A bride-to-be without answers. A soldier who never came home. A nutcracker that might hold one last Christmas wish... World War II has been over for three months, but Clara can't join in the Christmas festivities with her friends and family. The fiance she sent off to Europe three years ago never returned. But just as she's about to give up hope, her godfather might just have one last miracle up his sleeve. And it all begins with a nutcracker. Read this historical fantasy retelling of The Nutcracker set in post-World War II North Carolina to experience the magical Christmas adventure you've been looking for. Written by a military spouse, this Christmas novella brings to life the true struggles, joys, and unique happily ever after military life brings.

“You lose your loved ones, and still you want to live.” On 21 July 1942, the Nazis reached the small Polish town of Zolkiew. Life for fifteen-year-old Clara Kramer would never be the same. While those around her were either slaughtered or transported, three families found perilous refuge in a hand-dug cellar. Hers was one of them. Living above and protecting them were the Becks. Mrs. Beck had been the families’ maid. Mr. Beck was alcoholic and a self-professed anti-Semite, yet he risked his life to keep his charges safe. But survival under his protection proved to be anything but predictable. Whether it was his nightly drinking sessions with officers of the SS in the room just above or his torrid affair with one of the hiding women, it seemed that Clara and the others often had as much to fear from Beck as they did from the war. Clara’s mother told her to keep a diary while they lived in the bunker in order to fill her time and “so the world would know what happened to us.” Over sixty years later, Clara Kramer has finally turned those diaries into a compelling and heartbreaking memoir — a story of love and memory and survival.

Sarah Emma Edmonds wants to join the Union Army but can't because she's a woman. So she's going to impersonate a man-who will later impersonate a woman! Will she be successful? Nurses belong in hospitals, not on battlefields, insists Colonel Rucker of the Union Army. Clara Barton strongly disagrees. How will she change the Colonel's mind? Read these plays to find out.

The #1 bestselling chapter book series of all time celebrates 25 years with new covers and a new, easy-to-use numbering system! Cannon fire! That's what Jack and Annie hear when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to the time of the American Civil War. There they meet a famous nurse named Clara Barton and do their best to help wounded soldiers. It is their hardest journey in time yet—and the one that will make the most difference to their own lives! Did you know that there’s a Magic Tree House book for every kid? Magic Tree House: Adventures with Jack and Annie, perfect for readers who are just beginning chapter books Merlin Missions: More challenging adventures for the experienced reader Super Edition: A longer and more dangerous adventure Fact Trackers: Nonfiction companions to your favorite Magic Tree House adventures

A stunning biography of Clara Barton—a woman who determined to serve her country during the Civil War—from acclaimed author Stephen B. Oates. When the Civil War broke out, Clara Barton wanted more than anything to be a Union soldier, an impossible dream for a thirty-nine-year-old woman, who stood a slender five feet tall. Determined to serve, she became a veritable soldier, a nurse, and a one-woman relief agency operating in the heart of the conflict. Now, award-winning author Stephen B. Oates, drawing on archival materials not used by her previous biographers, has written the first complete account of Clara Barton’s active engagement in the Civil War. By the summer of 1862, with no institutional affiliation or official government appointment, but impelled by a sense of duty and a need to heal, she made her way to the front lines and the heat of battle. Oates tells the dramatic story of this woman who gave the world a new definition of courage, supplying medical relief to the wounded at some of the most famous battles of the war—including Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Battery Wagner, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg. Under fire with only her will as a shield, she worked while ankle deep in gore, in hellish makeshift battlefield hospitals—a bullet-riddled farmhouse, a crumbling mansion, a windblown tent. Committed to healing soldiers’ spirits as well as their bodies, she served not only as nurse and relief worker, but as surrogate mother, sister, wife, or sweetheart to thousands of sick, wounded, and dying men. Her contribution to the Union was incalculable and unique. It also became the defining event in Barton’s life, giving her the opportunity as a woman to reach out for a new role and to define a new profession. Nursing, regarded as a menial service before the war, became a trained, paid occupation after the conflict. Although Barton went on to become the founder and first president of the Red Cross, the accomplishment for which she is best known, A Woman of Valor convinces us that her experience on the killing fields of the Civil War was her most extraordinary achievement.