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. But Victoria was raised under close supervision and near isolation until she became Queen of the United Kingdom at the young age of 18. She married her first cousin, Albert, and had nine children who married into families across Europe. By the time she had earned the nickname “The Grandmother of Europe” and the title “Empress of India” it was indeed true that the sun never set on the British Empire. Publicly, she became a national icon, but privately, Who Was Queen Victoria?
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Swept up in the great gold rush of 1897, twelve-year-old Hetty McKinley heads north with her papa and her dashing uncle Donall. Even though she is not nearly as excited as her father about leaving behind their life in San Francisco, Hetty plans to use the experience to get started on her dream of becoming a writer. But as the hardships of their journey and the approaching winter threaten to trap them in the wilderness, Hetty discovers she is traveling with thieves . one of whom may be her own uncle!
Before Pam's father left to fight in World War I, the two of them trained their pigeons to fly home at night, a time when most birds just want to sleep. This interests a stranger with a foreign accent who comes to town and offers to pay a lot of money for Pam's birds. But when Pam refuses to sell and some of her birds are later stolen, she suspects the stranger may be more than a simple bird enthusiast. He may be an enemy spy!
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler meets The Apothecary in this time-bending mystery from bestselling author Carol Goodman!
The day Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, four thirteen-year-olds converge at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where an eccentric curator is seeking four uncommonly brave souls to track down the hidden pages of the Kelmsbury Manuscript, an ancient book of Arthurian legends that lies scattered within the museum's collection, and that holds the key to preventing a second attack on American soil.
When Madge, Joe, Kiku, and Walt agree to help, they have no idea that the Kelmsbury is already working its magic on them. But they begin to develop extraordinary powers and experience the feelings of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Morgan le Fay, and Lancelot: courage, friendship, love...and betrayal. Are they playing out a legend that's already been lived, over and over, across the ages? Or can the Metropolitans forge their own story?
From the Hardcover edition.
