family

Musician and philanthropist Peter Buffet describes the work ethic and values he has learned from his mother and father, Warren Buffet, and challenges readers to overcome obstacles and find greater fulfillment in life.

Shares the story behind the writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner," in 1814, telling how Francis Scott Key, having witnessed a critical battle between British and U.S. troops from a truce ship, was inspired to write the song after seeing the garrison flag still flying over Fort Henry in Baltimore, Maryland; discusses the Smithsonian Institute's efforts to preserve the actual flag; and considers how the song and the flag have come to symbolize American patriotism and pride.

In 1913 Russia, twelve-year-old Katya eagerly anticipates leaving her St. Petersburg home, though not her older cousin Misha, to join her mother, a lady in waiting in the household of Tsar Nicholas II, but the ensuing years bring world war, revolution, and undreamed of changes to her life.

Novelist Nicholas Sparks provides an account of his adventures traveling around the world with his brother Micah on the trip of a lifetime, and shares the personal story of their childhood and the family tragedies they have endured, and how those experiences have made them closer.

The author recalls her childhood in a strict religious Midwestern town, her brother's and her education in a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic, the trials of adolescence and racism.

In fourteenth-century Italy, Antonia, the daughter of Dante Alighieri, longs for a stable family and home while developing her artistic talent and seeking a place for herself in a world with limited options for women.

Helga Schneider, abandoned in 1941 by her mother who joined the Nazi SS and went to work as a guard at Auschwitz, discusses her second and final meeting with the woman, who at age eighty-seven and confined to a Vienna nursing home, remained unrepentant about her past.

Oney Judge, having been a loyal servant to Martha Washington for twenty years, comes to the realization that she is just a slave and must decide if she will run away to find true freedom.

Shannon Lanier traces his family's relationship to Thomas Jefferson and discusses how his African-American ancestors learned they were related to Jefferson.

An illustrated story recounting the adventures of Abraham Lincoln and his two sons that focuses on the years Lincoln was President.