William Durbin

In the winter of 1898, a seventh-grade boy drops out of school to work with his father, the cook at Blackwater Logging Camp in Minnesota.

In 1905 fifteen-year-old Otto describes in his journal how he travels from Finland to America, joining his father in a dreary iron mining community in Minnesota and becoming involved in a union fight for better working conditions.

In 1900, as a family of Finnish immigrants begins farming on the edge of a Minnesota lake, Matti works as a store clerk, teaches English, and works on the homestead, striving to get out of his older brother's shadow and earn their father's respect.

When Russian troops invade Finland during the winter of 1939-40, Marko, a young polio victim determined to keep his homeland free, joins the Finnish Army as a messenger boy.

When an injury prevents his father from going into northern Canada with fur traders, thirteen-year-old Pierre decides to take his father's place as a voyageur.

"Could you survive in a cave--for a whole year? That's the challenge facing fourteen-year-old Jacob. Set in Ukraine during the final months of World War II, The Hidden Room is based on the true story of a Jewish family who escapes from the Nazi terror by taking refuge in a remote cave. Jacob adjusts to the hardships of living underground and the dangers of night-time adventures outside. Food is scarce. Darkness, bone-chilling cold, and the fear of...