Showing titles in History & Culture

Two-time Newbery Medal winner Gary Schmidt talks about the frequently comic mishaps and adventures of a 12-year-old Long Island boy in the Vietnam era. Actor Khris Lewin performs an excerpt from the book. Thalia Kids' Book Club events are lively talks between children's book authors and their fans (ages 9-12) plus one event for teens. Each event includes a creative writing project, a free-wheeling discussion with the audience, and a book signing. Sometimes an actor stops by to read from the book.

La gran novela de los torneos. La rivalidad entre sajones y normando es el telon de fondo de una de las novelas historicas mas populares de toda la literatura Ivanhoe. Ricardo, Corazon de Leon, a quien su cruel hermano Juan sin Tierra esta intentando desplazar, es la eminencia gris en esta gran novela de duelos, caballeria y torneos, en los cuales la lealtad y la caballerosidad guian una historia de amor.

Por un florero, Colombia logra su independencia. La historia nos dice que todo comenzó con un florero. Era Viernes, 20 de Julio y día de mercado, cuando un Criollo fue a pedir prestado un florero. Un acto, en apariencia efímero, desató en un enfrentamiento entre Criollos y Españoles y culminó en la independencia de Colombia. Sin embargo, hoy en día es claro que lo que sucedió este día no fue un hecho espontáneo como aquellos que habían caracterizado la vida política colonial.

The Environmental Movement is an informative introduction to this significant social movement, which arose in the United States in the late 1800s in response to the nation's dwindling forests and the pollution caused by an increasing number of factories. The vibrant text chronicles the accomplishments of conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot and John Muir, who helped the movement gain a foothold in the United States.

Civil War Battles is an informative introduction to the subject. For four straight years, the people of the United States fought against one another in a brutal civil war that resulted in the deaths of approximately 620,000 men in uniform. Between 1861 and 1865, more Americans died during this bloody conflict than in all other American wars combined. With fighting across the South and in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Kentucky, some battles proved to be key in the overall outcome of the war.

During a long, hot July in 1863, the worst race riots the United States has ever seen erupt in New York City. Earlier that year, desperate for more Union soldiers, President Abraham Lincoln instituted a draft - a draft that would allow the wealthy to escape serving in the army by paying a $300 waiver, more than a year's income for the recent immigrant Irish. And on July 11, as the first drawing takes place in Lower Manhattan, the city of New York explodes in rage and fire.

"Local color" author Frances Gilchrist Wood wrote this powerful tale of a young wife who proves better able to succeed on the homestead frontier than does her husband.

"The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was the second tale published in The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1903.

The setting is the civil war, and the hero (or anti-hero as it seems at first) is Henry Flemming, a young Northern boy who, swept up in the patriotic tide, joins the Union Army. He is plunged into the conflict, and his courage fails him - he runs from his first battle. He finds out later that his side was victorious, and he feels that he will never be able to face himself or his comrades again. He slowly recovers his courage in time for a crucial confrontation.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is known for being one of the greatest orators of the 20th Century, and perhaps in all of American history. In the 1950s and 1960s, his words led the Civil Rights movement and helped change society. Though his speeches refer to the conditions of the 1960s, his assertions that nonviolent protest is the key to democracy and that all humans are equal, are as timeless and powerful today as they were nearly forty years ago.

The Life & Times of George Washington (Part 2) - After being defeated at Germantown and Brandywine, Pa., George Washington and his army of 11,000 men spent the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. More then 3,000 men died there of extreme cold, hunger and sickness. What kept them going? George Washington's leadership, Baron Von Steubin's training, and the news that general Burgoyne's Red Coats had been licked at Saratoga.

You are there, in 1787 at America's constitutional convention, with the inside story as veteran print and broadcast journalist Jeffrey St. John "reports" each day's proceedings, flavoring his dispatches with quotes from private correspondence and notes of the delegates.

From the perspective of the young adult he was then, Francisco Jiménez describes the challenges he faced in his efforts to continue his education. During his college years, the very family solidarity that allowed Francisco to survive as a child is tested. Not only must he leave his family behind when he goes to Santa Clara University, but while Francisco is there, his father abandons the family and returns to Mexico.

Just in time for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia comes an updated edition of Olga Hall-Quest's classic. Hall-Quest provides an absorbing account of life in this first permanent colony of what is now the United States, and the struggles of those who settled there. Experts from the Jamestown National Historical Site have fact-checked every detail, and the curator has written a brand-new foreword - complete with recently discovered information about the colony.

June 6, 1944: The greatest amphibious invasion the world had ever seen was launched, involving thousands of ships, incredible planning and preparation, and a million courageous soldiers, sailors, and airmen willing to sacrifice their lives for victory. Author and journalist Bruce Bliven was there that day, on the beaches of France, and he recounts it all, from the risky plans developed by the American and British military leaders through the daring landing itself.

At the age of 14, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for 20 hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice.

Seldom given the credit she deserves, Sacajawea is one of America's true heroines. Without her help, the Lewis and Clark Expedition would never have crossed the Rockies and reached the Pacific Northwest - and the course of U.S. history would have been changed forever. Master Western storyteller Neta Frazier, author of The Stout-Hearted Seven: Orphaned on the Oregon Trail, tells the story of this courageous Native American.

Newbery Medal winner Armstrong Sperry has such an affinity for life on the high seas that his readers will imagine themselves right beside the bold John Paul Jones, luring enemy craft into danger and engaging them in close combat. Jones, a talented young captain, became an invaluable figure in America's fight for independence when he offered his sailing skills to the Continental Navy.

She's 17. She's been abused. She has a child. And she's HIV-positive. She is Ana, and this is her story. It begins the day she is born infected with HIV, transmitted from her young mother. Now she barely remembers her mama, who died when Ana was only three. From then on, Ana's childhood becomes a blur of faint memories and secrets: secrets about her illness and about the abuse she endures.

This Series, in seven parts, tells the story of America from the earliest founding through the days of Woodrow Wilson and The Great War (World War I). In this volume, you'll hear stories of explorers and pioneers.