Books published by publisher Compass%20Point%20Books

The story behind two battles collectively known as the Battle of Saratoga makes an unforgettable tale, yet it's unfamiliar to many people. These battles are considered the turning point of the American Revolution. They halted Britain's southern advance and convinced France to provide invaluable military support and monetary aid to the American cause. Without victories in Saratoga, the American struggle for liberty may have fallen apart.

On June 28, 1914, a 19-year-old Bosnian student named Gavrilo Princip stepped up to an open car on a Sarajevo street and fired two shots. The bullets from Princip’s gun killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife, Sophie. The gunfire also set the stage for the most disastrous armed conflict the world had yet experienced. Exactly one month after the assassination in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and World War I began.

Aristotle lived in Athens during a time when the city flourished with scholars, artists, warriors, and politicians. He studied with Plato at the School of Athens, eventually distinguishing himself as a brilliant philosopher and scientist. Later, he established the Lyceum school in Athens, where he gave groundbreaking lectures on a broad variety of topics, such as logic, biology, and physics. His lectures and books are still considered to be important pieces of the foundations of philosophy and science.

Robert Hooke is best known for his studies of light, sound, and microscopic beings. Sometimes called England’s Leonardo da Vinci, Hooke’s works included detailed drawings and descriptions of his observations of nature, and he was a creative genius and inventor. Although Hooke had enemies who felt that he did not deserve credit for his experiments, he never stopped working and studying. Robert Hooke devoted his life to learning more about the modern world, and many of his findings are used today.

On-point historical photographs combined with strong narration bring the story of the moon landing to life. Kids will learn about the cold war tensions between the US and the USSR that led to the space race, and the push from presidents Kennedy and Johnson to ensure the U.S. got to the moon first. As an added bonus, readers will learn about how this played out on TV. All of the networks covered it, but Walter Cronkite and astronaut Wally Shirra are there to narrate how it happened with real excitement. Accompanying video will show readers what viewers saw at the time.

Nine African American students made history when they defied a governor and integrated an Arkansas high school in 1957. It was the photo of one of the nine trying to enter the school a young girl being taunted, harassed and threatened by an angry mob that grabbed the worlds attention and kept its disapproving gaze on Little Rock, Arkansas. In defiance of a federal court order, Governor Orval Faubus called in the National Guard to prevent the students from entering all white Central High School. The plan had been for the students to meet and go to school as a group on September 4, 1957. But one student, Elizabeth Eckford, didnt hear of the plan and tried to enter the school alone. A chilling photo by newspaper photographer Will Counts captured the sneering expression of a girl in the mob and made history. Years later Counts snapped another photo, this one of the same two girls, now grownup, reconciling in front of Central High School.

The story behind two battles collectively known as the Battle of Saratoga makes an unforgettable tale, yet it's unfamiliar to many people. These battles are considered the turning point of the American Revolution. They halted Britain's southern advance and convinced France to provide invaluable military support and monetary aid to the American cause. Without victories in Saratoga, the American struggle for liberty may have fallen apart.

A young, sickly Phillis Wheatley was brought to Massachusetts as a slave. She grew up in two worlds treated well and educated but still enslaved. In her short life she wrote nearly 150 poems and became the first African-American poet to publish a book. She died alone and in poverty, but her poems live on. They provide a unique perspective on life in colonial America in the late 1700s.