American Child

This superb collection of larger-than-life folk heroes aptly represents America’s robust early days, perfectly capturing the vitality of the men and women who carved a new country out of the North American wilderness. Author Mary Pope Osborne supplies a fascinating introduction to each tale and then gives her own original twist to the telling of it. Scott Snivley takes the listener on a wild ride from sea to shining sea in this classic collection, which includes Davy Crocket, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind, Johnny Appleseed, Stormalong, Mose, Febold Feboldson, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Paul Bunyan.

Instagram. Whisper. Yik Yak. Vine. YouTube. Kik. Ask.fm. Tinder. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media. What it is doing to an entire generation of young women is the subject of award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales' riveting and explosive American Girls.

The American Girl brand is synonymous with wholesome, empowering tales about young women growing up in America, even as the country grows, too. Each girl’s story documents with unsurpassed charm and wit the people, places, and events she witnesses. Taking place in 1854, Kirsten’s stories follow the young Swedish immigrant and her family as they attempt to start a new life on a farm in frontier Minnesota.

Samuel, 13, spends his days in the forest, hunting for food for his family. He has grown up on the frontier of a British colony, America. Far from any town, or news of the war against the King that American patriots have begun near Boston.

When you think about the beginning of the American story, what comes to mind? Three ships in 1492, or perhaps buckled hats and shoes stepping off of the Mayflower, ready to start a new country. But the truth is, Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the Colonists didn't arrive to a vast, empty land ready to be developed. They arrived to find people and communities living in harmony with the land they had inhabited for thousands of years, and they quickly disrupted everything they saw.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world.

A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home. Why Apaches? asks the 10-year-old son. Because they were the last of something,answers his father. In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an "immigration crisis": thousands of kids trying to cross the Southwestern border into the US but getting detained - or lost in the desert along the way.

In the tradition of the Native American storyteller, Jamake Highwater weaves generations of legends and stories into the haunting legend of a handsome young brave named Anpao. When Anpao falls in love with the beautiful Ko-Ko-mik-e-is, she tells him she belongs to the Sun alone. Before they can marry, Anpao must complete a dangerous journey to the house of the Sun to get permission to wed his beloved. As a sign of the Sun’s approval, the scars will be melted from Anpao’s tawny cheek.

When the Watson family—ten-year-old Kenny, Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron—sets out on a trip south to visit Grandma in Birmingham, Alabama, they don’t realize that they’re heading toward one of the darkest moments in America’s history. The Watsons’ journey reminds us that even in the hardest times, laughter and family can help us get through anything.

Douglass spent his first 20 years in slavery, before escaping to the North. As a slave, he experienced both the kindness of his master's wife, who taught him to read, as well as the cruelty of sadistic overseers. This powerful story helped recruit many to the abolitionist cause.

Flight is the hilarious and tragic story of an orphaned Indian boy - "Zits" - who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful, swift prose, Flight follows the troubled teenager as he learns that violence is not the answer.

At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger.

Adventure, politics, suspense, drama, diplomacy, romance, and personal tragedy combine to make this outstanding work of scholarship about Captain Meriwether Lewis, hand-picked by President Thomas Jefferson to explore and acquire the American West. Browse more Ambrose, including his latest, Nothing Like It in the World.

Fourteen-year-old Renata Santiago is the most powerful godborn of them all, a bruja with a unique combination of DNA. The Mexica blood from her dad's side gives her the ability to manipulate shadows. Her mom Pacific, a Maya goddess, gifted her a magical rope that controls time, and Ren recently used it to save a few gods from getting stuck forever in 1987. She brought them back to the present, but her BFF Ah Puch, the once fearsome god of death, darkness, and destruction, is now a teenager with no divine powers.

In 1962, Jerry Sherwood gave up her newborn son, Dennis, for adoption. Twenty years later, she set out to find him - only to discover he had died before his fourth birthday. Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. To all appearances, they were a normal Midwestern family, but Jerry suspected that something sinister had happened in the Jurgens household. She demanded to know the truth about her son's death.

These uproarious American folk stories, retold by master storyteller Jim Weiss, will have you laughing and pondering too. You’ll hear about Paul Bunyan, taller than the trees and mightier than the rivers; Johnny Appleseed, whose gentle generosity made him a beloved legend; and Pecos Bill, whose outrageous Texas-sized exploits made him the greatest of all cowboys. There’s even one of Jim’s own tales; a tongue-twisting, hilarious tale of the Old West. The entire family will listen to this recording over and over again.

Oof! After solving the case of the Royal Rumpus, Olive Cobin Zang and her elite team of underdogs are on top of the world. As the awkward, crime-fighting Misfits, they’re acing every mission thrown at them from NOCK (aka No One Can Know, the covert agency they work for). But when their classmate Zeke starts receiving threatening notes, the Misfits are stumped. They’re no strangers to danger, but this case is a total head-scratcher. Who would target kind, friendly Zeke . . . unless he’s not what he seems to be?

For listeners of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Great Depression comes the astonishing tale of nine working-class boys from the American West who at the 1936 Olympics showed the world what true grit really meant. With rowers who were the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew was never expected to defeat the elite East Coast teams, yet they did, going on to shock the world by challenging the German boat rowing for Adolf Hitler.

A groundbreaking and definitive account of the widespread misdiagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and its serious effects on children, adults, and society. More than one in seven American children are getting diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - three times what experts have said is appropriate, making it one of the most mishandled and debated conditions in medicine.

Growing up on Beaver Island, Grand-père told Norvia stories—stories about her ancestor Migizi, about Biboonke-o-nini the Wintermaker, about the Crane Clan and the Reindeer Clan. He sang her songs in the old language, and her grandmothers taught her to make story quilts and maple candy. On the island, Norvia was proud of her Ojibwe heritage. Things are different in the city. Here, Norvia’s mother forces her to pretend she’s not Native at all—even to Mr. Ward, Ma’s new husband, and to Vernon, Norvia’s new stepbrother. In fact, there are a lot of changes in the city.