 | The Story of Mankind by Hendrik van Loon
Buy new: $17.95 / Used from: $17.77 FOR BOYS: This was the first book to win the Newberry Award, and it is still a great comprehensive history of mankind.
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 | From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Jacques Barzun
Buy new: $13.85 / Used from: $2.19 FOR PARENTS: I've been in love with this book since my history professor encouraged me to read it when it first came out.
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 | George Washington, Spymaster: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War by Thomas B. Allen
Buy new: $5.95 / Used from: $0.01 FOR BOYS: I'm not as big a fan of this book as I am the others, but the concept is interesting and the stories really are true.
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 | Lincoln: A Photobiography (Houghton Mifflin social studies) by Russell Freedman
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $0.01 FOR BOYS: With this book, Russell Freedman changed the way middle-grade nonfiction is written and presented.
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 | Lincoln by David Herbert Donald
Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $0.25 FOR PARENTS: Of course this is the definitive biography about the name himself.
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 | Photo by Brady: A Picture of the Civil War by Jennifer Armstrong
Buy new: $14.78 / Used from: $0.45 FOR BOYS: While it covers a similar period in history as Lincoln: A Photobiography, this book stands on its own and gives a great visual history of the War Between the States.
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 | The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns
Buy new: $84.99 / Used from: $39.93 FOR PARENTS: I know I'm cheating with this one, but this PBS series is really the grown-up alternative to a visual history of the Civil War.
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 | Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $1.14 FOR BOYS: I cringed when I read this book but was also fascinated by the science presented here. And what 10-year-old boy wouldn't love to read about a railroad spike being blown through someone's brain?
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 | An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage by Malcolm Macmillan
Buy new: $29.00 / Used from: $19.00 FOR PARENTS: I will admit I haven't actually read this book, but all the reviewers seem to like it.
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 | Ghosts of Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine by Jochen Hemmleb
Buy used from: $4.62 FOR BOYS: This was a fascinating historical mystery. Did they make it to the top? Will we ever know for sure? What really happened that day on Mt. Everest? Make sure to have a blanket a cup of coco with you when you read this one.
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 | Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $2.94 FOR PARENTS: I know--cheating again! While this is a memoir rather than a history of mountaineering, I think it has a similar mysterious element to is as Ghosts of Everest. Because of altitude sickness and the strange things it does to your brain, no one really knows what lead to these Everest deaths either.
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 | Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong
FOR BOYS: I read Endurance by Alfred Lansing several years ago and was amazed by it, so when this middle-grade book came out a year later, I was excited to be able to share it with my students.
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 | Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
Buy new: $10.76 / Used from: $0.01 FOR PARENTS: While I loved this one when I read it, I almost preferred the middle-grade version of the events.
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 | Mission to the Moon: (Book and DVD) by Alan Dyer
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $8.58 FOR BOYS: You can't go wrong with space adventure, and this book has an amazing DVD to go along with it.
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 | Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir by Jerry M. Linenger
Buy used from: $0.21 FOR PARENTS: This is another memoir, but the middle-grade read talks about the modern space program as well, so I think this one is a good parental companion book.
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 | Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon (Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 (Awards)) by Catherine Thimmesh
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $0.99 FOR BOYS: I know, two space books in a row, but I couldn't pick one and not the other.
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 | Moon Shot : The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon by Alan Shepard
Buy used from: $0.01 FOR PARENTS: Like Team Moon, this tells some of the lesser-known stories of Apollo 11.
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 | 10,000 Days of Thunder: A History of the Vietnam War by Philip Caputo
Buy new: $16.31 / Used from: $4.90 FOR BOYS: Personally, I don't think kids are exposed to enough modern history, and this book is a great introduction to the Vietnam War. The best part is that it is not anti-war nor pro-war--it's just facts.
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 | On Their Own: Women Journalists and the American Experience in Vietnam by Joyce Hoffmann
Buy new: $22.83 / Used from: $0.01 FOR PARENTS: There are a lot of adult books out there about Vietnam, but my personal favorites are about journalists. And this one has to be the best of the best for me.
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 | The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden
Buy new: $15.75 / Used from: $9.00 FOR BOYS and FOR PARENTS: You could say this is the field guide to being a boy. In fact, every mother should read this book just so she understands what boys want to know. And this one is not cheating--there is a history section.
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