Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Meet Anetka, a 13-year-old Polish girl who comes to America as a promised bride to a Pennsylvania coal miner. Her fascinating diary entries give readers a personal glimpse into what life was like in a coal-mining town during a tumultuous time in our country's past.

Sibert Award This true story of five years of starvation in Ireland is “a fascinating account of a terrible time” (Kirkus Reviews).    In 1845, a disaster struck Ireland. Overnight, a mysterious blight attacked the potato crops, turning the potatoes black and destroying the only real food of nearly six million people. Over the next five years, the blight attacked again and again. These years are known today as the Great Irish Famine, a time when one million people died from starvation and disease and two million more fled their homeland.   Black Potatoes is the compelling story of men, women, and children who defied landlords and searched empty fields for scraps of harvested vegetables and edible weeds to eat, who walked several miles each day to hard-labor jobs for meager wages and to reach soup kitchens, and who committed crimes just to be sent to jail, where they were assured of a meal. It’s the story of children and adults who suffered from starvation, disease, and the loss of family and friends, as well as those who died. Illustrated with black and white engravings, it’s also the story of the heroes among the Irish people and how they held on to hope.   “Bartoletti humanizes the big events by bringing the reader up close to the lives of ordinary people.”—Booklist (starred review)

Newbery Honor author Susan Campbell Bartoletti brings the story of a young girl caught up in a web of murder, lies, and the Great Fire of Chicago to bold life. In the autumn of 1871, fourteen-year-old Pringle Rose learns that her parents have been killed in a terrible carriage accident. After her uncle Edward and his awful wife, Adeline, move into the Pringle family's home--making life for her and her younger brother, Gideon, unbearable--Pringle runs away with Gideon to Chicago, seeking refuge from the tragedy, and hoping to start a new life. She becomes a nanny for the children of a labor activist, and quickly finds herself caught up in a web of intrigue and lies. Then, when a familiar figure from home arrives, Pringle begins to piece together the devastating mystery of what happened to her parents, and realizes just how deadly the truth might be. But soon, one of the greatest disasters this country has ever known--the Great Fire of Chicago--flares up, and Pringle is on the run for her life.

Robert F. Sibert Award-winner Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores the riveting and often chilling story of Germany's powerful Hitler Youth groups. In her first full-length nonfiction title since winning the Robert F. Sibert Award, Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores the riveting and often chilling story of Germany's powerful Hitler Youth groups."I begin with the young. We older ones are used up . . . But my magnificent youngsters! Look at these men and boys! What material! With them, I can create a new world." --Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg 1933 By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany's young people. Her research includes telling interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members.

This is how history should be told to kids! From Newbery Honor medalist Susan Campbell Bartoletti and in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of woman suffrage in America comes the page-turning, stunningly illustrated, and tirelessly researched story of the little-known DC Women’s March of 1913. Bartoletti spins a story like few others—deftly taking readers by the hand and introducing them to suffragettes Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. Paul and Burns met in a London jail and fought their way through hunger strikes, jail time, and much more to win a long, difficult victory for America and its women. Includes extensive back matter and dozens of archival images to evoke the time period between 1909 and 1920.   

From a Newbery Honor winner, “[a] well-researched biography of Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary…compelling.”—School Library Journal (starred review)   Long Island, 1906: Mary Mallon has been working as a cook for a wealthy family for just a few weeks when members of the household were felled by typhoid. Mary herself wasn’t sick—but as it turned out, she was a carrier—a healthy person who spread the disease to others.   When the New York City Board of Health found out about her, she was arrested and quarantined on an island. This biography tells the story of what she went through as she became the subject of a tabloid scandal. How she was treated by medical and legal officials reveals a lesser-known story of human and constitutional rights, entangled with the science of pathology and enduring questions about who Mary Mallon really was. How did her name become synonymous with deadly disease? And who is really responsible for the lasting legacy of Typhoid Mary?   This thorough exploration also includes archival photographs and primary sources, an author's note, a timeline, annotated source notes, and bibliography.

When 16-year-old Helmuth Hübener listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason. Sentenced to death and waiting in a jail cell, Helmuth's story emerges in a series of flashbacks that show his growth from a naive child caught up in the patriotism of the times, to a sensitive and mature young man who thinks for himself. A youth in Nazi Germany tells the truth about Hitler. Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newbery Honor Book, Hitler Youth, and fleshed it out into a full novel.

When his father dies, Finn Reardon must support his family by selling newspapers on the streets of Manhattan, where he finds himself in the middle of the Newsie Strike of 1899. When Finn Reardon's father dies, he decides to support his mother and eight siblings by peddling newspapers on the streets corners of New York City. But when the two biggest newspaper publishers, Hearst and Pulitzer, raise the wholesale price that Finn and his friends pay for the papers they sell, the boys band together and go on strike. Susan Campbell Bartoletti brings humor and wit to this classic David and Goliath struggle between the Newsies and the newspaper publishers.

"Boys, let us get up a club."With those words, six restless young men raided the linens at a friend’s mansion in 1866. They pulled white sheets over their heads, hopped on horses, and cavorted through the streets of Pulaski, Tennessee. Soon, the six friends named their club the Ku Klux Klan and began patterning their initiations after fraternity rites, with passwords and mysterious handshakes. All too quickly, this club would grow into the self-proclaimed “Invisible Empire,” with secret dens spread across the South. On their brutal raids, the nightriders would claim to be ghosts of Confederate soldiers and would use psychological and physical terror against former slaves who dared to vote, own land, attend school, or worship as they pleased.This is the story of how a secret terrorist group took root in America’s democracy. Filled with chilling and vivid personal accounts unearthed from oral histories, congressional documents, and other primary sources, this is a book to read and remember.