Search results for ""Author Rebecca C. Jones""

The Mystery of Mary Surratt is a true story about the Maryland woman who was convicted and hanged in 1865 for her alleged part in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. For more than a century, historians have argued about her true role. Some claim she knew nothing about John Wilkes Booth’s plan to shoot Lincoln and other top government leaders. Others insist she knowingly helped Booth and might even have masterminded the whole plot. This book lays out the facts in a narrative that lets young readers draw their own conclusions. Author Rebecca C. Jones researched the book at the Surratt House library in Clinton, Maryland, where she read letters, old newspapers, diary entries, and other sources. She also followed the Booth escape route, interviewed researchers, and found a diary written by a woman who was in the Old Capitol Prison with Mary Surratt. The book is aimed at middle-schoolers, but is accessible to fourth graders studying Maryland history. It should help students develop critical thinking skills as they decide for themselves whether Mary Surratt was guilty or innocent. Grades 4 to 8

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Young Caroline Pickersgill lives with her mother and grandmother in Baltimore, Maryland. Mrs. Pickersgill, a widow, supports herself and her daughter by making flags for the ships that sail into the city. Some soldiers from Fort McHenry come to her to order the biggest and best flag in the world, and Caroline helps make it. When the British sail up the Chesapeake Bay to destroy Baltimore during the War of 1812, the defenders at the fort beat them back. After the British sail away the next day, the flag “gallantly streaming” over the fort is the one Caroline and her mother had sewn. By “the dawn’s early light,” Francis Scott Key saw it waving “o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Here is a charming (and true) children’s story about a young girl who, in helping her widowed mother, became a part of our nation’s history.

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When Captain John Smith and his crew set out from Jamestown to explore a body of water known as the Chesapeake in 1608, they didn’t know what to expect. Would their small, crowded boat sink? Would someone attack them? Would they die in a terrible storm? Or would they find another ocean and discover the gold that would make them rich? Based on Captain Smith’s diaries, this true story describes how the men fought hurricane-force winds, searched for gold, faced hostile (and friendly) natives, and suffered gnawing hunger and terrible sickness. After a total of fourteen weeks on the bay, they returned to Jamestown with the sure knowledge that the Chesapeake was bigger and richer than anyone had imagined – and so was the land around it. Charming illustrations provide a touch of humor and more information about the history and wildlife of the big and beautiful Chesapeake Bay. Middle grades–ages 7-10.

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