Nonfiction History Teens

This lyrical biography explores the life and art of Yoko Ono, from her childhood haiku to her avant-garde visual art and experimental music. An outcast throughout most of her life, and misunderstood by every group she was supposed to belong to, Yoko always followed her own unique vision to create art that was ahead of its time and would later be celebrated. Her focus remained on being an artist, even when the rest of world saw her only as the wife of John Lennon. Yoko Ono's moving story will inspire any young adult who has ever felt like an outsider.

A Different Mirror for Young People brings ethnic history alive through the words of people, including teenagers, who recorded their experiences in letters, diaries, and poems. Like Howard Zinn's A People's History, Takaki's A Different Mirror offers a rich and rewarding "people's view" perspective on the American story.

Journalist Rick Bowers has contributed to Time, The Washington Post, and USA Today, and his fascinating Spies of Mississippi—about the spy network that tried to take down the Civil Rights Movement—earned a starred review from Booklist. Here, Bowers examines how, in the late 1940s, The Adventures of Superman radio show struck a powerful blow to the Ku Klux Klan when Superman aired episodes pitting the hero against the Klan in an effort to teach young listeners to stand up to bigotry.

Experience Earth from the big bang to the dinosaurs and beyond in this beautifully written, vibrant overview of our home planet's journey from creation to our time today.

Whaling in the Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast was as dangerous as it was lucrative in 1897. In that particular year, winter came early, bringing with it storms and ice packs that caught eight American whale ships and about three hundred sailors off guard. The ships were imprisoned in ice with no hope of escape. With limited provisions on board the ships that hadn’t been crushed by the ice, there was little hope that these men could survive until warmer temperatures arrived at least 10 months later. Martin Sandler tells the incredible true adventure story of three men who were ordered by President McKinley to carry out an overland rescue in the dead of winter.

Quince mil años antes de que los Europeos pisarán las Américas, la gente ya se había propagado de punta a punta y de costa a costa. Como todos los humanos, estos Nativos Americanos buscaban comprender su lugar en el universo, la naturaleza de su relación con lo divino, y el origen del mundo en el que habían emergido sus antepasados.Las respuestas se encuentran en sus historias sagradas.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Pick “Cosmetic, tool of rebellion, status signifier: Eyeliner has been all these and more. Moving through millenniums and across civilizations, Hankir gives the makeup its eye-opening due.” —The New York Times Book Review “An impressive...

On August 18, 1920, American women finally won the right to vote. Ratification of the 19th Amendment was the culmination of an almost 80-year fight in which some of the fiercest, most passionate women in history marched, protested, and sometimes broke the law in to achieve this huge leap toward equal rights. In this expansive yet personal volume, author Winifred Conkling covers not only the suffragists' achievements and politics but also the private journeys that fueled their passion and led them to become women's champions.

Read about the electrifying and continuing fight for voting rights—and discover your place in it—in this dramatic exploration of American democracy, from renowned thought leader Michael Eric Dyson and widely celebrated author Marc Favreau. One of the most important and least understood true...

Fifteen thousand years before Europeans stepped foot in the Americas, people had already spread from tip to tip and coast to coast. Like all humans, these Native Americans sought to understand their place in the universe, the nature of their relationship with the divine, and the origin of the world into which their ancestors had emerged. The answers lay in their sacred stories. This collection of those stories - from nations and cultures across two continents, what the Aztecs called the Sea-Ringed World, from the edge of Argentina all the way up to Alaska - is a treasure.

Los Balbuena acaban de aterrizar en una expedición vikinga rumbo al norte más allá del norte. Es el año 850, hielo, fuego y guerreros despiadados les reciben. La aventura acaba de empezar y los vikingos no se andan con tonterías.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Strong Inside comes the inspirational true story of the birth of women’s Olympic basketball at the 1976 Summer Games and the ragtag team that put US women’s basketball on the map. Perfect for fans of Steve Sheinkin and Daniel James Brown. A...

Can we crack the code to life itself? In the third volume in the Discovering Life’s Story series, scientists compete to decipher the genetic blueprint behind all life on earth. It’s the dawn of the twentieth century. Darwin has theorized that traits get passed down through generations, and...

What do King Tut, Galileo, Crazy Horse, Bruce Lee, Chico Mendes, Elvis Presley, Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, and the Dali Lama all have in common? They each left their mark on the world in a big way - and all were boys or young men when they did! This exciting and informative audiobook introduces listeners to the most fascinating boy heroes of all time and includes stories about 30 amazing individuals.

"Boys, let us get up a club." Six restless young men raided the linens at a friend's mansion, pulled pillowcases over their heads, hopped on horses, and cavorted through the streets of Pulaski, Tennessee. The six friends named their club the Ku Klux Klan, and, all too quickly, their club grew into the self-proclaimed Invisible Empire with secret dens spread across the South. This is the story of how a secret terrorist group took root in America's democracy.

Wrongful intolerance has existed in American society for more than four centuries. Us and Them illuminates the shadowy corners of our national past and traces the country’s continuing efforts to measure up to its lofty ideals. Through 14 dramatic narratives, listeners witness epic struggles that shaped our collective identity. These and eight other forgotten incidents of history come to life in clear and vibrant prose.

One of the worst acts of racial violence in American history took place in 1921, when a White mob numbering in the thousands decimated the thriving Black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Burning recreates Greenwood at the height of its prosperity, explores the currents of hatred, racism, and mistrust between its Black residents and Tulsa's White population, narrates events leading up to and including Greenwood's devastation, and documents the subsequent silence that surrounded this tragedy.

In the second volume of the Discovering Life’s Story series by best-selling author Joy Hakim, the theory of evolution takes hold—transforming ideas about survival, extinction, and life itself. Can species change? Or go extinct? In the eighteenth century, most people answer no to both...

For more than 200 years, the wreck of the Whydah (and the riches that went down with it) eluded treasure seekers, until the ship was finally found in 1984 by marine archaeologists. The artifacts brought up from the ocean floor are priceless, both in value and in the picture they reveal of life in that much-mythologized era, changing much of what we know about pirates.

Drawing from his own experiences of rural childhood poverty in Texas, to prominent roles as a government official, and now as an acclaimed educational leader, Dr. Ivery demonstrates his motivational gifts, as he seeks to inspire young men to live lives of purpose and integrity.