Jim Murphy

By weaving personal accounts of actual survivors together with the carefully researched history of Chicago and the disaster, [the author] constructs a ... narrative that recreates the events.... And finally, he reveals how, even in a time of deepest despair, the human spirit triumphed, as the people of Chicago found the courage and strength to build their city once again. -Dust jacket.

One of the most popular pieces of American fiction is Washington Irving s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, originally published in 1820 in Irving s short story collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Set in New York s Hudson River valley after the American Revolution, it is rich with Dutch culture, regional history, and ghost stories. In schoolmaster Ichabod Crane and his adversary the Headless Horseman, Irving created two of the most unforgettable...

"In 1944 a groundbreaking operation repaired the congenital heart defect known as blue baby syndrome. The operation's success brought the surgeon Alfred Blalock international fame and paved the way for open-heart surgery. But the technique had been painstakingly developed by Vivien Thomas, Blalocks African American lab assistant, who stood behind Blalock in the operating room to give him step-by-step instructions. The stories of this medical and social...

Includes diary entries, personal letters, and archival photographs to describe the experiences of boys, sixteen years old or younger, who fought in the Civil War.

This collection represents an engagement with American history, technology, and cultures. Murphy's poetry ranges from fairly straightforward narrations of events to experimental pieces using a variety of American-speaking subjects and several angles of vision on cultural creations-Elvis Presley, Holly Golightly, and Elmore James, to name just a few. Formal choices include the interlocking movements of the sestina and the rondau, the ebb and flow of...

A two-time Newbery Honor Book author, Jim Murphy is among the world's finest writers of nonfiction for children. In A Savage Thunder he takes listeners back to the American Civil War to tell the terrible yet extraordinary story of the Battle of Antietam. With the entire world watching, two armies met in Maryland in 1862. The Union needed a victory. The Confederacy hoped to continue its success. When the smoke cleared, 23,000 men were dead or wounded-and...

Nobel winner Dr. Henry Caldwell, the world's foremost mediator, and his brilliant associate, Dr. Regina Powell, have resolved conflicts ranging from family to international disputes. His latest achievement, The Caldwell Method, is capable of resolving any conflict in 100 days using techniques and strategies he has assembled. His main rival, Dr. John-Michael Robertson, eager to contest Henry's declaration, crashes the Method's unveiling. John-Michael...

Combines an account of Robert Louis Stevenson's experiences as he traveled from New York to California by train in 1879 and a description of the building and operation of railroads in nineteenth-century America.

James Edmond, a sixteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his experiences and those of "G" Company which he joined as a volunteer in the Union Army during the Civil War.

In 1874, Brian Doyle records in his diary how he ran away from his home in San Francisco, joined the crew of a whaling ship, and endured storms, hostile shipmates, and being stranded in the Arctic.