In the mid-1800s, with both her father and her uncle in jail on an assault charge, Maggie, her brother, and her ailing mother rush their barge along the Erie Canal to deliver their heavy cargo or lose everything.

Twins Kirsty and David Murray are forced to leave their crofting home in the north of Scotland, and struggle to cope with life in Glasgow, where the work is hard and dangerous. Then comes a chance for a new adventure on a ship bound for Canada. Will they survive the treacherous Atlantic crossing, and what will they find in the strange new land? The Desperate Journey is Kathleen Fidler's best-known story, a true Scottish classic whose thrilling plot will keep children gripped till the end.

In May 1946 John Caldwell set out to sail from Panama to Sydney to reunite with his wife who he hadn't seen for more than a year. Eager to reach his destination and unable to secure any other form of transport, he had to resort to singlehanded seamanship. After an ignominious scene in the harbor, where a tangled anchor led him to take an early dip, he spent ten days learning the rudiments of navigation and sailing from a book, before embarking on the 9,000 mile journey aboard the 20-foot Pagan. Ahead lay a mission that was to reveal in him elements not only of astounding courage and determination, but also of incredible foolhardiness. Within 500 miles of Panama John Caldwell had already been shipwrecked once and had his boat's engine and cockpit destroyed by an angry shark. Indefatigable, he decided to press on towards his goal.He endured the terrors and discomforts of life on the high seas and enjoyed the triumphs of fighting and winning against the elements. This is more than an exciting tale of sea-adventure. It is as compelling and unpredictable as a thriller. It is the story, witty and moving, of a man, motivated initially by love, and ultimately by his own fierce determination to survive.

Orphaned by an Indian raid, twelve-year-old Jonse Deerfield now lives under the control of his harsh guardian, Roscoe Thurston, in the wild frontier country of Virginia. The possibility of escaping from Roscoe comes unexpectedly when two trappers, Silas and Ezra, save Jonse from two murderous renegades. Taking a liking to the boy, Silas offers to free Jonse from Roscoe and bring him up as his own son. But first, Silas and Ezra resolve to carry out their plan to investigate an old silver mine deep in Indian Territory. While Jonse waits for the return of the two trappers, enduring the threats and curses of Thurston as best he can, he uncovers a terrible plot that threatens his benefactors. Horrified by his discovery, Jonse sets out on a desperate journey through the dangerous wilderness seeking to warn his friends in time.

This is a fast-paced drama with a touch of comedy, romance, and inspiration. It traces the lives of immigrants throughout the world, the clashes of different cultures, and the journey into incurable diseases. Is there life after death?

In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival. But until now, the full story of what happened, what it tells us about human nature and about America's westward expansion, remained shrouded in myth. Drawing on fresh archaeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snowfall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century-and-a-half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner party and their unimaginable ordeal: a mother who must divide her family, a little girl who shines with courage, a devoted wife who refuses to abandon her husband, a man who risks his life merely to keep his word. But Rarick resists both the gruesomely sensationalist accounts of the Donner party as well as later attempts to turn the survivors into archetypal pioneer heroes. "The Donner Party," Rarick writes, "is a story of hard decisions that were neither heroic nor villainous. Often, the emigrants displayed a more realistic and typically human mixture of generosity and selfishness, an alloy born of necessity." A fast-paced, heart-wrenching, clear-eyed narrative history, A Desperate Hope casts new light on one of America's most horrific encounters between the dream of a better life and the harsh realities such dreams so often must confront.

During the Holocaust, 17-year-old Freddie Knoller escaped to France, was interned, escaped again, and made his way to Paris where he spent two years living on commissions from guiding German Soldiers to night clubs and brothels. Arrested by the Gestapo, Freddie fled and joined the Resistance, but was soon caught and deported to Auschwitz. Freddie survived the camp and the infamous death march through the resources of luck, friendship, and optimism. After a period in Dora Nordhausen, where he was forced to witness the hideous executions of other slave laborers, he was finally liberated from Belsen-Bergen by the British on April 15th, 1945. This book tells his story, in all its harrowing and haunting detail.