Young Heroes in World History

This book of biographical profiles and stories chronicles the astonishing courage and imagination of young people. The lives of the seventeen young men and women profiled here, who range in age from twelve to twenty-three at the time of their heroic deeds, spread across oceans and continents, cultures, races, and ethnic groups throughout 250 years. Each of their lives offers testimony to the human capacity to endure, overcome incredible obstacles, and choose honor, integrity, compassion, and service. The stories of many are told here for the first time.Among the lives depicted here are those of Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the first African American students to attempt to integrate a formerly all-white high school in Little Rock in 1957; Vladimir Bukovsky, a teenager whose activities on behalf of the human rights movement in the Soviet Union landed him in prison; Marianne Cohn, who paid the ultimate price for her courage as a resistance fighter in World War II France; Charles Eastman, raised as a Sioux, who was thrust at age fourteen into an alien white world and who later returned to his people as a physician and saved many lives at Wounded Knee; Olaudah Equino, a West African sold into slavery in the eighteenth century whose autobiography offers an unflinching portrayal of the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade; and Chai Ling, a slip of a girl who assumed leadership of the student rebellion in China's Tiananmen Square. The heroes profiled in this book represent ten nations—Africa, China, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Pakistan, Soviet Union, Thailand, and the United States. Each profile concludes with a bibliography for further reading. These engagingly written stories of young people's courage will inspire and instruct.

"Berson's Young Heroes in World History is...wonderful: informative, inspiring, and delightful to read. Educators should read it for their own edification and then share it with young people who long for such stories."-Nel Noddings Author of: Justice and Caring: The Search for Common Ground in Education, "Young people need heroic models: models who do admirable things, close to themselves in age and very much like them....Engrossing and highly readable, and reflecting young people of diverse ethnicities doing a wide variety of courageous activities, this collection of profiles can help all of us envision better deeds and lives."-Pearl Oliner Research Director, Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute, ?An absolutely fantastic book to give to a young reader of middle school age to get them interested in history and how young people have had an impact. Well researched as well as easy-to-read, the book will prove invaluable as a children's library resource.?-Smoke & Fire News, ?In terms of its goals, the book is a success. The stories are clear and vigorously written. As in most works written with a moral purpose, there is a slight tendency toward rhetorical exaggeration, but the facts are strictly accurate.?-The Historian, ?This attractive title highlights the impressive deeds of 17 young people, ages 12 to 23, who lived over the last 250 years...The author does a remarkable job of illustrating the times in which these people lived and the difficulty of their noble choices. Each 12-to-15 page profile provides a detailed look at the valor of its young hero, is liberally peppered with anecdotes and quotations, and has a bibliography. Black-and-white images of the young men and women and an appendix that groups those profiled by gender, nationality, and century complete this stirring title. This book offers readers a choice of little-known heroes for biography assignments and also provides teachers with the opportunity to enliven a classroom discussion.?-School Library Journal

ROBIN KADISON BERSON is Director of the Upper School Library of Riverdale Country School in New York City. She has taught secondary school history in a variety of settings, and has spent seven years as Managing Editor of History of Education Quarterly. She is author of Marching to a Different Drummer: Unrecognized Heroes of American History (Greenwood, 1994).