Political Child

“What does ‘allegiance’ mean?” the New Teacher asked, hand over her heart. In this classic and chilling tale about an elementary school classroom in post-war occupied America, James Clavell brings to light the vulnerability of children and the power educators have to shape and change young minds. Originally written in the Cold War era, Clavell’s extraordinary and enduringly relevant allegory on the impressionability of the human mind is still read in schools around the globe today, and is a call to every person to keep questioning and keep learning.

Twelve-year-old Ji-li Jiang has brains, friends, and a bright future. Then Mao Zedong launches China’s infamous Cultural Revolution. Soon school is suspended and students are getting caught up in the fervor of Mao’s extreme politics. When Ji-li’s family is accused of capitalist crimes, all of her beautiful dreams burst like soap bubbles. Because Ji-li’s grandfather was a landlord, her family is harassed and humiliated. Their home is searched, and they live in constant fear. Nonetheless, Ji-li remains loyal to her beloved Chairman Mao....

The science is overwhelming; the facts are in. The planet is heating up at an alarming rate and the results are everywhere to be seen. Yet, as time runs out, climate progress is blocked by the men who are profiting from the burning of the planet: energy moguls like the Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Powerful politicians like Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Inhofe, who receive massive contributions from the oil and coal industries. Most of these men are too intelligent to truly believe that climate change is not a growing crisis.

Through historical newspaper accounts and the personal letters of soldiers, the events leading up to the battle and the battle itself are stunningly recreated. You will enter the mind of Robert E. Lee as he makes the fateful decision to cross the Potomac River and take the offensive. You will feel the frustration of Abraham Lincoln as he struggles to convince George McClellan to fight. And you will stand side-by-side with foot soldiers as the peaceful Maryland countryside explodes.

For 155 days, Will Foster has been locked in medical quarantine without his consent. The doctors claim he is infected with a deadly virus, but this is a lie. Encoded in his DNA is a mutation that provides immunity from disease for all who possess it, source code that Vyrogen Pharmaceuticals aims to commercialize as a multi-billion dollar gene therapy. Against all odds, Foster escapes his laboratory prison and steals a virulent strain of bubonic plague as insurance. To help him unravel the mystery inside him, Foster contacts the only person he can trust - a former lover and microbiologist living Vienna - and the two become fugitives.

Did you know that Theodore Roosevelt was shot before a rally, and went on to give his speech with the bullet in his chest? Or that he skinny-dipped in the Potomac River? Bet you didn’t know that he had a zebra, a lion, and a one-legged rooster at the White House! Siblings Paige and Turner have collected some of the most unusual and surprising facts about the larger-than-life president, from his childhood and his Rough Rider days to his rise to politics and his complicated presidential legacy.

Fiona Maye is a leading High Court judge, presiding over cases in the family court. She is renowned for her fierce intelligence, exactitude and sensitivity. But her professional success belies private sorrow and domestic strife. There is the lingering regret of her childlessness, and now her marriage of 30 years is in crisis. At the same time, she is called on to try an urgent case: for religious reasons, a beautiful 17-year-old boy, Adam, is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life, and his devout parents share his wishes. Time is running out.

In 1923, four short years since the end of the First World War, and after the passing of the Act which gave all men the vote, an inconclusive election result and the prospect of a constitutional crisis opened the door for a radically different sort of government: men from working-class backgrounds who had never before occupied the corridors of power at Westminster. The Wild Men tells the story of that first Labour administration – its unexpected birth, fraught existence, and controversial downfall.

Almost anything scares young Eleanor: mice, the dark, and a host of imaginary dangers. But she learns to hide her feelings - her father disapproves of fear, and she longs only to please him. She knows she will always disappoint her beautiful, socialite mother, because Eleanor is painfully shy and plain.

As a young debutante in Manhattan, she spends her days teaching needy children and touring crowded tenements.

You may never have heard of him, but you've probably heard of the many people civil rights activist Bayard Rustin influenced. He was a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and refused to move to the back of the bus many years before Rosa Parks did. The son of a freed slave, Bayard Rustin grew up during the peak of the Jim Crow laws, which segregated Blacks and Whites.

The Russian oligarchs are the world's new elite. They treat the world as their plaything. But when an assassin starts killing off some of the world's richest men, an oligarch with friends in high places seeks the protection of MI5. And Spider Shepherd is placed in the firing line. But while Shepherd has to save the life of a man he neither likes nor respects, he has to deal with a face from his past. The Taliban sniper who put a bullet in his shoulder turns up alive and well and living in London. And Shepherd is in no mood to forgive or forget.

The political landscape has never been so tumultuous: issues with the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and a lack of representation in the polls and in our leadership have led to Americans of all ages asking, How did we get here? The power to change lies with the citizens of this great country - especially teens! Rather than pointing fingers at people and political parties, You Call This Democracy? looks at flaws in the system - and offers a real way out of the mess we are in.

How much do you know about Franklin Roosevelt? Find out the facts you need to know about the 32nd president of the United States. You'll learn about the early life, challenges, and major accomplishments of this important American.

Human teenagers are being killed, and all the evidence points to the House of Night, straining human-vamp tensions in Tulsa to a breaking point. While danger stalks the humans from Zoey's old life, she finds herself drawn into an intoxicating forbidden flirtation that threatens to distract her from the growing crisis. Then, when she needs her new friends the most, death strikes the House of Night.

Written in collaboration with critically acclaimed National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick, Malala tells her story - from her childhood in the Swat Valley to the shooting, her recovery and new life in England. She's a girl who loves cricket, gossips with her best friends, and, on the day of the shooting, nearly overslept and missed an exam. A girl who saw women suddenly banned from public, schools blown up, the Taliban seize control, and her homeland descend into a state of fear and repression.

Soviet Union, 1956: Stalin is dead. With his passing, a violent regime is beginning to fracture—leaving behind a society where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are innocent. The catalyst comes when a secret manifesto composed by Stalin's successor Khrushchev is distributed to the entire nation. Its message: Stalin was a tyrant and a murderer. Its promise: The Soviet Union will transform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget Stalin's tyranny so easily, that demand revenge of the most appalling nature.

Before he was a senator, John McCain fought in the Vietnam War and served in the House of Representatives. He ran for president of the United States in 2008. Get to know the maverick who was willing to speak his mind.

A chilling exposé of corporate corruption and government cover-ups, this account of a nationwide child-trafficking and pedophilia ring in the United States tells a sordid tale of corruption in high places. The scandal originally surfaced during an investigation into Omaha, Nebraska's failed Franklin Federal Credit Union that went beyond the Midwest, ultimately to Washington, DC.

In four decades, bookended by the Pope’s visits to Ireland in September 1979 and August 2018, Ireland has become one of the wealthiest and most progressive nations in the world. Characteristically brilliant and timely, Renaissance Nation is a thrilling account of Ireland’s vertiginous rise and a timely exploration of its conflicted present, where stark decisions await the next generation of would-be revolutionaries.

I know you care about children. Whether you've got your own kids or you look after other people's, you have a deep love for these little humans. You want them to grow up in a world where people are basically kind to each other and kind to the planet. But when you look at the world now—a mental health crisis, a global pandemic, climate change, war—you worry about the possible future your child is facing and how they will cope.