Books in America's Story series

The American Story continues . . . After many years of struggle and sacrifice, the American colonists had finally earned their freedom. It was now time to establish unity among the thirteen states and forge a new nation. Our founding fathers wrote a Constitution and a Bill of Rights to set up a democracy, a government that would put the people first. The country grew and flourished. With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, the United States doubled in size. Lewis and Clark were sent to explore the west, and five more states joined the Union. But rising tensions with the British would create more challenges to overcome. In this installment of the acclaimed American Story series, history lovers Betsy and Giulio Maestro tell the true story of the first thirty-two years of the United States, from the Treaty of Paris to the War of 1812.

People have been living in North America for at least 13,000 years. Readers explore the lives of the many different Native American tribes that inhabited what is now the United States, learning about their languages, foods, and spiritual beliefs. The trials that these people endured after the arrival of Europeans are also discussed. Historical images and interesting facts take readers into a time long ago, when North America was a very different place.

Life in early America was not always easy, and this was especially true for the people brought to the country as slaves. Readers learn how the practice of slavery started in the American colonies and what daily life was like for a slave. They explore the hard work of the abolitionists to end slavery and discover how it ultimately took the Civil War to end the practice for good.

American HistoryA Short Life of Abraham LincolnCondensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A HistoryBy John G. NicolayAbraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, was born in a log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky on the 12th day of February 1809. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was sixth in direct line of descent from Samuel Lincoln, who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1638. Following the prevailing drift of American settlement, these descendants had, during a century and a half, successively moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey, from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, from Pennsylvania to Virginia, and from Virginia to Kentucky; while collateral branches of the family eventually made homes in other parts of the West. In Pennsylvania and Virginia some of them had acquired considerable property and local prominence.In the year 1780, Abraham Lincoln, the President's grandfather, was able to pay into the public treasury of Virginia "one hundred and sixty pounds, current money," for which he received a warrant, directed to the "Principal Surveyor of any County within the commonwealth of Virginia," to lay off in one or more surveys for Abraham Linkhorn, his heirs or assigns, the quantity of four hundred acres of land. The error in spelling the name was a blunder of the clerk who made out the warrant.With this warrant and his family of five children—Mordecai, Josiah, Mary, Nancy, and Thomas—he moved to Kentucky, then still a county of Virginia, in 1780, and began opening a farm. Four years later, while at work with his three boys in the edge of his clearing, a party of Indians, concealed in the brush, shot and killed him. Josiah, the second son, ran to a neighboring fort for assistance; Mordecai, the eldest, hurried to the cabin for his gun, leaving Thomas, youngest of the family, a child of six years, by his father. Mordecai had just taken down his rifle from its convenient resting-place over the door of the cabin when, turning, he saw an Indian in his war-paint stooping to seize the child. He took quick aim through a loop-hole, shot, and killed the savage, at which the little boy also ran to the house, and from this citadel Mordecai continued firing at the Indians until Josiah brought help from the fort.

With accurate historical information, this easy-to-understand book tells why and how the Constitution of the United States was created. A More Perfect Union includes a map and back matter with a table of dates and a summary of the Articles of the Constitution. "A simple, attractive, informative book about a milestone in American history. The simplest and most accessible history of the Constitution to date." School Library JournalSupports the Common Core State Standards"

What was the first college built in America? Why did the Pilgrims come to the New World? Did Europeans come to America before Christopher Columbus? The answers to these questions and many more can be found here. Readers discover how the British colonies developed from their earliest days to the years right before the American Revolution. Fascinating facts, a timeline, and engaging images show what life was like for colonists, from days in school to years at war.