This is the incredible story of the visionary engineer who built New York City’s first subway. The Secret Subway is the gripping tale of a man whose vision was years ahead of his time; a man whose dream was crushed by the greed and political jockeying for power that characterized the city in the days of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall.In the late 1860s New York was congested and dangerous, a place one terrified commentator described as "bedlam on wheels. "Alfred Beach, a multitalented young man, set out to solve the problem. Rather than just addressing the chaos on the streets, he looked deeper for a solution, into the very foundations of the city. He financed the subterranean project himself, and pledged his workers to secrecy. When the fruits of his plans were revealed the public raved about his new tunnel, single station and subway car. Many believed this new system would relieve some of the congestion aboveground, and could be the first step toward a wider transportation network. But perceiving such ideas as a direct threat to his power, Boss Tweed intervened. The subway system Beach envisioned remained buried in the realm of dreams.Between 1900 and 1904, a subway line was finally built in NYC. Workers extending that line cut right into Beach’s tunnel, which remained intact. The station, tunnel, and car—except for the decaying wooden parts—were just as Beach had left them. To this day they lie buried beneath the city’s streets, an interred monument to a dream cruelly killed by political greed and jealousy.National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner, this hair-raising holiday collection includes fifteen original tales—including an original Sookie Stackhouse story.The holidays can bring out the beast in anyone—particularly lycanthropes. Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner have harvested the scariest, funniest, saddest werewolf tales by an outstanding pack of authors including Patricia Briggs, Keri Arthur, Karen Chance, Simon R. Green, and more... Whether wolfing down a holiday feast (use your imagination) or craving some hair of the dog on New Year's morning, the werewolves in these frighteningly original stories will surprise, delight, amuse, and scare the pants off readers who love a little wolfsbane with their mistletoe.

Gold Medal Winner of Young Adult -Historical/Cultural section of Moonbeam Children's Book Awards. Natasha's Russian family flees China in 1950 to start a new life in Sydney, Australia. Unable to speak English, Natasha longs for her old life in Shanghai. The problems of life under Japanese occupation and the following civil war seem tame compared to facing her new school with its inexplicable customs, different clothes and hairstyles. Having lost everything to communism, Natasha's family is now accused of being communist. The first turbulent year in Australia strains even strong willed Natasha's confidence, but a catastrophic event makes her realize her own strength and understand her place in her new life.

Lost Childhood is the vivid, first-hand account of the horrors of war through the eyes of a child. This real-life memoir breaks a 60-year silence to tell one woman’s riveting story of prisoner life during World War II. As a little Dutch girl in Indonesia, Annelex Hofstra’s comfortable world was torn apart when she and her family were sent to Japanese prison camps for three and a half years.The story begins in 1942 when four-year-old Annelex is living on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Her grandfather is a successful planter, and her father is a pilot instructor in the Royal Netherlands Navy. But her carefree childhood ends as the Japanese invade Java, and along with 10,000 other Dutch residents, Annelex's family is rounded up. With few belongings, they are shipped off to interment camps, to a helpless, unknown future.In a shockingly honest narrative, we learn of the tactics used by their captors to dehumanize the Dutch prisoners. We learn of the grinding daily routine of the prisoners, the food rations, the sleeping arrangements, and the awful sanitary conditions. We share in Annelex’s near-death bout with malaria. We also share some of the awful things she witnessed—extracting parasitic worms from a fellow-prisoner’s throat; the agonizing death by starvation of women punished for stealing food; and the sight of bodies being piled high on a truck.Eventually the hell ends and the family is liberated. But the girl’s personal hell plagues her in freedom. Just days after she is reunited with her father, he is killed in an explosion. World war is replaced by civil war in Indonesia, forcing the family to flee first to Holland and then to the U.S., where the family tries to mend their broken lives.For 60 years Annelex Hofstra Layson has repressed her early memories, shielding even her husband and children from the horrors of her past. With Lost Childhood, her harrowing ordeal is finally revealed. The author shares her story now to provide hope in young lives torn apart by war, and to inspire future generations to work for peace.