NCW Libraries

With our American Civil War series, Applewood reissues many primary sources published before, during, and after this tumultuous four-year period in American history. Through these books, scholars, interpreters, students, and non-academics alike can see the passion, pain, and glory of those who came before us, 150 years ago.--back cover

"[T]ells the remarkable story of Royal Air Force technician Frank Williams and Judy, a purebred pointer, who met in an internment camp during WWII. Judy was a fiercely loyal animal who sensed danger and instinctively mistrusted anyone in enemy uniform. Their relationship deepened throughout their imprisonment. The prisoners suffered severe beatings which Judy would interrupt with her barking. The dog became a beacon for the men, who saw in her survival...

"Based on real history and alternating between three perspectives, When We Had Wings tells an amazingly moving story of heroic service, perseverance in the darkest of days, and the hope of the human spirit"-- The Philippines, 1941. When U.S. Navy nurse Eleanor Lindstrom, U.S. Army nurse Penny Franklin, and Filipina nurse Lita Capel forge a friendship at the Army Navy Club in Manila, they believe they are living a paradise assignment. As the beauty...

1945. Surviving the brutality of a Nazi prison camp, Marta is lucky to have escaped with her life. When the American soldier she plans to wed is killed in a plane crash, she discovers she is pregnant, and marries a British diplomat in an attempt to create a happier life.

At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British Army officer in the colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering a Cuban...

An activist and documentary filmmaker, who was arrested in occupied France at the age of fifteen, presents this deeply personal account of her experiences during the Holocaust and the death of her father in a concentration camp that overshadowed her whole life.

"As a child, Allen is saved from a nautical disaster by Benjamin Postlethwaite, a solitary lighthouse keeper. Years later, Allen returns to the lighthouse, and the two nurse an injured young puffin back to health. When Allen is called up to fight in World War Two...his fond memories of his time at the lighthouse keep him going, even through prison camp"--

From the atrocities of the Bataan death march to the hardships of the labor camps, this horrifying account of the treatment POWs endured at the hands of the Japanese during World War II explores the limits of the human spirit and the depths of inhumanity. 31 photos. 5 illustrations. Map. Notes.

"The story of three downed British airmen who mastermind an elaborate, rollicking escape from a WWI German POW camp"--

The story of a British boy, James Graham, whose privileged life is upturned by the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, December 8, 1941. Separated from his parents, he is eventually captured, and taken to Soo Chow confinement camp, next to a captured Chinese airfield. Amidst the sickness and food shortages in the camp, Jim attempts to reconstruct his former life, all the while bringing spirit and dignity to those around him.