We The People Bookshelf

Hans ChristianAndersen
32 pages
The fairy tale about a swan raised by ducks, and made to feel badly about how he looked, until he realized he was a swan.

Patricia Polacco
32 pages
Two young boys fighting in the Civil War meet when they are separated from their regiments. One is black, one is white, but they become friends, and help each other in surprising ways.

Abraham Lincoln
32 pages
The text of the Gettysburg Address, with illustrations showing Lincoln and the conditions surrounding the American Civil War.

Christopher Paul Curtis
341 pages
In 1860, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, is the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, a haven for slaves fleeing the American south. He uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom.

Russell Freedman
90 pages
Describes the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence as well as the personalities and politics behind its framing.

Russell Freedman
150 pages
Includes a biography of Lincoln, with original photographs, as well as a sampling of Lincoln's writing, and a list of Lincoln historical sites.

Virginia Hamilton
151 pages
Recounts to journeys of Black slaves to freedom via the underground railroad, an extended group of people who helped fugitive slaves in many ways.

Katherine Paterson
182 pages
An impoverished Vermont girl leaves her farm and goes to Lowell, Massachusetts, finds a job in a textile mill, and works to gain her independence.

Russell Freedman
114 pages
December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white man. Her quiet refusal sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which eventually ended segregation on buses.

Paul Fleischman
113 pages
In 1681 in Boston, fourteen-year-old William, a Narraganset Indian captures in a raid, leads a productive and contented life as a printer's apprentice, but is increasingly anxious to make some connection with his Indian past.

106 pages
A collection of speeches and letters of Abraham Lincoln, with brief introductions that provide historical background.

Francisco Jimenez
193 pages
Having come from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old Francisco is still working in the fields but fighting to improve his life and complete his education.

Daniel Keyes
286 pages
Charlie Gordon's quest for intelligence and knowledge parallels that of Algernon (the mouse who is an earlier subject of a similar experiment).

Daniel Pesci
292 pages
Based on an incident that sparked one of America's first civil rights struggles, this historical novel tells the story of an African farmer who is sold into slavery and stages a rebellion aboard the slave ship, Armistad.

William Lee Miller
515 pages
The author reveals how Lincoln became both a great man and a good man, tracing his moral development in the context of his times and in confrontation with the leading issues of the day - most notably that of slavery.

Natalie S. Bober
221 pages
The American Revolution, from the perspective of Abigail Adams, wife to John Adams, one of the principal players in the struggle.

Chief Joseph
53 pages
An interview Chief Joseph granted reporters while in Washington D.C., trying to negotiate the return to their native lands for the Nez Perce, in 1879.