Published to coincide with the seventieth anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, a narrative of human resilience, told through first-hand experiences of five survivors, reveals the physical, emotional, and social challenges of post-atomic life.

Kramer, president of the Holocaust Resource Foundation at Kean University, recounts her life as a frightened, hungry Jewish teenager living in Żółkiew, Poland, during the Holocaust. She and her parents were rescued by Righteous Gentiles.

This is how wars are fought now by children, hopped up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone...

At eighteen months, Ashley Ruben still didnt talk. She wouldnt respond when her name was called; she didnt appear to hear either. She fixated on tiny pieces of dirt and ate only crunchy foods. She was enveloped in a thick fogimpenetrable by everyone except Barney the Dinosaur. She worked puzzles like a kindergartener and was computer-savvy before she was two years old. Her mothers late-night searches on the Internet hinted at a reason for her lack...

Leckie provides one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of WWII. Follow his odyssey, from basic training to the raging battles in the Pacific.

The life of Robinson Crusoe is a great adventure story from his shipwreck on an island off the coast of South America to his discovery of a fellow human being named Friday, to their escape from cannibals.

Now in his eighties, Sam Pivnik tells for the first time the extraordinary story of how he survived the Holocaust Sam Pivnik is the ultimate survivor from a world that no longer exists. On fourteen occasions he should have been killed, but luck, his physical strength, and his determination not to die all played a part in Sam Pivnik living to tell his extraordinary story. In 1939, on his thirteenth birthday, Pivnik's life changed forever when the...

"The Diary of a Young Girl started two days before Anne Frank's thirteenth birthday. In 1942, the Nazis had occupied Holland, and her family left their home to go into hiding, as they were Jews. Anne Frank recorded daily events, her personal experiences and her feelings in her diary for the next two years. Cut off from the outside world, she and her family faced hunger, boredom, claustrophobia at living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat...

In this extraordinary and harrowing memoir, follow one GI’s tour of duty as Ryan Smithson brings readers inside a world that few understand.

This is no ordinary teenager’s story. Instead of opting for college life, Ryan Smithson joined the Army Reserve when he was seventeen. Two years later, he was deployed to Iraq as an Army engineer.

His story—and the stories of thousands of other soldiers—is nothing like

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