Ship Of Dreams

This original and “meticulously researched retelling of history’s most infamous voyage” (Denise Kiernan, New York Times bestselling author) uses the sinking of the Titanic as a prism through which to examine the end of the Edwardian era and the seismic shift modernity brought to the Western world. “While there are many Titanic books, this is one readers will consider a favorite” (Voyage). In April 1912, six notable people were among those privileged to experience the height of luxury—first class passage on “the ship of dreams,” the RMS Titanic: Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes; son of the British Empire Tommy Andrews; American captain of industry John Thayer and his son Jack; Jewish-American immigrant Ida Straus; and American model and movie star Dorothy Gibson. Within a week of setting sail, they were all caught up in the horrifying disaster of the Titanic’s sinking, one of the biggest news stories of the century. Today, we can see their stories and the Titanic’s voyage as the beginning of the end of the established hierarchy of the Edwardian era. Writing in his signature elegant prose and using previously unpublished sources, deck plans, journal entries, and surviving artifacts, Gareth Russell peers through the portholes of these first-class travelers to immerse us in a time of unprecedented change in British and American history. Through their intertwining lives, he examines social, technological, political, and economic forces such as the nuances of the British class system, the explosion of competition in the shipping trade, the birth of the movie industry, the Irish Home Rule Crisis, and the Jewish-American immigrant experience while also recounting their intimate stories of bravery, tragedy, and selflessness. Lavishly illustrated with color and black and white photographs, this is “a beautiful requiem” (The Wall Street Journal) in which “readers get the story of this particular floating Tower of Babel in riveting detail, and with all the wider context they could want” (Christian Science Monitor).

Trying to stay awake to see the sandman, a young boy finds himself sailing the star-filled night sky with him.

Half a century before Titanic, another famous shipwreck captured the hearts and imagination of the world. In 1857, laden with gold and adventurers fresh from the California Gold Rush, the luxury sidewheel steamer SS Central America went down in a hurricane off the Carolina coast. Many were saved, many were lost, and lives were changed forever. Relive the experiences of her passengers, as told through the eyes of a fictitious couple who find love and danger on the high seas aboard this first “Ship of Dreams.” On her own in wild, wicked, post-Gold Rush San Francisco, Della Gilliland has become a bit of a con artist, though a harmless one. Falsely accused of murder by a rival snake-oil salesman, she is forced to flee the lawless city’s vigilantes aboard an outbound steamer. Surely her quick wits—and tongue—can convince someone to help her until her pursuers are far behind. Stuffy New York businessman Kent Bradford is shocked when a lovely redhead he’s never met suddenly introduces herself as his wife to an important business contact. Fearing a scene, he plays along . . . for the moment. But moments turn into weeks and growing attraction becomes something more. Then, only days out from New York, their ship encounters a hurricane that threatens not only their budding love, but their very lives. Book 2 of the Americana Dreaming series

This interactive book offers readers fabulous new insight into what it was really like aboard the majestic boat with photographs, letters, journal entries, pop-ups, pull-tabs, slide mechanisms, fold-out maps, and booklets for additional information.

On May 31, 1911, thousands of excited people crammed into a shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They were there to watch the empty hull of RMS Titanic enter the water for the very first time. Proud workers hugged their children as they pointed at the massive ship they had helped build. In just 62 seconds, the giant ocean liner was floating for the very first time. It was the largest human-made object the world had ever seen! Creating the Ship of Dreams tells the compelling story of how the largest and most luxurious ship in the world was built and the workers who risked their lives in the process. The fascinating content and large-format color images, maps, and fact boxes bring the Titanic’s tragic story to life. Creating the Ship of Dreams is part of Bearport’s Titanica series.

As the Titanic sank, John Harper was focused on saving souls. As his life came to a close, he still preached the gospel.

In the summer of 1860, more than fifty years after the United States legally abolished the international slave trade, 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria were brought ashore in Alabama under cover of night. They were the last recorded group of Africans deported to the United States as slaves. Timothy Meaher, an established Mobile businessman, sent the slave ship, the Clotilda , to Africa, on a bet that he could "bring a shipful of niggers right into Mobile Bay under the officers' noses." He won the bet. This book reconstructs the lives of the people in West Africa, recounts their capture and passage in the slave pen in Ouidah, and describes their experience of slavery alongside American-born enslaved men and women. After emancipation, the group reunited from various plantations, bought land, and founded their own settlement, known as African Town. They ruled it according to customary African laws, spoke their own regional language and, when giving interviews, insisted that writers use their African names so that their families would know that they were still alive. The last survivor of the Clotilda died in 1935, but African Town is still home to a community of Clotilda descendants. The publication of Dreams of Africa in Alabama marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Winner of the Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historical Association (2007)

Set in a dark future America devastated by the forces of climate change, this thrilling bestseller and National BookFinalist is a gritty, high-stakes adventure of a teenage boy faced with conflicting loyalties. In America's flooded Gulf Coast region, oil is scarce, but loyalty is scarcer. Grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts by crews of young people. Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota--and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or by chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life.... In this powerful novel, Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a fast-paced adventure set in the vivid and raw, uncertain future of his companion novels The Drowned Cities and Tool of War. "Suzanne Collins may have put dystopian literature on the YA map with The Hunger Games...but Bacigalupi is one of the genre's masters, employing inventively terrifying details in equally imaginative story lines." —Los Angeles Times A New York Times Bestseller A Michael L. Printz Award Winner A National Book Award Finalist A VOYA 2010 Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers Book A Rolling Stone 40 Best YA Novels Book Don’t miss the other books in the series: The Drowned Cities Tool of War