Eleven-year-old John Hale has already survived one brutal Dakota winter, and now he's about to experience one of the deadliest blizzards in American history. The storm of 1888 was a monster, a frozen hurricane that slammed into America's midwest without warning. Within hours, America's prairie would be buried under ten feet of snow. Hundreds would be dead, thousands terrified and lost and freezing. John never wanted to move to the wide-open prairie. He's a city kid, not a tough pioneer! And his inner strength is seriously tested when he finds himself trapped in the blinding snow, the wind like a giant crushing hammer, pounding him over and over again. Will John ever find his way home?

Separating truth from tall tales, this easy-to-read biography details the life of a great American frontiersman. Legends say Davy Crockett weighed two hundred pounds when he was born, and leapt right out of his cradle ready to fight. Though those stories are an exagerration, Crockett's life was anything but boring. Farmer, soldier, sharp-shooter and politician, he was a well-known figure in the early 1800s—and even after his death, his reputation as an American folk hero grew and grew. In this illustrated biography, David Adler retells the true story of David Crockett's life—from his birth in Tennessee to his death at the Alamo. Using contemporary primary sources, Adler distinguishes between fact and legend, providing details about Crockett's family life and political career, as well as a note about the historical origins of many of the famed tall tales. A timeline of important dates is included. For almost thirty years, David Adler’s Picture Book Biography series has profiled famous people who changed the world. Colorful, kid-friendly illustrations combine with Adler’s “expert mixtures of facts and personality” (Booklist) to introduce young readers to history through compelling biographies of presidents, heroes, inventors, explorers, and adventurers. These books are ideal for first and second graders interested in history or who need reliable sources for school book reports.

Rose's remarkable account follows the journey of Robert Fortune, a Scottish gardener, who was deployed by the British East India Company to steal China's tea secrets in 1848. This thrilling narrative combines history, geography, and old-fashioned adventure.

** Wall Street Journal , Publishers Weekly , and USA Today Bestseller!** In the lead-up to the Bolshevik Revolution, one young revolutionary is condemned to exile in Siberia; a hundred years later, his ancestors discover his story and learn just how much history has repeated itself. In the midst of running a long-shot political campaign, Democratic political consultant John Simon discovers a 100-year-old manuscript written by his grandfather Joseph—a brilliant young revolutionary whose exile to Siberia by the last czar of Russia is just the beginning of an extraordinary tale of survival, romance, and revolution. Return From Siberia chronicles not only the Simon family's relationship to each other and the past, but also the remarkable story of a young man who sacrificed everything for his political ideals. As Joseph's manuscript is translated, chapter-by-chapter, the Simon family is pulled deep into their ancestor’s story— in particular, the bitter rivalry between two brothers, whose competing visions of the American Dream are played out on the campaign trail and in their lives. Return from Siberia is a timely appraisal of modern politics and society juxtaposed with an inside look into the machinations of a young political mind 100 years ago. The true story documents an extraordinary time of political upheaval in Russia and Europe just prior to World War I while also drawing parallels to current day American politics and the current philosophical and ideological debates about immigration, Democratic Socialism, and Capitalism. Beyond the deep social, political, and philosophical themes, there is romance, adventure, betrayal, suspense, and the struggles of families today and in yesteryear. Return from Siberia illustrates how one modern family's connection to the past helps them resolve their future.

The year is 1849. Young Jack Flagg sets out to recoup his Aunt Arabella's fortune on a ship bound from Boston to the California gold fields. Thus begin the wild, swashbuckling adventures of a determined 12-year-old and his intrepid butler. Illustrations.

0n May 24, 1869, a one-armed Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine mountain men embarked on the last great quest in the American West. No one had ever explored the fabled Grand Canyon; to adventurers of that era it was a region almost as mysterious as Atlantis -- and as perilous. The ten men set out down the mighty Colorado River in wooden rowboats. Six survived. Drawing on rarely examined diaries and journals, Down the Great Unknown is the first book to tell the full, true story.

History--with the good bits put back. Discover the drama, discoveries, dirty deeds and derring-do that won the American West. With a storyteller's voice and attention to the details that make history real and interesting, Steve Sheinkin's Which Way to the Wild West? delivers America's greatest adventure. From the Louisiana Purchase (remember: if you're negotiating a treaty for your country, play it cool.) to the gold rush (there were only three ways to get to California--all of them bad) to the life of the cowboy, the Indian wars, and the everyday happenings that defined living on the frontier.

"Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth." So begins Sid Fleischman's ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens. Abandoning a career as a young steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, Sam took a bumpy stagecoach to the Far West. In the gold and silver fields, he expected to get rich quick. Instead, he got poor fast, digging in the wrong places. His stint as a sagebrush newspaperman led to a duel with pistols. Had he not survived, the world would never have heard of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn—or red-headed Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens adopted his pen name in a hotel room in San Francisco and promptly made a jumping frog (and himself) famous. His celebrated novels followed at a leisurely pace; his quips at jet speed. "Don't let schooling interfere with your education," he wrote. Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West; an ink-stained rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time. Bountifully illustrated.

Annyrose Smith is a true child of calamity, but she is determined to overcome it. So what if she's an orphan? So what if she's stuck with the vilest landlady in California, while her brother's off trying to strike gold? So what if Joaquín Murieta and his band of notorious outlaws swoop in and take her away? The fearsome bandit thinks Annyrose can help him in his quest for justice, and she thinks he can help her search for her long-lost brother. She's not about to let anything stop her, not the mistaken identities, the daring robberies, the wild chases, or her unlikely friendship with the Mexican Robin Hood.

The second book in a rip-roaring adventure series set in the wild west! After escaping the ruthless desperados, P.K. finally feels safe in Virginia City and is ready to set up a new private eye business. But all the mysteries in town seem to be pranks—until the day P.K. meets a young maid named Martha. Martha’s employer has been found dead . . . and now the killer is after her. The mystery takes a grave turn when Martha disappears, so P.K. consults Poker Face Jace, an expert at people reading. With his help, P.K. inspects saloons and billiard rooms, and even tries sneaking into the coroner’s office. But time is quickly running out for P.K., and Martha’s life has never been in more danger.

A swashbuckling tale of thievery and revenge The Giant Rat of Sumatra is the most notorious pirate ship in the Pacific. Its ferocious figurehead, a rat with crooked teeth and gouged-out eyes, strikes fear in the heart of every seafaring crew. Now the ship has dropped anchor in San Diego. Twelve-year-old cabin boy Shipwreck -- so named after he was rescued from the sea by the pirates -- is anxious to begin his long journey home to Boston. Instead, he finds himself swept up in a treacherous plot. It seems his adventure is only just beginning. . . .

The final whip-cracking adventure in the P.K. Pinkerton series from bestselling Roman Mysteries author Caroline Lawrence. When P.K's father, Robert Pinkerton, suddenly appears in Virginia City, P.K.'s life turns upside down. Suddenly she's having to learn how to be a 'girly-girl' in a cunning plot to outwit silver thieves. But it seems the thieves are one step ahead! Has P.K. finally met her match or can she use her detective skills to turn the situation on its head and impress her private-eye Pa? A gripping rollercoaster ride of a tale packed with Wild West authenticity and atmosphere from this million-selling author.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2008 A Half-Century of Greatness paints a vivid and dramatic picture of the creative thought of mid- to late nineteenth century Europe and the influence of the unsuccessful revolutions of 1848. It reveals often unexpected links between novelists, poets, and philosophers from England, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine—especially Dickens, Carlyle, Mill, the Brontës, and George Eliot; Hegel, Strauss, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels, Wagner, and several German poets; the Hungarian poet Sándor Petöfi; Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bakunin, and Herzen in Russia, and the great Ukrainian poet Shevchenko. Ewen goes on to trace the transition from Romanticism to Victorianism, or what he calls “the Victorian compromise”—the ascendancy of the middle class. The book was reconstructed and edited by Dr. Jeffrey Wollock from Ewen’s final manuscript. It includes the author's own reference citations throughout, a reconstructed bibliography, and an updated “further reading” list. This is Ewen’s last work, the long-lost companion to his Heroic Imagination. Together, these books present a panorama of the social, political, and artistic aspects of European Romanticism, especially foreshadowing and complementing recent work on the relation of Marxism to romanticism. Anyone interested in what Lukacs called “Romantic anticapitalism,”; who appreciates such books as Marshall Berman's Adventures in Marxism or E.P. Thompson's The Romantics (1997), will find Ewen’s work a welcome addition.

Anka Muhlstein's lively biography, translated by Teresa Waugh, introduces American readers to Astolphe de Custine, a passionate literary figure, a poet, playwright, essayist, traveler, aristocrat and homosexual adventurer. Against the fascinating background of early-19th-century France, Anka Muhlstein presents the gifted if at times deplorable Custine with vivacity, elegance, and insight. It is a splendid introduction to the Marquis and his world and to his famous 1839 tour of autocratic Russia -- Daniel Aaron. Briliant, visionary, beautiful Astolphe -- man of letters and man of society -- finally gets his biography . . . -- French elle Magazine ... -- Amazon

Few writers have inspired such affection ain their contemporaries, and in later generations of readers, as Robert Louis Stevenson. And yet, difficult though it is to resist the generous, enchanting personality tht shines out from his letters, it is even harder to define it. A descendant of Calvinists who spent his youth in a Bohemian milieu, a lover of his native Scotland who became committed to exile, a man whose humorous enjoyment of human foibles did not preclude an awareness of the nightmarish background against which some lives are lived - Stevenson was highly complex, with a deep sense of moral ambiguities which runs throughout his work. He could have no abler or more sympathetic biographer than David Daiches, Professor of English Studies at Sussex University, and author of an earlier book on the master (Robert Louis Stevenson: A Revaluation) as well as of biographies of Burns and Scott in this series. In a brilliant and absorbing text, Professor Daiches traces Stevenson's life, from his childhood and early manhood in Scotland (whose scenery and townscapes inspired his work throughout his life), through his visits to France and the United States, and on to his las years in Samoa. Professor Daiches also discusses Stevenson's writings, explaining how he harnessed the disparate elements in his nature so that they fertilized his imagination while he developed his gifts as a romancer, essayist, poet and historical novelist, from his early travel books and Treasure Island - the greatest of all adventure stories for boys - to the tragic conflict so superbly realised in Weir of Hermiston, the masterpiece which he did not live to complete.

In 1987, John F. Schwartz transcribed a collection of letters from his great-grandfather, William Philip Schwartz, who took the first known war photographs in 1847. This remarkable correspondence covers his exile from wife and family in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, service in the US Army in the Indian Wars and the Mexican-American War, his court-martial and desertion, his adventures in the Gold Rush and the Pacific, his enlistment in the Marine Corps and service aboard the USS Constellation in the Mediterranean Sea. His vivid and highly detailed letters paint an unforgettable portrait of a life on the American frontier and at sea-a must-read for anyone interested in American history.