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Books in Great Episodes series

  • Air Raid--Pearl Harbor!: The Story of December 7, 1941

    Theodore Taylor

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, May 1, 2001)
    On December 7, 1941, Americans were stunned to learn that Japanese forces had launched an attack on Pearl Harbor. In this engrossing and extensively researched account, Theodore Taylor examines both sides of the battle, taking a close look at the events leading up to it and providing compelling insight into the motives and operations of the brave men and women swept up in the fight.
    Z
  • Just Jane: A Daughter of England Caught in the Struggle of the American Revolution

    William Lavender

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, May 1, 2005)
    When Lady Jane, orphaned daughter of an English earl, arrives in Charlestown, South Carolina, in 1776, she finds herself in the middle of a heated war--a war not only between her former country and her new home but one between the members of her own family, whose loyalties are strongly divided in America's fight for freedom. Torn by family feuds, the war, a secret romance, and her own growing need for independence, Jane struggles for the courage to become the person she wants to be: just Jane. Includes a reader's guide.
    V
  • Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons: The Story of Phillis Wheatley

    Ann Rinaldi

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, March 1, 2005)
    Kidnapped from her home in Senegal and sold as a slave in 1761, a young girl is purchased by the wealthy Wheatley family in Boston. Phillis Wheatley—as she comes to be known—has an eager mind and it leads her on an unusual path for a slave—she becomes America’s first published black poet. “Strong characterization and perceptive realism mark this thoughtful portrayal.”—Booklist
    Y
  • The Coffin Quilt: The Feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys

    Ann Rinaldi

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, April 1, 2001)
    Fanny McCoy has lived in fear and anger ever since that day in 1878 when a dispute with the Hatfields over the ownership of a few pigs set her family on a path of hatred and revenge. From that day forward, along the ragged ridges of the West Virginia-Kentucky line, the Hatfields and the McCoys have operated not withing the law but within mountain codes of their own making. In 1882, when Fanny's sister Roseanna runs off with young Johnse Hatfield, the hatred between the two clans explodes.As the killings, abductions, raids, and heartbreak escalate bitterly and senselessly, Fanny, the sole voice of reason, realizes that she is powerless to stop the fighting and must learn to rise above the petty natures of her family and neighbors to find her own way out of the hatred.
    Y
  • Song of the Buffalo Boy

    Sherry Garland

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, April 29, 1994)
    Seventeen-year-old Loi, whose father was an American soldier, is ostracized by her fellow villagers because she is con-lai, a half-breed. Loi has been promised to a cruel older man, but rather than marry him, she flees to Ho Chi Minh City, and along with thousands of other Amerasians, she begins the confusing process of applying for the Amerasian Homecoming Program. “Drawing attention to painful and neglected topics, Garland’s writing is strongly atmospheric, with graceful interpolations of Vietnamese words and references to Vietnamese culture and traditions.”--Publishers Weekly
    X
  • An Acquaintance with Darkness

    Ann Rinaldi

    Mass Market Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, March 1, 2005)
    Fourteen-year-old Emily Pigbush suspects that her uncle is involved in body snatching. Meanwhile, her best friend's family is accused of plotting to kill Abraham Lincoln, and Emily is left unsure of whom she can trust. Includes a reader's guide.
    Y
  • The Staircase

    Ann Rinaldi

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, June 1, 2002)
    How could Lizzy Enders's father abandon her at a girls school run by nuns? She's surrounded by Catholics--but she's Methodist! Shunned by the other boarders, Lizzy befriends a wandering carpenter named José, who with just three tools--and unflagging faith--builds an elaborate spiral staircase in the new chapel in mere weeks. When he disappears without a trace, Lizzy realizes that the way she sees things is not always the way they are. Inspired by the legend of the "miraculous" staircase in the Chapel of Loretto in Santa Fe, Ann Rinaldi skillfully blends the mystery surrounding the staircase's builder with the daily trials of a spunky thirteen-year-old girl growing up in the 1870s.
    Y
  • The Ever-After Bird

    Ann Rinaldi

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, Jan. 18, 2010)
    Now that her father is dead, CeCe McGill is left to wonder why he risked his life for the ragged slaves who came to their door in the dead of night. When her uncle, an ornithologist, insists she accompany him to Georgia on an expedition in search of the rare scarlet ibis, CeCe is surprised to learn there's a second reason for their journey: Along the way, Uncle Alex secretly points slaves north in the direction of the Underground Railroad. Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous pre-Civil War South, The Ever-After Bird is the story of a young woman's education about the horrors of slavery and the realization about the kind of person she wants to become.
    Y
  • The Legend of Jimmy Spoon

    Kristiana Gregory

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, June 1, 2002)
    Twelve-year-old Jimmy Spoon yearns for a life of adventure. So when two Shoshoni boys offer him a horse, Jimmy sneaks away from his family in Salt Lake City to follow the boys. When Jimmy arrives at the Shoshoni camp, he discovers that he is expected to stay--as a member of the tribe! Inspired by the memoirs of a white man who actually lived with Chief Washakie's tribe as a boy in the mid-1800s, The Legend of Jimmy Spoon is a compelling coming-of-age adventure.
    T
  • The Letter Writer

    Ann Rinaldi

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, May 24, 2010)
    Eleven-year-old Harriet Whitehead is an outsider in her own family. She feels accepted and important only when she is entrusted to write letters for her blind stepmother. Then Nat Turner, a slave preacher, arrives on her family’s plantation and Harriet befriends him, entranced by his gentle manner and eloquent sermons about an all-forgiving God. When Nat asks Harriet for a map of the county to help him spread the word, she draws it for him—wanting to be part of something important. But the map turns out to be the missing piece that sets Nat’s secret plan in motion and makes Harriet an unwitting accomplice to the bloodiest slave uprising in U.S. history.Award-winning historical novelist Ann Rinaldi has created a bold portrait of an ordinary young girl thrust in to a situation beyond her control.
    Z
  • Air Raid--Pearl Harbor! the Story of December 7, 1941

    Theodore Taylor

    Hardcover (Ty Crowell Co, June 1, 1971)
    Recreates Japan's dramatic air attack on Pearl Harbor, relating the events from both the American and Japanese points of view
    Z
  • The Riddle of Penncroft Farm

    Dorothea Jensen

    Paperback (HMH Books for Young Readers, Aug. 1, 2001)
    Purple Dragonfly Children's Book Awards First Place Winner (Historical Fiction)International Reading Association Teachers' Choices SelectionYoung Lars Olafson moves with his parents to the old family farm near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to live with his aged aunt Cass. Lars is miserable--until he meets Geordie, a boy whose stories of the Revolutionary War are as exciting as those of an eyewitness. Then, when Lars is faced with a crucial mystery linked to the Revolutionary War, his only chance of solving it lies in Geordie's ghostly tales.
    U