“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This sentence is perfectly familiar. We know it as a core principle of our founding. But few, if any of us consider why Jefferson wrote it in exactly this way. Why “unalienable rights” and not simply rights? Why “self-evident” truths and not simply truths? Why does the Declaration make these distinctions? Do they really matter? If these questions are challenging or Jefferson’s words seem esoteric, it is because we no longer conduct our politics in the language of the Founders and we are no longer able to think as they once thought. In Congress and the media, political arguments are advanced by a torrent of policy studies and “expert” opinions—not on the basis of self-evident truths, unalienable rights, and definitely not in the language of the Founders. Common Sense Nation is a potent re-introduction to the political ideas of the Founders—in their own words and on their terms. It is dedicated to the proposition that the only way to fully unlock the profound and distinctive power of American self-government is to understand it as its inventors did. Common Sense Nation reclaims the language of liberty from entities that prefer to interpret our freedoms for us. For in knowing the Founders as they knew themselves, readers will learn the surprising depths of their own political powers as American citizens.

New York Times Bestseller * Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize * Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award * Michael L. Printz Medal honor winner From the pen of Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the beloved and bestselling Discworld fantasy series, comes an epic adventure of survival that mixes hope, humor, and humanity. When a giant wave destroys his village, Mau is the only one left. Daphne—a traveler from the other side of the globe—is the sole survivor of a shipwreck. Separated by language and customs, the two are united by catastrophe. Slowly, they are joined by other refugees. And as they struggle to protect the small band, Mau and Daphne defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself, and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down. Sir Terry also received a prestigious Printz Honor from the American Library Association for his novel Dodger.

National Book Award Winner! This deeply provocative novel reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for readers today. It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother — a princess in exile from a faraway land — are the only persons in their household assigned names. As the boy's regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments — and his own chilling role in them. Set against the disquiet of Revolutionary Boston, M. T. Anderson's extraordinary novel takes place at a time when American Patriots rioted and battled to win liberty while African slaves were entreated to risk their lives for a freedom they would never claim. The first of two parts, this deeply provocative novel reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for readers today.

New York Times bestseller; 6 starred reviews! At once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland's stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar—a country on the brink, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival meet. Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever. In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations. But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems. "Abundant action, thoughtful worldbuilding, and a brave, smart, and skillfully drawn cast entertain as Ireland illustrates the ignorance and immorality of racial discrimination and examines the relationship between equality and freedom." (Publishers Weekly, "An Anti-Racist Children's and YA Reading List")

Common sense is the foundation of thinking and of human action. It is the indispensable basis for making our way in the world as individuals and in community with others, and the starting point for finding truth and building scientific knowledge. The philosophy of common-sense realism deeply informed the American Founders’ vision for a self-governing people, in a society where leaders and average citizens share essentially the same understanding of reality—of what simply makes sense. But today our confidence in the value and reliability of common sense has been badly shaken. Deep thinkers have rejected it. Elites have learned to disdain it. We’re told that we have moved into a more sophisticated world, where common sense is passé and the very concept of truth is outmoded. Indeed, the Oxford Dictionaries selected “post-truth” as the Word of the Year for 2016. Do we actually live in a post-truth reality? Have we moved beyond common sense? Can we? In this book, Robert Curry exposes the absurdity of the attacks on common sense, and demonstrates that we still live and move in the realm of common sense in our every waking moment. Drawing from philosophy and literature, science and psychiatry, Reclaiming Common Sense helps us regain our trust in the “superpower” we all have in common, while reminding us that we cannot get along without it.

The controversial, bestselling book (37,500 hardcover copies sold) that helps define the debate about one of the most important and hotly contested issues facing America: immigration.

In this wrenching sequel to Divided We Fall, Danny and friends fight to defend Idaho against a Federal takeover and the ravages of a Burning Nation. At the end of Divided We Fall, Danny Wright's beloved Idaho had been invaded by the federal government, their electricity shut off, their rights suspended. Danny goes into hiding with his friends in order to remain free. But after the state declares itself a Republic, Idaho rises to fight in a second American Civil War, and Danny is right in the center of the action, running guerrilla missions with his fellow soldiers to break the Federal occupation. Yet what at first seems like a straightforward battle against governmental repression quickly grows more complicated, as more states secede, more people die, and Danny discovers the true nature of some of his new allies. Chilling, powerful, and all too plausible, Burning Nation further establishes Trent Reedy as a provocative new voice in YA fiction.