Library History

Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her...

Fresh from Miss Hepplewhite's Young Ladies' Academy, sixteen-year-old Jane Peck has come to the unknown wilds of the Northwest to be wedded to her true love, William Baldt, her idol from childhood. But her socially correct upbringing in straitlaced Philadelphia is hardly preparation for the...

Chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860, African Town is a powerful and stunning novel-in-verse. In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and...

A top literary historian illuminates how books were used in war across the twentieth century—both as weapons and as agents for peace We tend not to talk about books and war in the same breath—one ranks among humanity’s greatest inventions, the other among its most terrible. But as esteemed...

Born in Austria in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his first piece of music, a minuet, when he was just five years old! Soon after, he was performing for kings and emperors. Although he died at the young age of thirty-five, Mozart left a legacy of more than 600 works. This fascinating...

The 1619 Project’s lyrical picture book in verse, adapted for audio, chronicles the consequences of slavery and the history of Black resistance in the United States, thoughtfully rendered by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and Newbery honor-winning author Renée Watson. A...

The suspenseful tale of two courageous kids and one inquisitive scientist who teamed up to stop an epidemic. “A delightful combination of race-against-the-clock medical mystery and outwit-the-bad-guys adventure.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Eel has troubles of his own: As an orphan and...

The Gambino family is a prime example of organized crime families and how their in-house fighting and varying styles of leadership have defined the age of the mob. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the family went through a series of names and leaders, but they always remained at the top of the New York mob regime and retained their Sicilian ties.

Until now, you've only heard one side of the story: the "discovery" of America told by Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the Colonists. Here's the true story of America from the Indigenous perspective. When you think about the beginning of the American story, what comes to mind? Three...

From an award-winning author comes this biography about beloved librarian and storyteller Augusta Braxton Baker, the first Black coordinator of children’s services at all branches of the New York Public Library. Before Augusta Braxton Baker became a storyteller, she was an excellent story...

If not for a stint in reform school, young Louis Armstrong might never have become a musician. It was a teacher at the Colored Waifs' Home who gave him a cornet, promoted him to band leader, and saw talent in the tough kid from the even tougher New Orleans neighborhood called Storyville. But it...

Steve Jobs, adopted in infancy by a family in San Francisco, packed a lot of life into fifty-six short years. In this Who Was…? biography, children will learn how his obsession with computers and technology at an early age led him to co-found and run Apple, in addition to turning Pixar into a...

Who HQ brings you the stories behind the most well-known characters of our time. Discover the haunting story of the Headless Horseman, his chilling adventures in Sleepy Hollow, New York, and his historical backstory in this addition to the What Is the Story Of? series. Washington Irving...

Secrets? Myths? One giant boxed set? The award-winning History Smashers series delivers a four-audiobook collection that takes down some of the biggest misconceptions, secrets, and outright lies of early American history! In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean and discovered...

This impeccably researched and “adventure-packed” (The Washington Post) account of the obsessive quest by Christopher Columbus’s son to create the greatest library in the world is “the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters” (NPR) and offers a vivid picture of Europe on the verge of becoming...

The famous Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci is the twentieth hero in the New York Times bestselling biography series. This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great--the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves...

As a young boy, Charles Darwin hated school and was often scolded for conducting “useless” experiments. Yet his passion for the natural world was so strong that he suffered through terrible seasickness during his five-year voyage aboard The Beagle. Darwin collected new creatures from the...

The American boxing champ and vocal civil rights activist Muhammad Ali is the 27th hero in the New York Times bestselling picture book biography series for ages 5 to 8, adapted for audio. Muhammad Ali was the leading heavyweight boxer of the 20th century and a charismatic, beloved public figure...

*Odyssey Honor Audiobook* Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah's inspiring true story—which was turned into a film, Emmanuel's Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey—is nothing short of remarkable. Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people—but not by his mother, who...

The What Do We Know About? series explores the mysterious, the unknown, and the unexplained. Is the Loch Ness Monster really lurking beneath Scottish waters, or is it just a myth? Find out all that there is to know about the most famous aquatic cryptid! From the #1 New York Times Best-Selling...