My place in history

Traveling to live in a new country can be terrifying, especially to a child. Leaving behind family, friends, and places you know and love is something everyone can relate to. In this book, readers board a boat with an immigrant child going to the United States for the first time. The first-person narration introduces readers to Ellis Island and the many immigrants coming to America during the late 1800s and early 1900s, including their reasons for...

"Readers learn from a unique first-person narrator about growing up as a Powhatan child. Food, clothing, and shelter are covered in the main content, as well as historical context of tribes living near the Jamestown settlement."--

Shortly after the birth of the United States, many people headed west to settle the new territory of the frontier. They journeyed by wagon for months on end and faced bad weather, sickness, and fears of hostile Native Americans. Historians know a lot about these wagon train journeys because of the many diaries kept by travelers! Readers meet a young wagon train traveler and, through this first-person account, learn about life on the Oregon Trail....

The progress of America after the Industrial Revolution came at the cost of many unnamed lives, and there's no story more indicative of this than the plight of the Chinese men who built the Transcontinental Railroad. Young readers will be transported through first-person accounts, and even a Western Union telegram, into the Central Pacific camp, learning how track was laid, how perilous the job was, and how deeply racism affected these men who thanklessly...

So much of life today is different from life in an 1800s Chinook village. Located in the present-day states of Washington and Oregon, the Chinook are one of North America's native cultures. This book introduces young readers to the lifestyle of the Chinook through a fictional journal chronicling the daily life of an 8-year-old fisherman's son. Fact boxes throughout the text present the historical context for the journal's stories, and an engaging...

The Trail of Tears was not a one-time event, but actually a 2-decade policy of relocating Native Americans to the West in forced marches. Young readers will learn history through the fictional journal entries of Awenasa, a young Cherokee girl. This book communicates history through powerful emotions, encouraging readers to thoughtfully reflect on the plight of the natives of North America. Fact boxes throughout the text illuminate important historical...