As a young lawyer, Abraham Lincoln was known for his sense of humor. But in 1842, he did something so rascally--so downright mean--he was challenged to a duel. Lincoln needed his wit and a healthy dose of humility to save his life and his career. He didn't know it at...

Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award-winner Kathleen Krull is an expert at bringing history to life in her engaging titles and series, including Women Who Broke the Rules, Lives of . . . , Giants of Science, and A Kid’s Guide to America’s Bill of Rights. This time, she introduces readers...

A surprising true story of Isaac Newton’s boyhood suggests an intellectual development owing as much to magic as science. Before Isaac Newton became the father of physics, an accomplished mathematician, or a leader of the scientific revolution, he was a boy living in an apothecary’s...

In April 1916, Nell Richardson and Alice Burke set out from New York City in a little yellow car, embarking on a bumpy, muddy, unmapped journey ten thousand miles long. They took with them a teeny typewriter, a tiny sewing machine, a wee black kitten, and a message for Americans...

There is a ship, a navy ship. It is called the USS New York. It is big like other navy ships, and it sails like other navy ships, but there is something special about the USS New York. Following the events of September 11, 2001, the governor of New York...

Some people had rights, while others had none. Why shouldn't they have them, too? Two friends, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, get together for tea and conversation. They recount their similar stories fighting to win rights for women and African Americans. The premise of this particular exchange between the...

Here’s middle-grade nonfiction that reads like a thriller. With murder, court battles, and sensational newspaper headlines, the story of Lizzie Borden is compulsively readable and perfect for the Common Core. Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her...

Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the famous romantic poet, Lord Byron, develops her creativity through science and math. When she meets Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first mechanical computer, Ada understands the machine better than anyone else and writes the world's first computer program in order to demonstrate its...

Discover how Benjamin Franklin’s scientific method challenged a certain Dr. Mesmer’s mysterious powers in a whimsical look at a true moment in history. The day Ben Franklin first set foot in Paris, France, he found the city all abuzz. Everyone was talking about something new—remarkable, thrilling, and strange. Something called...

A graphic adaptation of a 100-year-old diary brings World War I history to life One winter morning, Barroux was walking down a street in Paris when he made an extraordinary find: the real diary of a soldier in World War I. Barroux rescued the diary from the trash and illustrated...

One hundred years after the start of the “Great War,” World War I for Kids provides an intriguing and comprehensive look at this defining conflict that involved all of the world’s superpowers. Why and how did the war come about? What was daily life like for soldiers in the trenches?...

Move over, Thomas Edison! Nikola Tesla takes the spotlight in a biography of the man who pioneered modern electrical engineering — and changed the course of history. When a Serbian boy named Nikola Tesla was three, he stroked his cat and was enchanted by the electrical sparks....

While Americans fought for freedom and democracy abroad, fear and suspicion towards Japanese Americans swept the country after Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Culling information from extensive, previously unpublished interviews and oral histories with Japanese American survivors of internment camps, Martin W. Sandler gives an in-depth account of their...

What happened when a former slave took beat-up old instruments and gave them to a bunch of orphans? Thousands of futures got a little brighter and a great American art form was born. In 1891, Reverend Daniel Joseph Jenkins opened his orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina....

Meet the woman who became the icon. The story of Cleopatra’s life has captured the imagination of countless writers and artists for centuries. As one of history’s most enduring figures, much lore has obscured the real woman behind the myth. Was she a beautiful and heartless schemer...