It’s 1865 and the war is over, but the hardship and suffering have not ended for Emma, whose mother is dead and father is missing. With her brother and sister, Emma boards the Sultana, a paddle wheel steamboat, hoping to find refuge in St. Louis with relatives. After Yankee soldiers returning north from Confederate prisons are crowded aboard the boat, disaster shatters Emma’s hopes. Fighting for her life in the flooded Mississippi, Emma discovers courage she did not know she possessed.

Ellen is growing up on an Illinois farm in 1830, and she doesn't realize how much her stepmother has come to mean to her until clashes between Ellen's father and stepbrother threaten to tear the new family apart.

Exciting, productive connections with authors, illustrators, and storytellers are at your fingertips with this resource. Unlike other author visit guides, this book goes beyond nuts-and-bolts planning to how to create the best possible encounters between students and authors. Successful visits in real space and in cyberspace are described, giving you specific ideas of the many ways to connect with and create meaningful links between bookpeople and children. Choosing the right guest, guidelines for successful visits, making curriculum connections, using e-mail to connect with bookpeople, live chats in virtual space, taking advantage of ITB and satellite technology, and using such props as realia and curriculum guides are some of the topics covered. Lists of author/illustrator web pages and managed Internet sites for author interaction are included.

Zellie is unhappy working for Mrs. Gird. A happy turn of events lead her to employment and a new life with Miss O'Brien.

Identifying thousands of historical fiction novels, biographies, history trade books, CD-ROMs, and videotapes, this book helps you locate resources on American history for students. Each book presents information in two sections. In the first part, titles are listed according to grade levels within eras and further organized according to product type. The books cover American history from North America Before 1600 and The American Colonies, 1600-1774 to The Mid-Twentieth Century, 1946-1975 and Since 1975. The second section has annotated bibliographies that describe each title and includes publication information and awards won. The focus is on books published since 1990, and all have received at least one favorable review. Some books with more illustration than text will be valuable for enticing slow or reticent readers. An index helps users find resources by author, title, or biographical subject.

The newest installment in the American Diaries series transports contemporary readers back to an exciting period in history: the American Revolution. Philadelphia 1777: Mary Alice Peale must find a way to help her wounded brother, a rebel soldier, without revealing his whereabouts to their Loyalist father.