Gary Paulsen introduces listeners to Charley Goddard in his latest novel, Soldier's Heart. Charley goes to war a boy, and returns a changed man, crippled by what he has seen. In this captivating tale Paulsen vividly shows listeners the turmoil of war through one boy's eyes and one boy's heart, and gives a voice to all the anonymous young men who fought in the Civil War.

As the Revolutionary War begins, 13-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate, become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion.

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and an American Bookseller "Pick of the Lists", The Devil's Arithmetic plunges the listener into the terrible realities of the Nazi concentration camps. Chaya's tale is a celebration of the strength of the human spirit and a dramatic introduction to the darkest period of modern history.

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943, and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.

This book is considered to be the best account of the Civil War ever written from the Confederate point of view. It is also the one most frequently cited by historians of the Western campaigns. Sam Watkins, a high private in the Army of Tennessee, brings a vividness and detail to his story unmatched in the genre.

San Francisco, 1900. The Gilded Age. A fantastic time to be alive for lots of people...but not 13-year-old Lizzie Kennedy, stuck at Miss Barstow's snobby school for girls. Lizzie's secret passion is science, an unsuitable subject for finishing-school girls. Lizzie lives to go on house calls with her physician father. On those visits to his patients, she discovers a hidden dark side of the city - a side that's full of secrets, rats, and rumors of the plague.

December is the time of the annual Ceremony at which each twelve-year-old receives a life assignment determined by the Elders. Jonas watches his friend Fiona named Caretaker of the Old and his cheerful pal Asher labeled the Assistant Director of Recreation. But Jonas has been chosen for something special. When his selection leads him to an unnamed man, the man called only the Giver, he begins to sense the dark secrets that underlie the fragile perfection of his world.

> The New York Times hailed this trilogy as “one of the greatest historical accomplishments of our time”. With stunning detail and insights, America’s foremost Civil War historian recreates the war from its opening months to its final, bloody end. Each volume delivers a complete listening experience. The Coming Fury (Volume 1) covers the split Democratic Convention in the spring of 1860 to the first battle of Bull Run.

This compelling classic of a boy's coming of age during the Civil War is based on stories the author's grandfather told her about his own life.

When 11-year-old Langston's mother dies in 1946, he and his father leave rural Alabama for Chicago's brown belt as a part of what came to be known as the Great Migration. It's lonely in the small apartment with just the two of them, and Langston is bullied at school. But his new home has one fantastic thing. Unlike the whites-only library in Alabama, the local public library welcomes everyone. There, hiding out after school, Langston discovers another Langston, a poet whom he learns inspired his mother enough to name her only son after him.

Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" - or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's players perform. As full of twists and turns as a London alleyway, this entertaining novel is rich in period details, colorful characters, villainy, and drama.

This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.

When Philip Malloy starts humming along to his school's daily playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner", his insistence on continuing to do so even after his teacher, Miss Margaret Narwin, asks him to stop sets in motion a chain of events that will soon ripple out beyond anything Phil or Miss Narwin could have imagined. Phil's friends, his teachers, and the school administration are soon swept up in the controversy...and that's just the beginning!

When Sheldon Russell Curtis told this story to his daughter, Rosa, she kept every word in her heart and was to retell it many times. I will tell it in Sheldon's own words as nearly as I can. He was wounded in a fierce battle and left for dead in a pasture somewhere in Georgia when Pinkus found him. Pinkus' skin was the color of polished mahogany, and he was flying Union colors like the wounded boy, and he picked him up out of the field and brought him to where the black soldier's mother, Moe Moe Bay, lived.

The suspenseful tale of two courageous kids and one inquisitive scientist who teamed up to stop an epidemic. Eel has troubles of his own: As an orphan and a “mudlark”, he spends his days in the filthy River Thames, searching for bits of things to sell. He’s being hunted by Fisheye Bill Tyler, and a nastier man never walked the streets of London. And he’s got a secret that costs him four precious shillings a week to keep safe. But even for Eel, things aren’t so bad until that fateful August day in 1854.

This box set contains the first three books by Kathryn Lasky: The Capture, The Journey, and The Rescue. Soren is born in the forest of Tyto, a tranquil kingdom where the Barn Owls dwell. But evil lurks in the owl world, and Soren is captured and imprisoned in a dark canyon where there is a mysterious school. It’s called an orphanage, but Soren believes it’s something far worse. He and his new friend, the clever and scrappy Gylfie, know that the only way out is up. To escape, they will need to do something these fledglings have never done before—fly.

In 1881, 12-year-old Rodzina Clara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski wishes she didn't have to board the orphan train in Chicago. But she has no home, no family, and no choice. Rodzina doesn't believe the orphans are on their way out West to be adopted by good families. She's sure they will become slaves to strangers. Anyway, who would ever adopt a large, tough, stubborn girl of Polish origin? As the train heads west, all Rodzina has is a small suitcase and her family memories from the past.

Josie Shilling’s family is too big, their cramped city house is too small, and she feels like no one’s ever on her side. Then, on Thanksgiving Day, her older brother, Tom, brings home a pink, squirmy bundle wrapped in an old football jersey - a piglet he rescued from a nearby farm. Her name is Hamlet. The minute Josie holds Hamlet, she feels an instant connection. But there’s no room for Hamlet in the crowded Shilling household. And whoever heard of keeping a pig in the city? So, it’s up to Josie to find her a forever home.

When eight-year-old Kirstie brings home a strange egg from the Scottish shore, her family never expects it to hatch. But the next day, Kirstie discovers a baby sea monster swimming in her bathtub! Part horse, part toad, part turtle and part crocodile, he's the oddest-looking creature Kirstie's family has ever seen. Only Kirstie's grandfather knows what the beastie really is: a Water Horse! This lovable creature is the perfect pet. The only trouble is, he can't stop growing.

This edition of Margot Lee Shetterly’s acclaimed book is perfect for young students. It's the powerful story of four African-American female mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of the greatest moments in our space program. Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

In 1942, when Mahatma Gandhi asks Indians to give one family member to the freedom movement, 10-year-old Anjali is devastated to think of her father risking his life for the freedom struggle. But it turns out he isn't the one joining. Anjali's mother is. And with this change comes many more adjustments designed to improve their country and use "ahimsa" - non-violent resistance - to stand up to the British government. First the family must trade in their fine foreign-made clothes for homespun cotton, so Anjali has to give up her prettiest belongings.

An abandoned house at the end of the block. A mysterious girl in an upstairs window. A strange black SUV lurking around every corner. When Nick and Tesla Holt are sent to live with their eccentric Uncle Newt, they find their new neighborhood is full of secrets. What the heck is going on? To unravel the mysteries (and save their skins), Nick and Tesla must use everyday household objects to build electromagnets, rocket launchers, and other crazy contraptions.

When Lyddie and her younger brother are hired out as servants to help pay off their family farm's debts, Lyddie is determined to find a way to reunite her family once again. Hearing about all the money a girl can make working in the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, she makes her way there, only to find that her dreams of returning home may never come true.

Charlotte Parkhurst was raised in the mid-1800s and was expected to live her life without the freedoms she dreamed of. But Charlotte was smart and determined, and she figured out a way to live her life the way she wanted; Charlotte became an expert horse rider, a legendary stagecoach driver, and the first woman ever to vote—at a time when such things were outlawed for women.

Swift, a young wolf cub, lives with his pack in the mountains learning to hunt, competing with his brothers and sisters for hierarchy, and watching over a new litter of cubs. Then a rival pack attacks, and Swift and his family scatter. Alone and scared, Swift must flee and find a new home. His journey takes him a remarkable 1,000 miles across the Pacific Northwest. The trip is full of peril, and Swift encounters forest fires, hunters, highways, and hunger before he finds his new home.

Through the alternating voices of 12-year-old Morning Girl and her younger brother Star Boy, we step into the extraordinarily rich lives of an indigenous family on a Bahamian Island in 1492, just as their paradise is about to be discovered and a new world order begins to take shape.

What does it mean when the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence is your father and also your slave master? Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston are Thomas Jefferson’s children, but their mother is a slave, so they must keep their father’s identity secret. They get special treatment - better work, better shoes, even violin lessons - but they are still slaves. Their father has promised to set them all free when each turns 21. Some of them are light-skinned enough that they will be able to enter white society - and thereby turn their backs on home forever.

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943, and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.

Eleven-year-old Mimi Mackson comes from a big Indian American family: Dad's a renowned food writer, Mom's a successful businesswoman, and her three older siblings all have their own respective accomplishments. It's easy to feel invisible in such an impressive family, but Mimi's dream of proving she's not the least talented member of her family seems possible when she discovers a contest at the new bakery in town. Plus, it'll start her on the path to becoming a celebrity chef like her culinary idol, Puffy Fay.

This charming little tale, with a gigantic heart, was written by E.B. White, best-known for the perennial favorite Charlotte's Web.