Historical Survival Stories

Sixteen-year-old Nipper and his Gallipoli mates Lanky, Spud, Bluey and Wallaby Joe are starving, freezing and ill-equipped. By November 1915 they know that that there is more to winning a war than courage. The Gallipoli campaign has been lost. Nipper has played cricket with the Turks in the opposing dugout, dodged rocket fire and rescued drowning, freezing men when the blizzard snow melted. He is one of the few trusted with the secret kept from even most of the officers: how an entire army will vanish from the Peninsula over three impeccably planned nights.

The vicious attack on their wagon train killed almost everyone - except David and his younger sister, whom he calls Queen of Sheba. The two are stranded on the deserted trail and have to live by their wits and whatever supplies they can scavenge. And although David is seriously hurt, he knows that frail Queen of Sheba is counting on him. He can only hope that their parents are somewhere up ahead - if he can find them.

After 13-year-old Hertz endures World War II, he must now survive Berlin’s devastation. With only Father’s violin as comfort, Hertz scrounges for food with his older sister Elsa, best friend Jakub from Poland, and fellow Berliners. Meanwhile, Soviet soldiers police the streets and blockade people from traveling to the American-controlled areas of Berlin.

War has forced Omar and his mother to leave their home in Afghanistan and venture across the sea to Europe. When their boat sinks, and Omar finds himself alone, with no hope of rescue, it seems as if his story has come to an end. But it is only just beginning. Because in the end, a little hope makes a big difference....

When one of their friends is captured and sold into slavery in the land of the Rus, the children of the old chieftain and their comrades decide to risk everything to rescue him. Little do they know what awaits them when they embark on the Viking ship, the Eagle. In addition to the dangers of the sea voyage, they must face the villainy of a traitor, marauding pirates, and robbers, before they end up in a seemingly hopeless situation as slaves in a quarry.

Demetrio è stato incarcerato con la gravissima accusa di far parte di una congiura contro l'Imperatore Nerone, ma per proteggere la sua amica Clelia ha deciso di rinunciare alla propria difesa. La ragazza, infatti, nasconde un segreto che mette in pericolo non solo la sua vita, ma anche quella di molte altre persone.

En este bellísimo relato se narran las aventuras que vive Ulises navegando por el mar Mediterráneo. Enormes tempestades azotan su nave porque el dios del mar, Poseidón, no le quiere nada. Sin embargo, le protege la diosa de la sabiduría, Atenea. Mientras tanto, en su tierra, la isla Ítaca, le están esperando su fiel esposa, Penélope, y su hijo Telémaco, que irá en busca de noticias suyas.

Anna's father disappeared months ago. He had to flee the country because the cruel new Communist government wanted to arrest him. The Communists may have arrived like heroes at the end of World War II, saving Czechoslovakia from the Nazis - but since then, things have changed. Now Anna's whole family feels threatened and doesn't know whom to trust, so she and her mother and sister set out to escape, hoping to reunite with Papa.

Newbery Medalist and New York Times bestselling author Lois Lowry transports listeners to an Iron Age world through the suspenseful dual narrative of a boy and girl both battling to survive. In an utterly one-of-a-kind blend of fiction and history, a master storyteller explores the mystery and life of the 2,000-year-old Windeby bog body.

Run Rachel Run is a true story, not just based on a true story. Rachel Blum was 12 when the Nazis invaded her town. Over the next three years, she witnessed war, risked her life to smuggle food for her family, escaped liquidation, hid with a kind Polish couple whose son worked for the SS, was questioned if she was a Jew by an SS General, and engineered an incredibly dangerous scheme to overturn a moving trainload of 1,000 Nazi soldiers.

Hojae Jin is a senior at Tenafly High School in New Jersey. Kevin Kang is a senior at a high school in Rockland County, New York. David Yun is a senior at Ridgewood High School in New Jersey. This book is crucial for understanding the experiences of Korean-American youth. Listeners will share in joys and sorrows of the Korean immigration experience.

Speed Kyle is a master-builder of the hottest, fastest planes around. Cal Bradley’s a daredevil test pilot who pushes those planes to the limit. Add in Speed’s blond bombshell daughter who fears that Cal will go too far—and you’ve got a winner. And as far as Speed and Cal are concerned, winning is everything. Speed’s company is bleeding cash, and they need money quick. They’re competing in the upcoming National Air Meet, and to the victor goes the spoils—some extremely lucrative contracts.

Bloodied and barely conscious, a teenage boy wakes up at the side of a railway track in the middle of nowhere. It’s night and the dead of winter–bone-chillingly cold. Where he is and how he got there, he doesn’t remember. Nor does he remember anything else for that matter–not even his own name. The only clue left behind is a backpack covered in a foot of snow lying next to him. The one thing he knows for sure is that if he doesn’t get up and start moving, he’s going to freeze to death.

One of the earliest known autobiographies by a woman, this is the extraordinary tale of Catalina de Erauso, who in 1599 escaped from a Basque convent dressed as a man and went on to live one of the most wildly fantastic lives of any woman in history. A soldier in the Spanish army, she traveled to Peru and Chile, became a gambler, and even mistakenly killed her own brother in a duel. During her lifetime she emerged as the adored folkloric hero of the Spanish-speaking world. This delightful translation of Catalina's own work introduces a new audience to her audacious escapades.

Cook, an 18th-century explorer, lived during a time when humankind was yet naive and inexperienced in terms of understanding their environment. His legacy is quite astounding, given the fact that mankind had only begun to develop instrumentation. The people from Europe had never before seen Hawaii, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, nor crossed the Antarctic circle.

Flavia, Jonathan, Lupus, and Nubia - friends and detectives - sail to the Bay of Naples to spend the summer with Flavia's uncle, who lives near Pompeii. There they uncover a riddle that may lead them to a great treasure. Meanwhile, tremors shake the ground, animals behave strangely, and people dream of impending doom. One of the worst natural disasters of all time is about to happen: the eruption of Mount Vesuvius!

Green Leaf's cousins are all older than he and they don't like to play fair. He longs for a friend his own age he can play with, explore and fish with. When he meets a Luxembourger boy, Henri, Green Leaf is sure they could become friends, but Henri's words are strange to Green Leaf. How can they play and explore together?

Captain Bligh leaves London for Tahiti in charge of his crew on the Bounty. At sea he shows himself to be a brutal tyrant and cruel whilst enforcing discipline which includes flogging the men, cutting rations and over zealously working them too hard. On the return voyage, first mate Fletcher Christian, wonderfully played here by Orson Welles, leads the crew to mutiny and sets Bligh and his supporters adrift on a boat. What they did not count on is the Captain's return in this gripping tense drama.