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“WE THE PEOPLE” bookshelf is a set of Classic books for Younger Students and it is designed to encourage the teaching, study and understanding of American History and Culture. |
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Lyddie by Katherine Paterson
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 In 1843, three years after her father abandons his failing Vermont farm, 10-year-old Lyddie and her younger brother Charles are hired out as servants, while Mama and the two youngest children go off to live with relatives. After spending a gruelling year working in a tavern, Lyddie flees to Lowell, Mass., in hopes of finding a better job that will provide enough income to pay off farm debts and allow the family to be reunited. Impeccably researched and expertly crafted, this book is sure to satisfy those interested in America's history. (From Amazon.com) |
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Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out by The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance |
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 This is an astounding collection featuring more than 100 award-winning children's book authors and illustrators. It is much more than a history about the home and office of U.S. presidents and their families. It includes essays by historians and well-known non-fiction writers, fictional stories, poetry, imagined letters to the president, texts of actual speeches, memoir, transcripts of TV interviews, and games. (from Amazon.com)
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Restless Spirit: The life and work of Dorothea Lange by Elizabeth Partridge
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 As a photographer, Lange specialized in documentary-type portraits, seeking to capture in people's faces the stories of their lives. Through the years of the Great Depression and the Second World War, she recorded the down-and-out, the oppressed, the needy. Her portrait "Migrant Mother" has become a familiar icon of hardship, a symbol of the dislocation and poverty caused by the dust bowl in the 1930s (from School Library Journal).
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Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom by Virginia Hamilton
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 From the beginning of slavery in America to the end of the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of slaves escaped to freedom in the Northern U. S. and Canada. Their struggle, as well as the struggle of those who failed and those who were once free and then captured into slavery, comprises the theme of this history. (from School Library Journal)
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Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution by Natalie S. Bober
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 Abigail Adams was an extraordinary woman who witnessed the gathering storm of the American Revolution and saw the battle of Bunker Hill from a hilltop near her home. Through her letters to friends and family, Abigail Adams lives in history--and now in this award-winning biography (from amazon.com) |
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That All People May Be One People, Send Rain to Wash the Face of the Earth by
Nez Perce Chief Joseph |
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 Famed Nez Perce leader and orator Chief Joseph speaks of the earth's natural world, relationships among peoples, justice, war and his own life. His truthful, wise and gracefully spoken words were first recorded during an 1879 post-Nez Perce War interview in Washington, D.C., and first printed in the North American Review. What he said to the world then remains equally profound today (from Amazon.com).
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Immigrant Kids by Russell Freedman
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 What was it like to be a child in the late 1800s and early 1900s who had emigrated to the United States with his family? This book shows photographs of actual children who did that and explains how they lived on a daily basis in their homes, at school, at work, and at play. Children of only eight or ten years old worked to help their families make ends meet. They worked in factories, warehouses, laundries and stores. Their jobs included running errands, delivering packages and newspapers, shining shoes, hauling coal and firewood, and more. Most children over 14 worked longer hours than many adults do today. (from Amazon.com).
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
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 Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was born into slavery in Maryland and after his escape to Massachusetts in 1838 became an ardent abolitionist and campaigner for women's rights. His Narrative, which was an instant bestseller upon publication in 1845, relates his experience as a slave, the cruelty he suffered at the hands of his masters, his struggle to educate himself, and his fight for freedom. (from Amazon.com).
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Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan Esperanza Ortega
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 Esperanza Rising possesses all the treasures a young girl could want: fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and the promise of one day rising to Mama's position and presiding over all of Rancho de las Rosas. But a sudden tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labour camp. (from Amazon.com). |
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Dragonwings by Laurence Yep
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 A fine, sensitive novel written with grace in a way that conveys the Chinese American's cultural heritage.The story begins as eight-year-old Moon Shadow Lee journeys across the Pacific to join his proud and clever father at the family-owned laundry in San Francisco. The boy recounts their problems with prejudice, as well as the kindness of uncles and cousins. (from Amazon.com). |
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Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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 . . . the little girl who would grow up to write the Little House books. Father decides to sell the little log house, and the family sets out for Indian country! They travel from Wisconsin to Kansas and there, finally, father builds their little house on the prairie. Sometimes farm life is difficult, even dangerous, but Laura and the family are kept busy and are happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie (from amazon.com) |
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Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography by William Lee Miller William
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 Lee Miller’s ethical biography is a fresh, engaging telling of the story of Lincoln’s rise to power. Through careful scrutiny of Lincoln’s actions, speeches, and writings, and of accounts from those who knew him, Miller gives us insight into the moral development of a great politician — one who made the choice to go into politics, and ultimately realized that vocation’s fullest moral possibilities. (from Amazon.com). |
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The People Could Fly: The Picture Book by Virginia Hamilton
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 The stirring title story in the late Virginia Hamilton's 1985 collection of American black folktales is an unforgettable slave escape fantasy, retold here in terse, lyrical prose that stays true to the oral tradition Hamilton knew from her family and her scholarly research. Leo and Diane Dillons' illustrations for the collection were in black and white, but the art here is beautiful full colour, in the style of the cover of the collection. The large paintings are magic realism at its finest, with clear portraits showing individuals and the enduring connections between them. The images depict mass cruelty close up, but the faces of the characters Hamilton names are always distinct, even in the packed hold of the slave ships, when those "who could fly" lost their wings. (Hazel Rochman from Booklist) |
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Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith
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 This is a rich and sweeping novel-rich in its panorama of history; in its details so clear that the reader never doubts for a moment that he is there; in its dozens of different people, each one fully realized and wholly recognizable. It is a story of a lesser--known part of the Civil War, the Western campaign, a part different in its issues and its problems, and fought with a different savagery. Inexorably it moves to a dramatic climax, evoking a brilliant picture of a war and the men of both sides who fought in it. (from Amazon.com). |
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Breaking Through by Francisco Jimenez
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 California through adolescent eyes. Rock 'n' roll, Kennedy versus Nixon, the old-boy network of service clubs, the humiliation of deportation, and the painful struggle to have the right clothes are among the pieces of that world that readers see with a startling clarity from a new perspective. The photos at the end are great additions. Sequel to “The Circuit” that is also available at the library. (From School Library Journal) |
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Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Algernon
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 A laboratory mouse, is extra-clever thanks to an experimental brain operation so far tried only on animals. Charlie eagerly volunteers as the first human subject. After frustrating delays and agonies of concentration, the effects begin to show and the reports steadily improve. But getting smarter brings cruel shocks, as Charlie realizes that his merry "friends" at the bakery where he sweeps the floor have all along been laughing at him, never with him. The IQ rise continues, taking him steadily past the human average to genius level and beyond, until he's as intellectually alone as the old, foolish Charlie ever was--and now painfully aware of it. Then, ominously, the smart mouse Algernon begins to deteriorate... |
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Amistad: A Novel by David Pesci
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 In August 1839, Singbe-Pleh led his fellow African captives aboard the Spanish ship Amistad in a successful revolt. The Africans took over the ship but could not sail it back to Africa. They were captured and put on trial in Connecticut, initiating a chain of events that strained diplomatic relationships between the United States and Spain and intensified the bitter debate over the issue of slavery (from Amazon.com) |
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The Glory Field by Walter Dean Myers
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 It chronicles the African American experience through the lives and times of one family, beginning in 1753 with the capture of Muhammed Bilal in Sierra Leone. He survives his journey to America on a slave ship to become the founder of a family, whose history The Glory Field is all about. The vast array of characters play out their lives challenged and beset by problems of racism, poverty, and identity. The anchors in their lives are family and their love for one another and their land. A beautifully written, powerful book. (from School Library Journal) |
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Kindred by Octavia Butler |
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 The book uses the devices of science fiction in order to answer the question "how could anybody be a slave?" A woman from the twentieth century, Dana is repeatedly brought back in time by her slave-owning ancestor Rufus when his life is endangered. She chooses to save him, knowing that because of her actions a free-born black woman will eventually become his slave and her own grandmother. (from Amazon.com) |
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The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton |
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 A huge, old house with secret tunnels and buried treasure is a dream-come-true for 13-year-old Thomas. The fact that it's reputedly haunted only adds to its appeal! As soon as his family moves in, Thomas senses something strange about the Civil War era house, which used to be a critical stop on the Underground Railroad. With the help of his father, he learns about the abolitionists and escaping slaves who kept the Underground Railroad running. While on his own, he explores the hidden passageways in and under the house, piecing clues together in an increasingly dangerous quest for the truth about the past. Virginia Hamilton creates a heart-pounding adventure with this absorbing classic for young readers. (from Amazon.com). |
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Ben and Me by Robert Lawson |
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 In A New and Astonishing Life Of Benjamin Franklin As Written by His Good Mouse AMOS, readers will discover that while the good Mr. Franklin got considerable credit, many of his most important contributions really originated with Amos, a less-than-humble rodent. Oh sure, his manuscript was found by author-editor Robert Lawson and published first in 1939, but discerning readers ever since have figured that it's the mouse who's the fellow with the tale.(from amazon.com) |
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My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George |
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 In this coming-of-age story Sam leaves home to fend for himself in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. For a year he lives in a hollowed-out tree, befriending animals and depending on his wits for survival. In the sequel, On the Far Side of the Mountain, Sam's sister has now joined him, and his falcon is confiscated by a conservation officer. Frightful's Mountain is an interesting departure for George. Written from the perspective of Frightful the falcon, the concluding novel in the trilogy follows her efforts to learn to depend on her own instincts in a world crawling with dangers. (from Amazon.com) |
