Books in My America series

Part of the My America relaunch, in Ms. Osborne's sequel to My Brother's Keeper, Ginny moves to Washington, D.C. where she must face changing times, marked by the assassination of President Lincoln.In the final months of the Civil War, Virginia nad her family move to Washington, D.C. where the cold winter brings uncertainty and hardship. Virginia takes a job as a servant in a wealthy home to help her family. But, just as things start to improve as her father gets a job, and the war finally comes to an end, the tragic assassination of Ginny's beloved President Lincoln occurs. In this, her second diary chronicling the Civil War, Ginny learns that life is constantly changing. Indeed, even as Lincoln dies, her nephew is born. Throughout, Ginny faces life with hope and courage.

In Pat Hermes' sequel to Our Strange New Land, Elizabeth faces harsher times as she records the colony's daily struggle for survival. The My America series will be relaunched with new covers.The story of the feisty, determined Lizzie of Pat Hermes' Our Strange New Land continues in this installment with the departure of both Captain John Smith and Lizzie's dear friend, Jessie. Facing new challenges, Lizzie records in her new diary all of the challenges that face the struggling colony. As a result of starvation and disease, Lizzed watches hopelessly as many of the settlers die. She records all of this, but even more, she records the intimate lives of the children who remain there, along with that of her new baby sister.

In Kate McMullan's first My America book, the drama and adventure of the American prairie come to life when Meg must leave her family and move to Kansas to avoid the St. Louis cholera epidemic.Margaret Cora Wells is a resilient young girl living in St. Louis where cholera has become an epidemic. When her mother and sister get sick, Meg wants only to tend to them. But, in an effort to protect his children, her father sends Meg and her brother, Preston, to their relatives on the Kansas prairie for the summer. After an adventurous journey, Meg and Preston arrive in Kansas where they learn about life in another part of the country, and even more about the politics of the time. Meg is sweet and strong with a deep moral sense and a real sense of humor.

In Patricia Hermes's second installment of Joshua's journey West in 1848, we meet the young adventurer once again upon his arrival in Oregon, where his new life will begin.It is the fall of 1848, and Joshua and his family have finally arrived in Oregon. Excited about their new home, they choose a place to build and raise a farm. Though life out West is trying, and they must cope with losses and setbacks, they also experience great success and joy.

When his father dies, Finn Reardon must support his family by selling newspapers on the streets of Manhattan, where he finds himself in the middle of the Newsie Strike of 1899.When Finn Reardon's father dies, he decides to support his mother and eight siblings by peddling newspapers on the streets corners of New York City. But when the two biggest newspaper publishers, Hearst and Pulitzer, raise the wholesale price that Finn and his friends pay for the papers they sell, the boys band together and go on strike. Susan Campbell Bartoletti brings humor and wit to this classic David and Goliath struggle between the Newsies and the newspaper publishers.

In another compelling entry from criticially-acclaimed author William Durbin, we meet C.J. Jackson, a young farmer whose family is forced to abandon their farm and seek a new life in California.April 10, 1935The dust has been blowing bad for several years in a row now. And with crop failures coming back to back like they have, hundreds of families have lost their farms. A Monday never passes without Sheriff Jake Allison posting a notice of foreclosure at the Boise City courthouse. Times are so rough, that when they hold an auction to sell a place, the only people that show up are the banks and the insurance companies. Nobody else has a nickel.C.J. Jackson is a young man living through one of the most tragic times in the Dust Bowl of an America fraught with political, economic, and environmental problems. In this intense journal of life in the Oklahoma panhandle, C.J. tells it like it is-and it is bad.

In Hope's third and final diary, by Kristiana Gregory, we meet Hope once again in the middle of the Revolutionary War, as she continues to bravely face the turmoil and violence.Hope describes the realities of life in Pennsylvania as she is caught up in the midst of the Revolutionary War. Though the emerging nation's future is still uncertain, Hope remains optimistic and brave.