History For Teens

In early 1968 the grisly on-the-job deaths of two African-American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, prompted an extended strike by that city's segregated force of trash collectors. Workers sought union protection, higher wages, improved safety, and the integration of their work force. Their work stoppage became a part of the larger civil rights movement and drew an impressive array of national movement leaders to Memphis, including, on more than one occasion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King added his voice to the struggle in what became the final speech of his life.

This Book Sense Children's Pick is a magical tale that has been favorably compared to L. Frank Baum's Oz series. There is a war raging in the village of Oren. Thirteen years ago, a child was born; and once his destiny is fulfilled, peace may once again return to this village. Aidan, on the eve of his 13th birthday, must set out on a journey with his friends, Lily and McKenzie, to save his land.

In The Future of Science Is Female, author and award-winning journalist Zara Stone shares the fascinating, complicated stories of how a diverse group of powerful women got started - from the perspective of those still working it out as they go along. Take 22-year-old Dominique Barnes, a female hero of the oceans. She was worried about all the dolphins and whales killed during shrimp farming, so the marine biologist created a tasty, affordable plant-based shrimp alternative. And she's just one of the sheroes you will discover in The Future of Science Is Female.

Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London - working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father's gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true. Accompanied by her father's handsome young assistant, Montgomery, and an enigmatic castaway, Edward - both of whom she is deeply drawn to - Juliet travels to the island, only to discover the depths of her father's madness.

It's 1935. Moose Flanagan lives on Alcatraz with his family, the other families of the guards, and a few hundred no-name hit men, con men, mad dog murderers and a handful of bank robbers too. And one of those cons has just done him a big favor. You see, Moose has never met Al Capone, but a few weeks ago Moose wrote a letter to him asking him to use his influence to get his sister, Natalie, into a school she desperately needs in San Francisco.

The Curses and the Covenants: A History Weaver Mystery. Beaver Row has a new-old resident. Angie Lyons, failed romance writer, has returned to her roots. When romance writing stops paying the bills, Angie returns to Beaver Row to take up a new career in guidance counselling at the local high school where she finds herself in way over her head. Why is Julia Fairchild so troubled? Angie is told she can't believe a word Julia tells her. But what is the truth about Julia?

By February 1945, the United States had been fighting World War II for more than three years. Soldiers were worn down from battle, and civilians were drained by sacrifice. But a photograph of Marines raising an American flag on Japanese soil gave a wearied nation a renewed sense of pride and hope.

It didn't seem possible. Four college students shot dead May 4, 1970, by Ohio National Guardsmen during a protest against the Vietnam War. The shootings at Kent State University would shock the nation and spark a mass student strike across the country, the only one in U.S. history.

It is a bizarrely beautiful image: A man in a spacesuit stands isolated in an alien world. His companion, the photographer, and their landing craft are reflected in his visor. This photograph, taken by Neil Armstrong of fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin, is the most famous documentation of America’s 1969 moon landing. But to people in every country on Earth, it represented and still does so much more.

Little boys, some as young as 6, spent their long days, not playing or studying, but sorting coal in dusty, loud, and dangerous conditions. Many of these breaker boys worked 10 hours a day, six days a week all for as little as 45 cents a day. Child labor was common in the United States in the 19th century. It took the compelling, heart breaking photographs of Lewis Hine and others to bring the harsh working conditions to light.

An attack at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games would produce one of the defining images of international terrorism. The chilling photo of a hooded man peering from a balcony in the Olympic Village would be viewed worldwide as a horrific symbol of global terrorism.

Young Alvin returns to the town of his birth and begins his apprenticeship with Makepeace Smith, committing seven years of his life in exchange for the skills and knowledge of a blacksmith. But Alvin must also learn to control and use his own talent, that of a Maker, or else his destiny will be unfulfilled.

Riley, a teen orphan boy living in Victorian London, has had the misfortune of being apprenticed to Albert Garrick, an illusionist who has fallen on difficult times and now uses his unique conjuring skills to gain access to victims' dwellings. On one such escapade, Garrick brings his reluctant apprentice along and urges him to commit his first killing. Riley is saved from having to commit the grisly act when the intended victim turns out to be a scientist from the future, part of the FBI's Witness Anonymous Relocation Program (WARP).

More people have died in disease epidemics than in wars or other disasters, but the process of identifying these diseases and determining how they spread is often a terrifying gamble. Epidemiologists have been ignored, mocked, or silenced all while trying to protect the population and identify “patient zero”—the first person to have contracted the disease, and a key piece in solving the epidemic puzzle. Patient Zero tracks the gripping tales of eight epidemics and pandemics—how they started, how they spread, and the fight to stop them.

Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the United States. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee argues that Native American culture is far from defeated—if anything, it is thriving as much today as it was 100 years ago.

When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows something's very wrong. She's insatiably hungry, her sister seems scared of her, and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest to find the truth, she must travel into the terrifying underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family - before it’s too late.

Today, everyone is familiar with Neil Armstrong's famous words as he first set foot on the moon: "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." But America's journey to the moon was anything but simple. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite, into orbit; later that year, America's first attempt was such a failure that the media nicknamed it "Kaputnik." Still, we didn't give up. With each failure, we gleaned valuable information about what went wrong, and how to avoid it in the future. So we tried again. And again. And each time we failed, we failed a little bit better.

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.

After surviving her otherworldly adventure, Lily wakes up on her nana's farm having forgotten everything. Her sun prince, her travels to Egypt, and her journey to the Afterlife are all distant memories. But Lily is not the girl she once was. Her body is now part human, part lion, and part fairy. And if that isn't bad enough, she must harness this power of three and become Wasret: a goddess destined to defeat the evil god Seth once and for all.

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.