Young Founders

America comes of age-as seen through the eyes of its young founders. Nat and Richard are two-orphaned thieves on the streets of London. When John Smith offers them passage as laborers on a merchant ship bound for the New World they jump at the opportunity. What luck! The land of Virginia is rumored to be paved with gold. They will be rich! But, quickly the boys learn the awful truth: blinded by greed and arrogance, the settlers of the new English colony at Jamestown are unprepared for the brutal reality of frontier life. Inadequate supplies, illness, petty squabbling, malarial summer heat, and bitter winter cold decimate the colony. Those who escape death are reduced to chewing roots and shoe leather to survive-and, in one horrific instance, cannibalizing a corpse. Yet by spring more colonists arrive, dreaming of paradise but finding a colony on the brink of starvation. Through it all, Nat and Richard must fall back on their wits to survive.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." On his farm in Maryland, sixteen-year-old Caleb Jacobson hears rumors of an armed rebellioni of the Massachusetts colonists against he oppressive tyranny of King George III and his soliders. Educated in a small Quaker school, Caleb has been taught that it is wrong to raise one's hand against another. Yet Caleb is a free black living in a slave colony. He knows firsthand the horrors and hardships of slavery and wonders what good an American victory will do if his fellow blacks - including his best friend Gaddi - remain shackled in bondage. Then comes news that the British Governor Lord Dunmore promises freedom to any slave who joins his army against the Americans. Can he be trusted to keep his work? Or should Caleb support the colonists' fight in hope of a better future for his people? Caleb will have to choose."

America as seen through the eyes of its young founders. By April 1863, the Civil War has been raging for two-years. On their sleepy farm in Gettysburg, sixteen-year-old twins Susanne and Stephen are alarmed by news that Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee are threatening to invade the North for a strike at Washington, D.C.! Rebel forces in the Union capital. Is it possible? Bored with farm life and itching for action, Stephen runs away to join the beleaguered Army of the Potomac to fight Johnny Reb. Susanne decides to join a nursing outfit to assist the Union's wounded. Sparated by war, death, and disease, the twins maintain a correspondence. But, little do they know that Union and Confederate forces are converging on a small town for a battle that may determine the outcome of the war-a town called Gettysburg.

America as seen through the eyes of its young founders. Seventeen-year-old Patrick O'Neall dreams of going to college one day and becoming a famous writer-until news arrives of his father's death in a place called Gettysburg. Forced off their farm, the family migrates north, hoping to find work in the booming mill towns of industrial New England. What they find in the factory town of Leeland is not a better life, but drudgery and poverty and heartache. Patrick and his family must work long hours in dangerous conditions for miserable pay. They are no better off than slaves. Patrick's friend has found a shortcut to the good life: robbing the wealthy mill owners. And, he wants Patrick to join his gang. Patrick must choose. He wants to believe in America as the land of opportunity, but is the price of his dream too high?