On April 23, 1943,the seventy-man crew of the USS Grenadierscrambled to save their submarine—and themselves—after a Japanese aerial torpedo sent it crashing to the ocean floor. Miraculously, the men were able to bring the sub back to the surface, only to be captured by the Japanese.No Ordinary Joes tells the harrowing story of four of the Grenadier’s crew: Bob Palmer of Medford, Oregon; Chuck Vervalin of Dundee, New York; Tim McCoy of Dallas, Texas; and G...

Bestselling and award-winning author and former major league pitcher Larry Colton shares the story of the Birmingham Barons, the first racially-integrated team of any sport in the state of Alabama, just few months after the horrific 1964 Birmingham church bombing which killed four young black girls.Anybody who is familiar with the Civil Rights movement knows that 1964 was a pivotal year. And in Birmingham, Alabama - perhaps the epicenter of racial conflict - the Bar...

"The social dilemmas faced by present-day Native Americans are revealed in this journalistic look at a high school girls' basketball team in Crow, Montana" ( Kirkus ).In Counting Coup, award-winning journalist and sports writer Larry Colton delves into the world of Montana's Crow Indians, and introduces teenage basketball star Sharon LaForge, a descendant of one of George Armstrong Custer's Indian scouts. The titl...

Take a train to Southern California, and you'll pass through Colton. Once the home of Gabrielino and Serrano Indians, Colton is now known as the "Hub City," the only place in the United States where the Union Pacific and the Burlington, Northern & Santa Fe railroads cross. Westward-bound rail passengers travel through the horseshoe-shaped valley along the same trails that served Spanish explorers journeying from Mexico to Monterey in the 1770s. The valley's early settlers made use of the r...

"Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings in Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation."Martin Luther King, Jr.Letter from a Birmingham Jail1963Anybody who is familiar with the Civil Rights movement knows that 1964 was a pivotal ye...

Thoroughly revised for the revamped SAT, Up Your Score: SAT is the only test-prep guide written for students by students—all of whom achieved perfect or near-perfect scores and went on to the colleges of their choice. A complement and reality check to the mainstream SAT study guides, it’s the book that kids recommend to one another, because it’s as entertaining as it is effective, showing students how to:• Think like the SAT• Ramp up their “mental math” powers...