Listen to child orphans as they share their memories of transition and adventure, disappointment and loneliness, but ultimately of the joy of belonging to their own new families.
They were throwaway kids, living in the streets or in orphanages and foster homes. Then Charles Loring Brace, a young minister working with the poor in New York City, started the Children's Aid Society and devised a plan to give homeless children a chance to find families to call their own.
Thus began an extraordinary migration of American children. Between 1854 and 1929, an estimated 200,000 children, mostly from New York and other cities of the eastern United States, ventured forth to other states on a journey of hope.
Andrea Warren has shared the stories of some of these orphan train riders here, including those of Betty, who found a fairy tale life in a grand hotel; Nettie Evans and her twin, Nellie, who were rescued from their first abusive placement and taken in by a new, kindhearted family who gave them the love they had hoped for; brothers Howard and Fred, who remained close even though they were adopted into different families; and Edith, who longed to know the secrets of her past.
This is powerful nonfiction for classroom and personal reading and for discussion. (School Library Journal starred review)
The life-changing story of a young boy's struggle for survival in a Nazi-run concentration camp.
Narrated in the voice of Holocaust survivor Jack Mandelbaum, this harrowing true story includes black-and-white photos from the archives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
When twelve-year-old Jack Mandelbaum is separated from his family and shipped off to the Blechhammer concentration camp, his life becomes a never-ending nightmare. With minimal food to eat and harsh living conditions threatening his health, Jack manages to survive by thinking of his family.
In this Robert F. Silbert Honor book, readers will glimpse the dark reality of life during the Holocaust, and how one boy made it out alive.
William Allen White Award Winner
Robert F. Silbert Honor
ALA Notable Children's Book
VOYA Nonfiction Honor Book
Between 1854 and 1930, more than 200,000 orphaned or abandoned children were sent west on orphan trains to find new homes. Some were adopted by loving families; others were not as fortunate. In recent years, some of the riders have begun to share their stories. Andrea Warren alternates chapters about the history of the orphan trains with the story of Lee Nailling, who in 1926 rode an orphan train to Texas when he was nine years old.
It's April 1975 and the armies of North Vietnam are pushing into South Vietnam, leaving death and destruction in their wake. In a Saigon orphanage, eight-year-old Long waits and worries. He is a mixed-blood child, the son of a white American father and a Vietnamese mother. What kind of future can he have in a country ruled by North Vietnam-America's enemy? His only hope of escaping Saigon is via Operation Babylift-the U.S. government's rescue effort to airlift children like him out of harm's way. A family in Ohio is waiting to adopt Long. But if he leaves, will he ever see his home and his grandmother again?
Award-winning author Andrea Warren -whose own adopted daughter was one of 2,300 orphans brought to safety through Operation Babylift- shares the true story of Long's journey from war-ravaged Vietnam to his new life in America's heartland, and ultimately to his return to Saigon to make peace with his past.
The greatest entertainer of his era, Buffalo Bill was the founder and star of the legendary show that featured cowboys, Indians, trick riding, and sharpshooters.
But long before stardom, Buffalo Bill--born Billy Cody--had to grow up fast. While homesteading in Kansas just before the Civil War, his family was caught up in the conflict with neighboring Missouri over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state.
To support his family after a pro-slaver killed his father, Billy--then eleven--herded cattle, worked on wagon trains, and rode the Pony Express. As the violence in Bleeding Kansas escalated, he joined the infamous Jayhawkers, seeking revenge on Missouri-ans, and then became a soldier, scout, and spy in the Civil War--all by age seventeen.
Award-winning author Andrea Warren brings to life the compelling childhood of an adventurous, determined boy who transformed himself into a true American icon.
Meet Lucy McRae and two other young people, Willie Lord and Frederick Grant, all survivors of the Civil War's Battle for Vicksburg. In 1863, Union troops intend to silence the cannons guarding the Mississippi River at Vicksburg - even if they have to take the city by siege. To hasten surrender, they are shelling Vicksburg night and day. Terrified townspeople, including Lucy and Willie, take shelter in caves - enduring heat, snakes, and near suffocation. On the Union side, twelve-year-old Frederick Grant has come to visit his father, General Ulysses S. Grant, only to find himself in the midst of battle, experiencing firsthand the horrors of war.
Living in a cave under the ground for six weeks . . . I do not think a child could have passed through what I did and have forgotten it. - Lucy McRae, age 10, 1863 Period photographs, engravings, and maps extend this dramatic story as award-winning author Andrea Warren re-creates one of the most important Civil War battles through the eyes of ordinary townspeople, officers and enlisted men from both sides, and, above all, three brave children who were there.The greatest entertainer of his era, Buffalo Bill was the founder and star of the legendary show that featured cowboys, Indians, trick riding, and sharpshooters.
But long before stardom, Buffalo Bill--born Billy Cody--had to grow up fast. While homesteading in Kansas just before the Civil War, his family was caught up in the conflict with neighboring Missouri over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state.
To support his family after a pro-slaver killed his father, Billy--then eleven--herded cattle, worked on wagon trains, and rode the Pony Express. As the violence in Bleeding Kansas escalated, he joined the infamous Jayhawkers, seeking revenge on Missouri-ans, and then became a soldier, scout, and spy in the Civil War--all by age seventeen.
Award-winning author Andrea Warren brings to life the compelling childhood of an adventurous, determined boy who transformed himself into a true American icon.