Jim Murphy

Photographs and text, along with personal accounts of actual survivors tell the story of the great fire of 1871 in Chicago.

Combines an account of Robert Louis Stevenson's experiences as he traveled from New York to California by train in 1879 and a description of the building and operation of railroads in nineteenth-century America.

Gold...silver...precious gems...the stuff dreams are made of. This is the story of a hoard of just such valuable metals and stones, whose journey begins in the year 1311, when the Knights Templar were prosecuted. A small band of valiant knights escape with the hoard and the turbulent journey begins. It's 2525, and enter Mary and James McGoldenck, a young couple from Laramie, Wyoming, who fall in love with metal detecting and rock hounding, and because...

This collection represents an engagement with American history, technology, and cultures. Murphy's poetry ranges from fairly straightforward narrations of events to experimental pieces using a variety of American-speaking subjects and several angles of vision on cultural creations-Elvis Presley, Holly Golightly, and Elmore James, to name just a few. Formal choices include the interlocking movements of the sestina and the rondau, the ebb and flow of...

In 1944 a groundbreaking operation repaired the congenital heart defect known as blue baby syndrome. The operation's success brought the surgeon Alfred Blalock international fame and paved the way for open-heart surgery. But the technique had been painstakingly developed by Vivien Thomas, Blalock's African American lab assistant, who stood behind Blalock in the operating room to give him step-by-step instructions. The stories of this medical and...

The ocean is one of the last remaining wildernesses on our planet. It is also a wilderness where anyone can go. In this wilderness, we find animals that did not evolve along with humankind, and therefore allow a kind of proximity that terrestrial animals have instinctively learned to avoid. This book is about how my love for this wilderness awakened on my very first saltwater dive, and how it continues to grow with every dive I make. This book is...

A two-time Newbery Honor Book author, Jim Murphy is among the world's finest writers of nonfiction for children. In A Savage Thunder he takes listeners back to the American Civil War to tell the terrible yet extraordinary story of the Battle of Antietam. With the entire world watching, two armies met in Maryland in 1862. The Union needed a victory. The Confederacy hoped to continue its success. When the smoke cleared, 23,000 men were dead or wounded-and...

Includes diary entries, personal letters, and archival photographs to describe the experiences of boys, sixteen years old or younger, who fought in the Civil War.

Describes the events of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 as seen through the eyes of two actual participants, nineteen-year-old Confederate lieutenant John Dooley and seventeen-year-old Union soldier Thomas Galway. Also discusses Lincoln's famous speech delivered at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.

Jimmy Murphy starts sixth grade determined to be a better student and impress the beautiful Kathy Guenther, but Sister Angelica has him and his friends pegged as troublemakers and they may just prove her right.