Draws on stories from survivors and archival photographs to describe the history of the "Titanic" from its launch to its sinking.

"As a hurricane gathered in the Caribbean, blue skies covered Galveston, Texas. Scientists knew a storm was coming. But none of them were able to prepare Galveston for the force of the hurricane that hit on September 8, 1900. The water from the storm surge pulled houses off their foundations, and the winds toppled telephone poles and trees like toothpicks. And amid the chaos, Galveston's residents did all they could to rescue one another. From the...

A letter from someone who was once an exasperating second-grader reveals her experiences with a teacher who brought out the best in her.

Narrates the tale of twelve-year-old Charles Dickens who, despite poverty and long hours of factory work, still has time to discover and share the stories of other residents of 1824 London. Includes author's note about Dickens' life and some of the books he wrote.

When Sal drives a stagecoach alone for the first time to pick up and deliver mail, her mother is afraid she will meet local outlaw Poetic Pete, but Sal not only excels at roping, riding, and shooting, she is also an excellent singer.

In 1931, a boy and his father watch as the world's tallest building, the Empire State Building, is constructed, step-by-step, near their Manhattan home.

The diary of a ten-year-old girl who moves with her family in 1855 from a town on the Maine coast to rugged Turtle Island where her father is to be the lighthouse keeper.

"Ruth David was growing up in a small village in Germany when Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. Under the Nazi Party, Jewish families like Ruth's experienced rising anti-Semitic restrictions and attacks. Just going to school became dangerous. By November 1938, anti-Semitism erupted into Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, and unleashed a wave of violence and forced arrests. Days later, desperate volunteers sprang into action to organize...

"As World War II raged, millions of young Jewish people were caught up in the horrors of the Nazis' Final Solution. Many readers know of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi state's genocidal campaign against European Jews and others of so-called "inferior" races. Yet so many of the individual stories remain buried in time. Of those who endured the Holocaust, some were caught by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps, some hid right under Hitler's nose, some...

A young slave stitches a quilt with a map pattern which guides her to freedom in the North.