1945-

"On a cold Sunday evening in early 1957, Sarah Dewhurst waited with her father in the parking lot of the Chevron gas station for the dragon he'd hired to help on the farm . . . Sarah Dewhurst and her father, outcasts in their little town of Frome, Washington, are forced to hire a dragon to work their farm, something only the poorest of the poor ever have to resort to. The dragon, Kazimir, has more to him than meets the eye, though. Sarah can't help but be curious about him, an animal who supposedly doesn't have a soul but who is seemingly intent on keeping her safe. Because the dragon knows something she doesn't. He has arrived at the farm with a prophecy on his mind. A prophecy that involves a deadly assassin, a cult of dragon worshippers, two FBI agents in hot pursuit--and somehow, Sarah Dewhurst herself"--Provided by publisher.

When eleven-year-old Langston's father moves them from their home in Alabama to Chicago's Bronzeville district, it feels like he's giving up everything he loves. It's 1946. Langston's mother has just died, and now they're leaving the rest of his family and friends. He misses everything -- Grandma's Sunday suppers, the red dirt roads, and the magnolia trees his mother loved. In the city, they live in a small apartment surrounded by noise and chaos. It doesn't feel like a new start, or a better life. At home he's lonely, his father always busy at work; at school he's bullied for being a country boy. But Langston's new home has one fantastic thing. Unlike the whites-only library in Alabama, the Chicago Public Library welcomes everyone. There, hiding out after school, Langston discovers another Langston -- a poet whom he learns inspired his mother enough to name her only son after him.

Eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman, a Holocaust survivor, travels across post-war Europe as she searches for her younger brother, Abek, and seeks to rebuild her shattered life.

Cassie Logan, now a young woman, has gone from the Logan family home in Toledo, then to California and Colorado, to law school in Boston, and finally in the 1960s back to Mississippi where it all started. There she joins the voter registration drive and is witness to the historic events of her era--the Great Migration to the north, postwar America's racism, the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, and the violent confrontations that it sometimes takes to bring about real change.

"In twentieth century America, no power--and no threat--loomed larger than the communist superpower of the Soviet Union. America saw in the dreams of the Soviet Union the overthrow of the US government, and the end of democracy and freedom. Meanwhile, the Communist Party of the United States attempted to use deep economic and racial disparities in American culture to win over members and sympathizers. From the miscarriage of justice in the Scotsboro Boys case, to the tragedy of the Rosenbergs to the theatrics of the Hollywood Ten to the menace of the Joseph McCarthy and his war hearings, Albert Marrin examines a unique time in American history...and explores both how some Americans were lured by the ideals of communism without understanding its reality and how fear of communist infiltration at times caused us to undermine our most deeply held values. The questions he raises ask: What is worth fighting for? And what are you willing to sacrifice to keep it? Filled with black and white photographs throughout, this timely book from an award-author brings to life an important and dramatic era in American history with lessons that are deeply relevant today"--From the publisher's web site.

Discusses how the education quality has change over the years in the United States.

Argues that Americans are ruled by extravagent expectations which has led to the development of what the author calls illusions, or pseudo-events, such as press conferences and presidential debates which are staged specifically to be reported.

Provides a record of congressional activities, including facts on issues and legislation; descriptions of proposals and bills; accounts of legislative, executive, and lobbying action; key votes; and provisions of legislation during the first presidential term of Ronald Reagan, from 1981 to 1984.