It is Passover, and Hannah dreads attending the first night’s Seder at Grandpa Will, Grandma Belle, and Aunt Eva’s house. Her grandfather’s strange outbursts about the Holocaust embarrass and frighten her. Following ancient tradition, Hannah opens the door for the prophet Elijah, but instead of seeing a hallway filled with apartment doors, she sees a…
The year is 1940. Growing up in the Bronx, thirteen-year-old Tommy Duncan divides his time between school, friends, and family. He listens to Brooklyn Dodgers games on the radio, plays stickball after school, and worries about his mother’s declining health. He doesn’t share his friend Beth’s fascination about the war in Europe. The war is…
When spring waters flow into the river, and everything in Canyon de Chelly comes alive, Bright Morning wants to shout for joy. She restrains herself because such joyous emotions anger the gods. Her brother was killed by lightning because of his pride over killing a six-point buck. With the return of the grass, Bright Morning…
Dr. Metcalf served as a doctor in the field hospitals during World War 1. After the war, he returns to Kansas and goes to work at St. John’s Hospital where he continues to treat wounded soldiers. Mrs. Metcalf, haunted by her brother’s death in the trenches of France, wants to forget all about the war….
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay takes off from an airstrip on an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean. The plane with its payload — an 8,900-pound atomic bomb — heads for Hiroshima, Japan. The effects of such a bomb are terrible, and America hopes that unleashing its terror on a…
In 1707, Sarah Noble’s family lived in Westfield, Massachusetts. When John Noble purchases a tract of land in New Milford, Connecticut, he takes eight-year-old Sarah with him. Mrs. Noble stays in Westfield with the younger children. The journey to New Milford takes many days. Sometimes they sleep with other settlers, and other times, in the…
Because of the “Fury,” Bruno’s father is assigned as the commandant of a Polish concentration camp that Bruno calls “Out-With.” So, Bruno’s family moves from Berlin to a desolate place with no other houses and no other children. The new house gives Bruno a bad feeling, a feeling that grows into a pain in his…
Through poetry and letters, Mina Tagawa tells her family’s story. Soon after Pearl Harbor, her father, a newspaper reporter, is arrested under suspicion of sedition. Every day, Mina and her brother endure verbal and physical attacks at school. Mina wants to scream every time she hears, “Jap.” She doesn’t feel Japanese. She’s an American! In…
