new york (state)

Although they do not know anything about him, the mute young man who shows up on their New York farm at Christmastime in 1813 becomes increasingly important to fourteen-year-old Jessie and her family.

Presents an overview of the history of the early American colony of New York, using primary source materials, with information on its founding, settlement, growth as a colony, and role in the American Revolution.

Contains two stories set in the Catskill Mountains, including "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in which a superstitious schoolmaster encounters a headless horseman; and "Rip Van Winkle," the story of a man who sleeps for twenty years and wakes to a much-changed world.

Drawing on her diaries and journals written from the time she was 12 until she was almost 20, the author depicts her life as daughter of a well-to-do-upstate New York family and her determination to become a writer despite her family's objections.

After losing his hand in an accident in his father's butcher shop in 1946, sixth-grader Norman uses hard work and humor to learn to live with his disability and to succeed at baseball, art, and other activities.