In April 1607, twelve-year-old Sam Collier and a group of Englishmen landed in North America. Arriving as an assistant to the solider John Smith, Sam was excited to discover what adventures lay before him in the new land soon to be known as Virginia. But the months ahead would soon prove to be a harsh test. Facing sickness and starvation and sudden attack, Sam had to use all his wits if he were to survive. Could Sam and his fellow settlers trust Virginia’s Indians to help them? Could they learn to survive in this strange new land?

Twelve-year-old Samuel Collier is a lowly commoner on the streets of London. So when he becomes the page of Captain John Smith and boards the Susan Constant, bound for the New World, he can’t believe his good fortune. He’s heard that gold washes ashore with every tide. But beginning with the stormy journey and his first contact with the native people, he realizes that the New World is nothing like he imagined. The lush Virginia shore where they establish the colony of James Town is both beautiful and forbidding, and it’s hard to know who’s a friend or foe. As he learns the language of the Algonquian Indians and observes Captain Smith’s wise diplomacy, Samuel begins to see that he can be whomever he wants to be in this new land.

A stirring story of survival set against the backdrop of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. In 1607, a year after the Virginia Company was granted a charter to establish a settlement in North America, 104 men set sail on a voyage to a new land. Among the brave adventurers who make the journey is a young boy named Samuel Collier, the page of Captain John Smith. Disease, famine, and continuing attacks by neighboring Algonquin Native Americans take a tremendous toll on the settlers. Samuel is one of the few to survive the harsh realities of the New World during the first few years of Jamestown. Based on the author's careful research of the era, this fictional account portrays the struggles and successes of our country's earliest settlers. Young readers will enjoy this story of courage and survival while learning about this important period in the history of the United States.

Allen Jay's family farm is a stop on the Underground Railroad. Allen's parents give food and shelter to slaves escaping from the South. One day in 1842, Allen's father asks him to help a runaway slave. Is Allen brave enough? This exciting true story takes you along as Allen meets Henry James, an African American man struggling to find freedom.

Nine-year-old Elizabeth keeps a journal of her experiences in the New World as she encounters Indians, suffers hunger and the death of friends, and helps her father build their first home.

Introduces the tools, activities, and importance of the blacksmith in colonial communities.

A New York Times Notable Book and aSan Jose Mercury News Top 20 Nonfiction Book of 2003In 1606, approximately 105 British colonists sailed to America, seeking gold and a trade route to the Pacific. Instead, they found disease, hunger, and hostile natives. Ill prepared for such hardship, the men responded with incompetence and infighting; only the leadership of Captain John Smith averted doom for the first permanent English settlement in the New World.The Jamestown colony is one of the great survival stories of American history, and this book brings it fully to life for the first time. Drawing on extensive original documents, David A. Price paints intimate portraits of the major figures from the formidable monarch Chief Powhatan, to the resourceful but unpopular leader John Smith, to the spirited Pocahontas, who twice saved Smith’s life. He also gives a rare balanced view of relations between the settlers and the natives and debunks popular myths about the colony. This is a superb work of history, reminding us of the horrors and heroism that marked the dawning of our nation.