A city ruined. In once quiet residential streets, two armies battle, driving people into cellars and basements with little food or water. No lights or heat. Dwindling medical supplies. Shells and bullets deliver cruel, random death to the young and old, men, women, and children. This is Mariupol, a Ukrainian city and early target of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Bordering Russian-occupied territory, the coastal city seemed doomed to a defeat that would come within days, if not hours. Could Mariupol, and Ukraine, survive? As Russian rockets threatened the city, Ukrainians resisted, and with a heroic combination of sacrifice and bravery, the besieged city endured . . . for months. But it all came at a steep cost.

In 600 BCE, the Greek mathematician Thales observed a seemingly strange phenomenon: amber, when rubbed with a cloth, had the ability to attract lightweight objects like feathers, straw, and leaves. He had unknowingly discovered an electric charge. His experiments wouldn't be picked back up until about 2,000 years later, when another curious mind, inspired by the Greek word for amber (elektron), declared the rubbed object to have an invisible power: electricity. From phones to light bulbs, from wind and solar energy to electric cars, electricity is something we can't live without today.

Award-winning author Don Brown explores the history of democracy in the United States in this installment of the Big Ideas That Changed the World series The Greek word democracy comes from demos (people) and kratos (rule)--meaning "the people hold power." In this timely graphic novel, acclaimed author-illustrator Don Brown explores the history of democracy--from civilization's beginnings as hunter-gatherers to the birth of monarchies and vast empires, and from the earliest republics to our present-day government. Narrated by Abigail Adams, We the People! explores how Athenian and Greek assemblies inspired our legislative and judiciary branches; how Enlightenment ideals of reason, toleration, and human progress shaped our founding fathers' thinking; how Mali's Manden Charter and England's Magna Carta influenced our Bill of Rights; and how the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy directly shaped the US Constitution. Explaining the fundamentals of democracy--liberty, equality, and justice for all--in a kid-friendly way, We the People! is a powerful reminder that power rests in the people's hands. Big Ideas That Changed the World is a graphic novel series that celebrates the hard-won succession of ideas that ultimately changed the world. Humor, drama, and art unite to tell the story of events, discoveries, and ingenuity over time that led humans to come up with a big idea and then make it come true.

A speck of dust is a tiny thing. In fact, five of them could fit into the period at the end of this sentence. On a clear, warm Sunday, April 14, 1935, a wild wind whipped up millions upon millions of these specks of dust to form a duster-a savage storm-on America's high southern plains. The sky turned black, sand-filled winds scoured the paint off houses and cars, trains derailed, and electricity coursed through the air. Sand and dirt fell like snow-people got lost in the gloom and suffocated . . . and that was just the beginning. Don Brown brings the Dirty Thirties to life with kinetic, highly saturated, and lively artwork in this graphic novel of one of America's most catastrophic natural events: the Dust Bowl.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong took “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” when the Apollo 11 landed on the moon. But it wasn’t just one man who got us to the moon. Rocket to the Moon! explores the people and technology that made the moon landing possible. Instead of examining one person’s life, it focuses on the moon landing itself, showing the events leading up to it and how it changed the world. The book takes readers through the history of rocket building: from ancient Chinese rockets, to “bombs bursting in air” during the War of 1812, to Russia’s Sputnik program, to the moon landing. Beautifully illustrated and well-researched, this book is the perfect resource for curious readers and tomorrow’s scientists. It includes a timeline of space travel, a bibliography, and an index.  

In the tightening grip of Hitler's power, towns, cities, and ghettoes were emptied of Jews. Unless they could escape, Jewish children would not be spared their deadly fate in the Holocaust, a tragedy of unfathomable depth. Only 11% of the Jewish children living in Europe before 1939 survived the Second World War. Run and Hide tells the stories of these children, forced to leave their homes and families, as they escaped certain horror. Some children flee to England by train. Others are hidden from Nazis, sometimes in plain sight. Some are secreted away in attics and farmhouses. Still others make miraculous escapes, cresting over the snow-covered Pyrenees mountains to safety.