Jim Murphy

Newbery Honor and Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor recipient Jim Murphy has written numerous stories based on historical events, such as The Boys' War and The Great Fire. In An American Plague, he tells the story of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic. Bizarre medical practices of the time are discussed, as well as popular historical figures, such as George Washington and Benjamin Rush, who were involved in finding a cure for this horrific outbreak. Pat Bottino's...

Presents a history, based on personal accounts and newspaper articles, of the massive snow storm that hit the Northeast in 1888, focusing on the events in New York City.

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.

Two-time Newbery Honor Book author Jim Murphy writes a stunning nonfiction masterpiece about a Christmas miracle on the Western Front during World War I. On July 29th 1914, the world's peace was shattered as the artillery of the Austria-Hungary Empire began shelling the troops of the country to its south. What followed was like a row of falling dominoes as one European country after another rushed into war. Soon most of Europe was fighting in this...

A hair-cutting machine, a used gum receptacle, jumping shoes, and more of the strangest inventions ever! A hat that can tip itself. A suitcase that turns into a bathtub. A pair of protective eyeglasses for chickens. These are just three of the hundreds of unusual inventions that people have dreamed up over the last two centuries. Some, such as the mustache guard, made perfect sense when they first appeared. Others were considered just plain silly....

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...

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...

A paleontologist from the distant future travels to 21st century New York to discover what caused the extinction of Homo sapiens, but finds himself having to choose between saving the human race or his own species. Fromme, however, is much more interested in meeting the most famous human in history – the woman who wrote the quantum physics paper upon which all future science is based. However, Fromme's efforts to meet Zenobia Malmud trigger events...