History For Teens

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.

What does it take to overcome challenges, conquer fears, embrace leadership, harness mentor wisdom and achieve greatness—not just in sports, but in life? In Game Changers, Dan Gold presents the powerful stories of extraordinary athletes who defied the odds, broke barriers and achieved the seemingly impossible. Filled with electrifying moments, timeless lessons and practical tools, these stories inspire teens to unlock their potential and face challenges with courage, resilience and confidence.

It's 1944 and the world is at war. Hideki lives peacefully with his family on the island of Okinawa, near Japan. Until the day WWII reaches their door. Hideki is drafted into the "Blood and Iron Imperial Corps" to fight for the Japanese army. He is handed two grenades and a set of instructions: go off into the jungle, and don't come back until you've killed an American soldier. Meanwhile, young American soldier Ray Majors has just landed on the beach in Okinawa. He doesn't know what to expect, or if he'll make it out alive, but he knows he must keep moving forward.

D-Day, June 6, 1944: the most expansive military endeavor in history. No less than world cooperation would bring down Hitler and the Axis powers. And so people - and kids - across the globe lent their part. From the young US soldiers in the boats to spies in the French countryside, the coordination of thousands came together. Alan Gratz, author of the New York Times best-selling Refugee, explores the necessity of teamwork and heroism in dismantling tyranny in this epic, yet personal, look at D-Day in time for the 75th anniversary of the operation.

Life is changing for Canada's Anishnaabek Nation and for the wolf packs that share their territory. In the late 1800s, both Native people and wolves are being forced from the land. Starving and lonely, an orphaned timber wolf is befriended by a boy named Red Wolf. But under the Indian Act, Red Wolf is forced to attend a residential school far from the life he knows, and the wolf is alone once more. Courage, love and fate reunite the pair, and they embark on a perilous journey home. But with winter closing in, will Red Wolf and Crooked Ear survive? And if they do, what will they find?

Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who is forced at age 12 to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly recreates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his "brothers".

H. E. Marshall’s classic children’s chronicle of Britain, Our Island Story, includes all the best-loved (and most infamous!) stories from history: King Alfred and the cakes, King John and the Magna Carta, Lord Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada, and many others. This recording contains the complete and unabridged text, released previously in separate volumes. It is read with aplomb by Anna Bentinck and Daniel Philpott.

Many years ago, the magical kingdom of Avalon was left desolate and encased in ice when the evil Snow Queen waged war on the powerful country. Its former citizens are now refugees in a world mostly devoid of magic - which is why the crown prince and his protectors are stuck in...Arizona. Prince Alexei, the sole survivor of the Avalon royal family, is in hiding in a town so lame that magic doesn't even work there. Few know his secret identity, but his friend Tala is one of them. Tala has secrets of her own - namely, that she's a spell breaker, someone who negates magic.

Almost anything scares young Eleanor: mice, the dark, and a host of imaginary dangers. But she learns to hide her feelings - her father disapproves of fear, and she longs only to please him. She knows she will always disappoint her beautiful, socialite mother, because Eleanor is painfully shy and plain.

As a young debutante in Manhattan, she spends her days teaching needy children and touring crowded tenements.

If you made a list of people who rocked the world, how many girls would be on it? Author Amelie Welden was inspired to write this story when she learned of the many young women who made their mark on history before the age of 20.

The future has amazing technology. Our alien allies have magic. Together, we are building a training system to teach the best of humanity to go to the stars. But the training is monumentally expensive. Stephanie Morgana is a genius, she just doesn't know it. Join her on the first half of her adventure with this collected edition, including the first three megabooks in the Federal Histories series.

International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood. A Printz Honor Book! If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man...

A wild land too mountainous to be tamed by plows…A Duke of the Holy Roman Empire, his cunning overshadowed only by his ambition…A young Priestess of the Old Religion, together with a charismatic outlaw, sparking a rebellion from deep within the forests…And an ex-Hospitaller caught between them all. At the end of the thirteenth century, five hundred orphans and second sons are rounded up from villages in the Alpine countryside and sold to the Hospitaller Knights of St John. Trained to serve as Soldiers of Christ, they fight in eastern lands they know nothing about, for a cause they do not understand.

This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic.

Rilla, almost 15, can't think any further ahead than going to her very first dance at the Four Winds lighthouse and getting her first kiss from handsome Kenneth Ford. But undreamed-of challenges await the irrepressible Rilla when the world of Ingleside becomes endangered by a far-off war. Her brothers go off to fight, and Rilla brings home an orphaned newborn in a soup tureen. She is swept into a drama that tests her courage and leaves her changed forever.

Do you know that the ancient Egyptians believed that people were made out of clay by their river god? For eons, the wisdom cultivated by the Egyptian people has been extolled time and time again. These timeless myths are fountains of insight and, many would argue, beacons of light that can shatter the darkness of ignorance. For those of you that are ready and willing to receive these ancient messages, your time has come. All you need to do is start listening. Then the wisdom of Thoth will begin to stir inside you.

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.

Lida thought she was safe. Her neighbors wearing the yellow star were all taken away, but Lida is not Jewish. She will be fine, won't she? But she cannot escape the horrors of World War II. Lida's parents are ripped away from her and she is separated from her beloved sister, Larissa. The Nazis take Lida to a brutal work camp, where she and other Ukrainian children are forced into backbreaking labor. Starving and terrified, Lida bonds with her fellow prisoners, but none of them know if they'll live to see tomorrow.

**The instant New York Times bestseller.** *An international bestseller.* Finalist for the Lane Anderson Award Finalist for the RBC Taylor Award “Hugely impressive, a major work.”—NPR A pioneering and groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that offers a dramatic new perspective on the...

The free-spirited Anne Shirley has a beautiful way of looking at the world and touching our hearts. In this, the third volume of the Anne of Green Gables series, the irrepressible Anne dreams of the woman she hopes to be when she decides to leave Green Gables and her beloved Prince Edward Island for college. She is eager for new adventure.