In January 1785, a young African American woman named Elizabeth (Liss) was put on board the Lucretia in New York Harbor, bound for Charleston, where she would be sold to her fifth enslaver in just twenty-two years. Leaving behind a small child she had little hope of ever seeing again, Elizabeth was faced with the stark reality of being sold south to a life quite different from any she had known before. She had no idea that Robert Townsend, a son of the first family she was enslaved by, would locate her, safeguard her child, and return her to New York—nor [...]

No event in American history was more pivotal-or more furiously contested-than Congress’s decision to declare independence in July 1776. Even months after American blood had been shed at Lexington and Concord, many colonists remained loyal to Britain. John Adams, a leader of the revolutionary effort, said bringing the fractious colonies together was like getting “thirteen clocks to strike at once.” Other books have been written about the Declaration, but no author has traced the political journey from protest to Revolution with the narrative scope and flair of John Ferling. Independence takes readers from the cobblestones of Philadelphia into the halls of Parliament, where [...]

From New York Times bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson comes an eerily timely historical fiction middle grade adventure about a girl struggling to survive amid a smallpox epidemic, the public’s fear of inoculation, and the seething Revolutionary War. In the spring of 1776, thirteen-year-old Elsbeth Culpepper wakes to the sound of cannons. It’s the Siege of Boston, the Patriots’ massive drive to push the Loyalists out that turns the city into a chaotic war zone. Elsbeth’s father—her only living relative—has gone missing, leaving her alone and adrift in a broken town while desperately seeking employment to avoid the orphanage. Just when [...]

On April 19, 1775, the American Minutemen clashed with British troops in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. These battles marked the beginning of the American Revolution. After five years of planning and fighting, the British surrendered and the United States was finally free. This colorfully illustrated story takes kids on a journey through the events that led to revolution, the war itself, and the birth of a new nation. This guide to the American Revolution for kids features: – A visual timeline―Kids will be able to easily follow the history of the American Revolution thanks to a timeline marking major [...]

Who were the first three U.S. presidents, and how did they shape American independence? – Follow the lives of George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson through 21 colorful illustrations. – Learn what they did before rising to power in American politics. – Discover their contributions leading up to and during the Revolutionary War. – Bonus: Read about their presidencies for a fuller understanding of their legacies. To use as a teaching aid, reference the appendix of notable events and glossary.

Myths! Lies! Secrets! Uncover the hidden truth behind the Revolutionary War with beloved educator/author Kate Messner. The fun mix of sidebars, illustrations, photos, and graphic panels make this perfect for fans of I Survived! and Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales . On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode through Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, shouting, “The British are coming!” to start the American Revolution. RIGHT? WRONG! Paul Revere made it to Lexington, but before he could complete his mission, he was captured! The truth is, dozens of Patriots rode around warning people about the Redcoats’ plans that night. It was actually a man [...]

In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph—a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy. From her earliest days, Patsy Jefferson knows that though her father loves his family dearly, his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of her mother’s death, traveling with him when he becomes [...]

From the New York Times bestselling authors of America’s First Daughter comes the epic story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton—a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. Haunting, moving, and beautifully written, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza’s story as it’s never been told before—not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal—but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right. A general’s daughter… Coming of age on the perilous frontier of revolutionary New York, Elizabeth [...]

In 1760, Deborah Samson is born to Puritan parents in Plympton, Massachusetts. When her father abandons the family and her mother is unable to support them, Deborah is bound out as an indentured servant. From that moment on, she yearns for a life of liberation and adventure. Twenty years later, as the American colonies begin to buckle in their battle for independence, Deborah, impassioned by the cause, disguises herself as a soldier and enlists in the Continental Army. Her impressive height and lanky build make her transformation a convincing one, and it isn’t long before she finds herself confronting the horrors [...]

Contains awesome illustrations, a fierce group of rebels who will never surrender, an empire with an army that has never known defeat, and a war that changed the world forever. From George Washington crossing the icy Delaware, to Molly Pitcher fearlessly firing her cannon, the people of the American Revolution were some of the bravest and most inspiring of all time. Jump into a riot in the streets of Boston, join the Culper Spy Ring as they steal secrets in the dead of night, and watch the signing of the Declaration of Independence in this accessible guide to the birth of [...]

In this sweeping, foundational work, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Hackett Fischer draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the early United States. African Founders explores the little-known history of how enslaved people from different regions of Africa interacted with colonists of European origins to create new regional cultures in the colonial United States. The Africans brought with them linguistic skills, novel techniques of animal husbandry and farming, and generations-old ethical principles, among other attributes. This startling history reveals how much our country was shaped by [...]

While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history. The late #1 New York Times bestselling author Cokie Roberts brings us women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men, often defending their very doorsteps. Drawing upon personal correspondence, private journals, and even favored recipes, Roberts reveals the often surprising stories of these fascinating women, bringing to life the everyday trials and extraordinary triumphs of individuals like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, [...]

Benjamin Franklin is the Founding Father who winks at us. An ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of flesh rather than of marble. In bestselling author Walter Isaacson’s vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin seems to turn to us from history’s stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. By bringing Franklin to life, Isaacson shows how he helped to define both his own time and ours. He was, during his 84-year life, America’s best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and [...]

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence – when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, [...]

Here it is: #1 bestselling author Brad Meltzer’s very first non-fiction book: telling the true and untold story about the men who plotted to go after George Washington. Get ready for THE FIRST CONSPIRACY: The Secret Plot Against George Washington and the Birth of American Counterintelligence. In 1776, an elite group of soldiers were handpicked to serve as George Washington’s bodyguards. Washington trusted them; relied on them. But unbeknownst to Washington, some of them were part of a treasonous plan. In the months leading up to the Revolutionary War, these traitorous soldiers, along with the Governor of New York William Tryon [...]

In a genre overdue for a shakeup, Alexis Coe takes a closer look at our first—and finds he’s not quite the man we remember Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, chased rich young women, caused an international incident, and never backed down—even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other [...]

Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a “spirited account” (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. “It is all one story,” prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes. Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans—enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters—and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s [...]

Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin—the thrifty inventor-statesman of the Revolutionary era—but not about his love life. Poor Richard’s Women reveals the long-neglected voices of the women Ben loved and lost during his lifelong struggle between passion and prudence. The most prominent among them was Deborah Read Franklin, his common-law wife and partner for 44 years. Long dismissed by historians, she was an independent, politically savvy woman and devoted wife who raised their children, managed his finances, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England. Weaving detailed historical research with emotional intensity and personal testimony, Nancy Rubin Stuart traces Deborah’s life [...]

New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? Leaders of the founding who called for American liberty are scrutinized for enslaving Black people themselves: George Washington consistently refused to recognize the freedom of those who escaped his Mount Vernon plantation. And we have long needed a history of the founding that fully includes Black Americans in the Revolutionary protests, the war, and the debates over slavery and freedom that followed. We now [...]

Set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Revolution, and featuring a cast of iconic characters such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Marquis de Lafayette, The Hamilton Affair tells the sweeping, tumultuous, true love story of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler, from tremulous beginning to bittersweet ending—his at a dueling ground on the shores of the Hudson River, hers more than half a century later after a brave, successful life. Hamilton was a bastard son, raised on the Caribbean island of St. Croix. He went to America to pursue his education. Along the way he became one of the American Revolution’s [...]

The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . . Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina [...]

From New York Times bestselling author Cokie Roberts comes Ladies of Liberty a follow up to Founding Mothers in which she examines the lives and times of the women who have helped shape America. In this eye-opening companion volume to her acclaimed history Founding Mothers, number-one New York Times bestselling author and renowned political commentator Cokie Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork for a better society. Recounted with insight and humor, and drawing on personal correspondence, private journals, and other primary sources, many of them previously unpublished, here are the fascinating and inspiring true stories of first ladies and freethinkers, educators and explorers. Featuring [...]

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

When it comes to business, nice guys don’t finish last. In fact, the opposite is true. This award-winning book shows leaders how to leverage and exhibit kindness at work for the good of their teams and the future success of their organizations.

We All Live Here follows Lila Kennedy, whose life is in turmoil as she navigates a crumbling marriage, rebellious daughters, and an elderly stepfather. When her estranged father unexpectedly returns after 35 years, Lila learns that even the most challenging relationships can offer valuable lessons about love and family.

Eleanor Bennett's death leaves her children, Byron and Benny, with a mysterious inheritance: a family recipe for a black cake and a voice recording revealing a tumultuous story of betrayal and secrets. As they piece together their mother's true history, they must confront the complexities of their relationship and the legacies that shape their identities.

In Good Dirt, the daughter of an affluent Black family confronts the lingering effects of a childhood tragedy in which her brother was shot, shattering their lives and a cherished heirloom. As Ebby Freeman navigates her high-profile romance and the ensuing media frenzy, she flees to France, only to discover that the past - and the stoneware jar that symbolizes it - holds the key to her future.

In Just Because, a curious child bombards their patient father with questions about the world, from the color of the ocean to the fate of the dinosaurs. As bedtime approaches, the father responds with increasingly imaginative answers, creating a delightful bedtime experience for both little ones and their parents.

In Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, the award-winning duo of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen tells the story of two friends on a quest to discover something extraordinary. As they dig deeper into the ground, they find nothing at first, but their adventure leads to a surprisingly spectacular outcome, proving that sometimes the most remarkable treasures are found in unexpected ways.

John's Turn, authored by Mac Barnett, beautifully celebrates the theme of individuality through the lens of a young boy's performance at school. As John prepares to share his talent for dancing, his journey unfolds with tenderness and subtlety, showcasing the courage it takes to express oneself in front of an audience.

In President Taft Is Stuck in the Bath, author Mac Barnett humorously explores an unusual incident involving President William Howard Taft, who, despite his great stature, finds himself in a rather embarrassing predicament—stuck in a bathtub. This whimsical tale invites young readers to discover how he manages to get unstuck.

This Is the Honey is a beautifully curated anthology that celebrates Black joy and uplifts Black voices through the works of contemporary poets. Edited by Kwame Alexander, this collection features celebrated poets such as Rita Dove and Jericho Brown, offering a hopeful and incisive exploration of America.

In Twenty Questions, acclaimed author Mac Barnett invites readers to explore the playful and profound nature of questions that spark curiosity. Through a whimsical narrative paired with vibrant illustrations by Christian Robinson, the book encourages speculation and imagination, demonstrating that not all questions have definitive answers, and some lead to endless possibilities.

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley is a groundbreaking biography that transcends the myth of Elvis Presley, offering a deep dive into his life and the culture he transformed. Through extensive research and interviews, Peter Guralnick presents an intimate portrait of young Elvis, capturing his passion for music, his personal relationships, and the triumphs and challenges that defined his early years.

Acclaimed author Mac Barnett takes readers on a mysterious journey with a majestic polar bear as he navigates through a stunning landscape of snow and ice. With a perfect blend of suspense and emotion, the story invites readers to ponder the bear's destination and desires, while artist Shawn Harris's captivating illustrations enhance the enchanting experience.

In Tell Me Everything, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout returns to Crosby, Maine, exploring the complexities of new friendships and old loves amidst a shocking murder investigation. As characters navigate their intertwined lives, they grapple with profound questions about the meaning of existence, highlighting the enduring power of relationships and love in its many forms.

Haunted by their father's tragic accident during childhood, brothers Jim and Bob Burgess have lived vastly different lives since escaping their small Maine town for New York City. When their sister Susan, who remained in Shirley Falls, urgently calls them home, long-buried family tensions resurface, forcing them to confront the complexities of their relationships in The Burgess Boys.

In My Name Is Lucy Barton, Lucy slowly recovers from what should have been a simple operation, during which her estranged mother comes to visit. As they share gentle gossip about their past in Amgash, Illinois, underlying tensions and longings reveal the complexities of Lucy's life, from her troubled family to her aspirations as a writer.

Olive Kitteridge delves into the complexities of human relationships through the eyes of its titular character, a retired schoolteacher confronting the changes in her small town of Crosby, Maine. As she navigates the lives of those around her, from a troubled lounge musician to her own adult child, Olive's journey reveals the profound truths about love, loyalty, and the often painful quest for self-understanding.

Careless Love is the captivating conclusion to Peter Guralnick's masterful biography of Elvis Presley, chronicling the singer's life from his army service in Germany to his death in Memphis. This volume reveals the unraveling of Elvis' dreams and his complex relationship with manager Colonel Tom Parker, offering a fresh perspective on a deeply misunderstood cultural icon.