A readable, perceptive account of the lives of fourteen gifted innovators who have played important roles in scientific and industrial progress. The achievements of Benjamin Banneker, Granville T. Woods, George Washington Carver, and others have made jobs easier, saved countless lives, and in many cases, altered the course of history.
Includes a bibliography and an index.

Being a princess isn't all that....

You've heard the fairytale: a glass slipper, Prince Charming, happily ever after...

Welcome to reality: royal genealogy lessons, needlepoint, acting like "a proper lady," and — worst of all — a prince who is not the least bit interesting, and certainly not charming.

As soon-to-be princess Ella deals with her newfound status, she comes to realize she is not "your majesty" material. But breaking off a royal engagement is no easy feat, especially when you're crushing on another boy in the palace.... For Ella to escape, it will take intelligence, determination, and spunk — and no ladylike behavior allowed.

When the powerful Lord Takeda’s soldiers sweep across the countryside, killing and plundering, they spare the boy Taro’s life and take him along with them. Taro becomes a servant in the household of the noble Lord Akiyama, where he meets Togan, a cook, who teaches Taro and makes his new life bearable. But when Togan is murdered, Taro’s life takes a new direction: He will become a samurai, and redeem the family legacy that has been stolen from him.

Exiled to Siberia

In June 1941, the Rudomin family is arrested by the Russians. They are "capitalists — enemies of the people." Forced from their home and friends in Vilna, Poland, they are herded into crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia.
For five years, Ester and her family live in exile, weeding potato fields and working in the mines, struggling for enough food and clothing to stay alive. Only the strength of family sustains them and gives them hope for the future.

A Summer To Remember
Fourteen-year-old Clay Lancaster has been dreaming for years of the adventure he calls The Big Wander — a summer in the Southwest with his older brother, Mike, searching for their uncle Clay. When Mike decides to return home to Seattle and the girlfriend he left behind, Clay chooses to stay on and continue the search on his own.
Following a tip about his uncle, he heads out into the most remote canyons of the Navajo reservation, with only a burro and a dog named Curly for company. Clay loses his heart to the vast, rugged land — and to an adventurous girl with a long, dark braid — but finds his uncle in big trouble. Can Clay pull off a risky plan to save his uncle — and the wild horses Uncle Clay has put his own life in jeopardy to protect?

Desperate, driven, harassed to the breaking point, Slake decides to go underground — into the sheltering depths of the New York City Subway where he ends up staying for one hundred and twenty-one days. This is the story about survival, and about a 13-year-old misfit's attempts to find footing in a hostile and threatening world.

In his timely YA debut, a best-selling novelist revisits a summer of tumult and truth for a young narrator and his war-torn family.

Bicentennial fireworks burn the sky. Bob Seger growls from a transistor radio. And down by the river, girls line up on lawn chairs in pursuit of the perfect tan. Yet for ten-year-old Eli Book, the summer of 1976 is the one that threatened to tear his family apart. There is his distant mother; his traumatized Vietnam vet dad; his wild sister; his former warprotester aunt; and his tough yet troubled best friend, Edie, the only person with whom he can be himself. As tempers flare and his father’s nightmares rage, Eli watches from the sidelines, but soon even he cannot escape the current of conflict. From Silas House comes a tender look at the complexities of childhood and the realities of war — a quintessentially Southern novel filled with music, nostalgic detail, a deep respect for nature, and a powerful sense of place.

From the Hardcover edition.

In this extraordinary novel in letters, an Indian immigrant girl in New York City and a Kentucky coal miner's son find strength and perspective by sharing their true selves across the miles.

Meena and River have a lot in common: fathers forced to work away from home to make ends meet, grandmothers who mean the world to them, and faithful dogs. But Meena is an Indian immigrant girl living in New York City’s Chinatown, while River is a Kentucky coal miner’s son. As Meena’s family studies for citizenship exams and River’s town faces devastating mountaintop removal, this unlikely pair become pen pals, sharing thoughts and, as their camaraderie deepens, discovering common ground in their disparate experiences. With honesty and humor, Meena and River bridge the miles between them, creating a friendship that inspires bravery and defeats cultural misconceptions. Narrated in two voices, each voice distinctly articulated by a separate gifted author, this chronicle of two lives powerfully conveys the great value of being and having a friend and the joys of opening our lives to others who live beneath the same sun.

Join the legion of fans who have made Erin Hunter's Warriors series a #1 national bestseller! Epic adventures. Fierce Warrior cats. A thrilling fantasy world. It all begins here with Warriors #1: Into the Wild.

For generations, four Clans of wild cats have shared the forest according to the laws laid down by their ancestors. But the warrior code is threatened, and the ThunderClan cats are in grave danger. The sinister ShadowClan grows stronger every day. Noble warriors are dying—and some deaths are more mysterious than others.

In the midst of this turmoil appears an ordinary housecat named Rusty . . . who may turn out to be the bravest warrior of them all.

Supports the Common Core State Standards

The first exciting book in the dramatic Legend of the Animal Healer series!

A thrilling adventure classic-in-the-making!

The night Martine Allen turns eleven years old is the night her life changes completely. Martine?s parents are killed in a fire, so she must leave her home to live on an African wildlife reserve with a grandmother she never even knew she had. When Martine arrives, she hears tales of a mythical animal living there?a white giraffe. They say no one has ever seen the animal, but it does leave behind footprints. Her grandmother insists that the white giraffe is just a legend, but then, one stormy night, Martine looks out her bedroom window straight into the eyes of the tall silvery animal. Could it be just Martine?s imagination, or is the white giraffe real? And if so, why is everyone keeping its existence a secret?

Oscar-winning film Charly starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom-a mentally challenged man receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.

Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, a heartwarming coming of age tale set in 1960s South Carolina, a multi-million copy New York Times bestseller, now an award-winning film starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys

Fans of  Kathryn Stockett’s The Help and Beth Hoffman’s Saving CeeCee Honeycutt will love Sue Monk Kidd’s Southern coming of age tale. The Secret Life of Bees was a New York Times bestseller for more than 125 weeks, a Good Morning America “Read This” Book Club pick and was made into an award-winning film starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.

When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's most vicious racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love—a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife to two kings, mother to two others, has been waiting in Heaven a long time — eight centuries, more or less — to be reunited with her second husband, Henry II of England. Finally, the day has come when Henry will be judged for admission. While Eleanor, never a patient woman in life or afterlife, waits, three people, each of whom was close to Eleanor during a time of her life, join her. Their reminiscences do far more than help distract Eleanor — they also paint a rich portrait of an extraordinary woman who was front and center in a remarkable period in history and whose accomplishments have had an important influence on society through the ages.

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. No place is safe for Tara and her family. Twelve-year-old Tara Hawrami lives a normal life in Iraq—until the day she sees a boy, a Kurd like herself, get shot by soldiers in the street. But Tara still doesn’t realize just how dangerous life for the Kurds has become until the Iraqi secret police come for her father. Then her family must flee their home for the mountains of Kurdistan, but even there they are not safe. Iraqi bombs drive the Hawramis over the border into Iran, where they must live in a brutal refugee camp. Will they ever find a place they can truly call home again?
 
* “Laird weaves compelling facts about the conflict between the Arabs and the Kurds into her gripping tale about one family’s escape to freedom.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
“An exciting, behind-the-headlines story.”—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books