Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Geography & Cultures

Eleven-year-old Valena, her family, and dog live in rural Ohio, where she and her cousin Melinda share experiences that include seeing the aurora borealis, surviving a tornado, and going to an amazing circus.

The entertaining style and solid research of the Lives of…. series of biographies have made it a favorite with families and educators for twenty years. This new volume takes readers through the centuries and across the globe, profiling the men and women whose curiosity and courage have led them to discover our world.

When Hector's mother suggests that he and his amigo Mando get out of East L.A. for the weekend and see some of the world, he's thinking Paris. So he's a little disappointed when they end up in Fresno, sleeping on a lumpy couch in his Uncle Julio's messy apartment. Hector figures it's going to be one boring weekend. He couldn't be more wrong.

See him? That little tramp twitching a postage stamp of a mustache, politely lifting his bowler hat, and leaning on a bamboo cane with the confidence of a gentleman? A slapstick comedian, he blazed forth as the brightest movie star in the Hollywood heavens. Everyone knew Charlie - Charlie Chaplin.

Carrie has been a kitchen slave in Sam Fraunces’ tavern in New York City for as long as she can remember. But after she narrowly escapes a kidnapper, Carrie becomes more curious about her mysterious past. After all, she doesn’t even know her own last name. When her friend Dan Arabus comes to town, he talks about his dream of buying his mother’s freedom with the Continental notes his father left him. Deciding to help Dan discover how much the notes are worth, Carrie finds herself eavesdropping on Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and President Washington himself.

Young Daniel Arabus and his mother are slaves in the house of Captain Ivers of Stratford, Connecticut. By law they should be free, since Daniel's father fought in the Revolutionary army and earned enough in soldiers' notes to buy his family's freedom. But now Daniel's father is dead, and Mrs. Ivers has taken the notes from his mother. When Daniel bravely steals the notes back, a furious Captain Ivers forces him aboard a ship bound for the West Indies - and certain slavery.

Christopher Quincy was an American boy whose father admired everything British. As a result of this trait, Chris found himself trapped at St. Basket’s, an ancient London school founded - and built - in the time of Henry VIII and, Chris thought, it looked it. The corridors were dim and drafty, and the rooms of the boarding pupils, of whom Chris was one of four, were gloomy and unpretentious.

Did you know that women once wore corsets under their bathing suits? Or that "semi-drowning" - the strip and plunge practice - was thought to be good for one's health? Or that Pudgy Stockton, the body-building queen of Muscle Beach, California, opened the country's first gym for women? From the bathhouses of the ancient Greeks to Venice Beach and Coney Island, Let's Go to the Beach takes a multifaceted and well-researched look at beaches and their attendant customs.