Historical Reading Book Pairs: US History

Twelve-year-old Patsy keeps a diary of the exciting but confusing time following the end of the Civil War and the granting of freedom to former slaves.

Contains excerpts from four slave narratives that provide insight into what life was like for African-Americans before, during, and after the Civil War.

If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl? As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom.

In her diary, thirteen-year-old Hattie chronicles her family's arduous 1847 journey from Missouri to Oregon on the Oregon Trail.

Read about how over half a million men, woman and children risked their lives and traveled west on the Oregon Trail in hopes for a better future.

In 1930 Abby Nichols is an eight-year-old girl growing up in Maine, but as the Depression deepens, and her mother dies, the responsibility of taking care of her family falls to her, and she has to put her dreams of going to college and becoming a writer on hold.

Presents an introduction to the Great Depression of the 1930s discussing the economic boom of the 1920s to the depressions conclusion during World War II, how Americans survived after losing their jobs and what the United States government did to combat the effects of the depression.

In a small Missouri town during the 1920s, Clem is torn between family responsibility and the life he wishes to lead when he must begin working in the lead mine on his thirteenth birthday to help pay for his sister's medical care.

Recounts photographer Lewis Hines' fight against child labor in the early 1900s and discusses how his work and the work of others revealed truths about the issue to the public.

Provides background information on the war in Afghanistan that began after the September 11 terror attacks in 2001.

Every school day seems to bring more trouble to eleven-year-old Derek, whose former best friend bullies him, while at home he deals with the long absence of his father, a Blackhawk helicopter pilot, and his mother's sudden moodiness.

Tony DiMarco, who had just turned thirteen, catches a murderer, solves a mystery, and discovers a treasure during the first few days in his new home at 13 Hangmen's Court in Boston. In the attic bedroom of the house, Tony comes together with four other thirteen-year-old boys from different times in history, and they are all connected to a murder, a mystery, and a treasure.

Tells the story of the Boston Red Sox professional baseball club from its first season through 2010, and highlights significant players, managers, and games in the history of the team.

When a failed wheat crop nearly bankrupts the Betterly family, twelve-year-old May's father pulls her from school and hires her out to a couple new to the Kansas frontier.

The adventures of an eleven-year-old tomboy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-nineteenth century.

Tells about the daily life and activities of a pioneer girl growing up on the prairies of Nebraska.

Discusses the formation and activity of the Sons of Liberty in response to taxes imposed on colonists by the British in the eighteenth century, and examines the efforts of people such as Alexander McDougall, Samuel Adams, and Abraham Whipple.

After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution.

Examines, using eyewitness accounts, the tragedy that killed 146 workers in a New York City garment factory.

Provides a detailed account of the disastrous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City, which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers in 1911, and examines the impact of this event on the nation's working conditions and labor laws.

Sixteen-year-old Rose Nolan arrives on Ellis Island in 1911 in the hopes of starting a new life, but after most of her family is sent back to Ireland, she must find her own way in a new country and fend for herself and her younger sister.

In 1910, thirteen-year-old Raisa travels alone from Poland to New York City, where she discovers her older sister, who was supposed to take care of Raisa, has disappeared, leaving Raisa to accept a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where her life is changed once again after a tragic fire.

In 1927, at the urging of twenty-one-year-old Harriet, Mrs. Livingston reluctantly recalls her experiences at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, including miserable working conditions that led to a strike, then the fire that took the lives of her two best friends, when Harriet, the boss's daughter, was only five years old. Includes historical notes.

Fourteen-year-old Miriam flees to America with her family in 1910, where her family settles in a tenement building on the Lower East Side of New York and Miriam gets a job as a cuff setter at the Triangle Waist Company, but just as she is finishing work on March 25, 1911, a fire begins in the factory and she struggles to escape.

Photographs and text document the experiences of five individuals who came to live in the Lower East Side of New York City as children or young adults from Belarus, Italy, Lithuania, and Romania at the turn of the twentieth century.

An introduction to the life of Benedict Arnold that highlights not only the traitorous actions that made him legendary, but also his heroic involvement in the American Revolution.

Presents a comprehensive biography and history of Benedict Arnold that examines many of his heroic deeds and contributions to the Revolutionary cause before he decided to switch sides.

Fourteen-year-old Becca takes a position as a maid in a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker home and witnesses the events that lead to General Benedict Arnold's betrayal of the American forces during the Revolutionary War.

Tells the story of America's first black paratroopers during World War II.

In 1945, thirteen-year-old Levi is sent to find the father he has not seen in three years, going from Chicago, to segregated North Carolina, and finally to Pendleton, Oregon,where he learns that his father's unit, the all-Black 555th paratrooper battalion, will never see combat but finally has a mission. Includes historical notes.

Years afterwards, Ruben Hart tells the story of how, in 1929 Newport, Rhode Island, his family and his best friend's family were caught up in the violent competition among groups trying to control the local rum-smuggling trade.

Presents a history of prohibition in the United States, discussing the events leading up to it, the measures that police took to enforce it and how it became legal to manufacture alcohol again.

It is 1906, and when her family is cheated out of their tavern, fourteen-year-old Minnie Bonner is forced to become a maid to the Sump family, who are moving to San Francisco--three weeks before the great earthquake.

Ten-year-old Leo loves being a newsboy in San Francisco--but early one spring morning in 1906 Leo's world is shaken, when he finds himself stranded in the middle of San Francisco as it crumbles and burns to the ground.

Text and illustrations examine the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, its aftermath, and its effects on the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

Twelve-year-old Hazel is uprooted from her quiet, East coast life during World War II to move to a secluded army post in New Mexico where her father and other scientists begin working on a top secret project.

In 1945, having joined his father at Los Alamos, where he and other scientists are working on a secret project to end World War II, thirteen-year-old Stephen becomes caught in a web of secrecy and intrigue.

Describes the events and people surrounding the creation of the atomic bomb, and examines the effects of its use during World War II.

Read about how slaves from the South tried to escape to freedom by use of what became known as The Underground Railroad.

Presents a detailed account of Ellen and William Craft's daring escape from slavery in 1848, and describes the institution of slavery in the South along with the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad.

In 1859, twelve-year-old Clotee, a house slave who must conceal the fact that she can read and write, records in her diary her experiences and her struggle to decide whether to escape to freedom.

Because of the strong influence which her grandfather, an abolitionist, has in her life, fourteen-year-old Lucy assists a fugitive slave girl in her escape.

Living on the western Canadian prairie in the nineteenth century, Sweetgrass, a fifteen-year-old Blackfoot Indian girl, saves her family from a smallpox epidemic and proves her maturity to her father.

An overview of smallpox that explains what the disease is, how it is transmitted, what the symptoms are, why it is so resistant to treatment, and how smallpox epidemics have been dealt with throughout history.

While waiting for a church meeting in 1706, Susanna English, daughter of a wealthy Salem merchant, recalls the malice, fear, and accusations of witchcraft that tore her village apart in 1692.

Twelve-year-old Deliverance Trembley writes in her diary about the fears and doubts that arise during the 1692 witch hunt and trials in Salem Village, Massachusetts, especially when her pious friend, Goody Corey, is condemned as a witch.

Examines the causes and events of the Salem witch trials, covering the fear of the unknown and of witches brought over from Europe, the strict and difficult nature of the Puritan beliefs, and the pressure on individuals to conform to Puritan standards.

Chronicles the events surrounding the Salem witch trials, providing information on the major participants in the events and the impact the trial's had on American history.

Twelve-year-old Mem presents a diary account of the trip she and her family made on the Mayflower in 1620 and their first year in the New World.

Discusses the Pilgrims' voyage to Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the colony they established after their arrival, aided by Native Americans and governed by an agreement called the Mayflower Compact.

When twelve-year-old Frederick "Red" Porter's father dies in 1972, his mother wants to sell their automobile repair shop and move her two sons back to Ohio, but Red is desperate to stop the sale even if it means unearthing some dark family secrets in a Virginia rife with racial tensions.

Presents a true account of the murder of fourteen-year-old, Emmett Till, in Mississippi, in 1955.

This illustrated poetry collection eulogizes Emmett Till, an African American man who was killed in a brutal, racially motivated lynching in 1955.

Thirteen-year-old Nicky Martini struggles with life's changes in 1970 while living in an apartment complex known as "Eggplant Alley."

Contains letters and poems written to families and friends by soldiers in Vietnam, expressing their homesickness and the horrors of war.

Living in Flemington, New Jersey, in 1935, twelve-year-old Katie Leigh Flynn describes, in a series of poems, the effect on her small town of the ongoing trial of Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby son.

Presents information about the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby in 1932, the investigation of the crime, and the subsequent trial of Bruno Hauptmann; includes commentary on the decision.

A biography of the pilot whose life was full of controversy and tragedy, but also fulfilling achievements.

Combines letters, journal entries, reports, photographs, and maps to examine the Battle of Valley Forge from multiple perspectives; including a teenage soldier, a doctor, a farmer, and a spy.

Provides an account of the six months during which the soldiers in George Washington's command camped at Valley Force, enduring the harsh winter of 1777-78 without adequate food, clothing, or blankets.

Curzon, having matured from boy to man over the course of the winter with the army at Valley Forge, worries that someone will learn he is a runaway slave passing for free, and tries to figure out the meaning of his friendship with Isabel.

Recounts the events surrounding the 1957 photograph taken by Will Counts that captured one of nine African-American students trying to enter an Arkansas high school while being taunted by an angry white mob and discusses how the photo brought the civil rights movement to the forefront of the nation's attention.

Combines eye witness accounts with archival photographs to document the events surrounding the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Sylvia Patterson's life suddenly changes with the integration of Little Rock's Central High in 1957 when she is selected to be one of the first black students to attend the previously all white school.

Twelve-year-old Marlee develops a strong friendship with Liz, the new girl in school, but when Liz suddenly stops attending school and Marlee hears a rumor that her friend is actually an African American girl passing herself off as white, the two young girls must decide whether their friendship is worth taking on integration and the dangers it could bring to their families.

Beals chronicles her harrowing junior year at Central High where she underwent the segregationists' brutal organized campaign of terrorism which included telephone threats, vigilante stalkers, economic blackmailers, rogue police, and much more.

Presents a short study of Pocahontas, and describes her role in the peace between the first Jamestown settlers and the Powhatans who inhabited the area.

Nuttagwon, daughter of a minor Pamunkey chief, is still a girl when Pocahontas's vision of peace between their people and the newly-arrived English colonists bonds the two in a lifelong friendship as they work together to make the vision a reality.

In the early seventeenth century, Serena Lynn, determined to be with the man she has loved since childhood, travels to the New World and comes to know the hardships of colonial life and the extraordinary Princess Pocahontas.

Collects twenty essays that provide historical background on the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, provide varying perspectives on controversies surrounding the conflict, and offer personal accounts.

Presents a brief overview of the Cuban Missle Crisis, describing the roots of the conflict, and how it impacted world politics.

Despite observing his father's illness and the suffering of the fire-eating Mr. McNulty, as well as enduring abuse at school and the stress of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby Burns and his family and friends, living in England in 1962, still find reasons to rejoice in their lives and to have hope for the future.

As eleven-year-old Franny Chapman deals with drama at home and with her best friend in 1962, she tries to understand the larger problems in the world after President Kennedy announces that Russia is sending nuclear missiles to Cuba. Features historic quotations and photographs.

Scott's dad is the only one in the neighborhood who builds a bomb shelter during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and when the time comes, more neighbors enter the shelter than Scott's dad is prepared for. An alternate history.

Provides an account of the yellow fever epidemic that swept through Philadelphia in 1793, discussing the chaos that erupted when people began evacuating in droves, leaving the city without government, goods, or services, and examining efforts by physicians, the Free African Society, and others to cure and care for the sick.

Sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793.

The fate of Sam, Charlie, Alice, Daisy, and other Galvestonians hangs in the balance as the flood waters rise during the great hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, in 1900.

While salvaging and rebuilding in the aftermath of the Galveston flood of 1900, sixteen-year-old Seth proves himself in a way that his previous efforts never could, but he still must face his father man-to-man.

An account of the tragic Galveston hurricane of 1900 that claimed over six thousand lives.

Based on the true story of Laura Ingersoll Secord, from her early days in Massachusetts and her family's immigration to Upper Canada to her part in the War of 1812, when she undertook a dangerous thirty-two-kilometer trek to warn the commander of an impending American attack on the British outpost at Beaver Dams.

Twelve-year-olds Anikwa, of the Miami village of Kekionga, and James, of the trading post outside Fort Wayne, find their friendship threatened by the rising fear and tension brought by the War of 1812.

Describes the causes and leading events of the early nineteenth-century conflict between Great Britain and the United States.

Read about the history of the Alamo, and those who fought in the battle to win it and why it was so important to Texas.

In the journal she receives for her twelfth birthday in 1835, Lucinda Lawrence describes the hardships her family and other residents of the "Texas colonies" endure when they decide to face the Mexicans in a fight for their freedom.

When a Texas school puts on an original play about the Alamo, the students and teachers confront modern conflicts about history, identity, and the meaning of courage.

In 1863 Pennsylvania, fourteen-year-old Tacy faces the horrors of the Battle of Gettysburg while trying to stay out of the way of her brother David, who is in charge while their father serves as a doctor in the Union army, and to keep her friend Marvelous, a free black, safe from rebel soldiers.

In 1863 Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Ben and his dog Captain set off in search of Ben's brother, who is missing from the Union Army.

Describes the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War through the eyes of Tillie Pierce, a teenager who lived through the fighting.

Describes events before, during, and after the battle of Gettysburg, including key players, weapons, and battle tactics.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, thirteen-year-old Tetsu and his family are sent to the Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona where a fellow prisoner starts a baseball team, but when Tetsu's sister becomes ill and he feels responsible, he stops playing.

Examines the American internment of Japanese Americans and immigrants in concentration camps during World War II, and the struggle of internees to rebuild their lives after they were freed at the end of the war.

One girl's entire life is about to change when everything she knows is turned on its head. After the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, where her brother, a navy sailor, is stationed, Piper Davis begins chronicling her compelling journey through one of history's most tragic and unforgettable eras.

In 1866, Omakayas's son Chickadee is kidnapped by two ne'er-do-well brothers from his own tribe and must make a daring escape, forge unlikely friendships, and set out on an exciting and dangerous journey to get back home.

This book introduces readers to the intricate relationship between a people's clothing and their ideas, traditions, and beliefs.