William Durbin

In 1867, fifteen-year-old Sean experiences both hardships and rewards when he joins his father in working on the building of the Transcontinental Rairoad.

A Transcontinental Railroad Worker

The Journal of Sean Sullivan

In the 1930s, a young Finnish-American boy reluctantly moves with his family to Karelia, a communist-Finnish state founded in Russia, where his idealistic father soon realizes that his conception of a communist utopia is flawed.

The Darkest Evening

Desperate to survive during the Dust Bowl, C. J. Jackson and his family leave the panhandle of Oklahoma and head west to California, where they hope to make a better life for themselves.

A Dust Bowl Migrant

The Journal of C.J. Jackson

A Novel

The Winter War

A young man tells the story of climbing into the cage and being lowered back down into the mine and how hard life was.

journal of Otto Peltonen.the:a finnish Immigrant

Barbara Durbin

Set in Ukraine during World War II, THE HIDDEN ROOM is based on the true story of a Jewish family who escapes from the Nazis by hiding in a cave. Food is scarce. Darkness and cold are constant. Being discovered likely means death.

The Hidden Room

While working in the iron ore mines of Minnesota alongside his father, young Otto Peltonen captures in a journal his family's struggles and personal hardships as new arrivals to the "land of the free." 75,000 first printing.

The Journal of Otto Peltonen, a Finnish Immigrant

When an injury prevents his father from going into northern Canada with fur traders, thirteen-year-old Pierre decides to take his father's place as a voyageur.

The Broken Blade

In 1905 fifteen-year-old Otto describes in his journal how he travels from Finland to America, joining his father in a dreary iron mining community in Minnesota and becoming involved in a union fight for better working conditions.

A Finnish Immigrant - Hibbing, Minnesota 1905

The Journal of Otto Peltonen

A biography of the youngest player to win the Masters Tournament, from his childhood in California to his development as one of the best known personalities in professional golf.

Tiger Woods

Early Draft of El Lector

Thirteen-year-old Bella wants to be a lector like her grandfather, who reads to the workers in a cigar factory in Tampa, Florida. But will Bella be able to get the education she needs during the Depression?

El Lector

For fifteen-year-old Matti Ojala and his family, Finnish immigrants in Minnesota in 1900, starting a new life in America is both a hardship and an opportunity. After a tragic mining accident kills their beloved uncle, the family turns away from the iron mines to pursue the dream of owning a homestead in the wilderness. This means constant hard work and new challenges for the entire family. But will it also allow Matti, the in-between child, the chance to escape from his older brother’s shadow and gain the approval of his father, which he so desperately desires?

Song of Sampo Lake

When an injury prevents his father from going into northern Canada with fur traders, 13-year-old Pierre decides to take his father's place as a voyageur.

Broken Blade

In 1801, fourteen-year-old Pierre returns to work for the North West Fur Company and makes the long and difficult journey to a winter camp, where he learns from both the other voyageurs and from the Ojibwa Indians whose land they share.

Wintering

When fourteen-year-old Pierre goes with the North West Company to French Canada to learn about the fur trading business, he finds that he is learning more than he ever expected as rules of survival become a reality and a friendship with an Ojibwa brave gives him a new perspective on the world. Reprint.

Acclaimed author William Durbin's exciting JOURNAL OF SEAN SULLIVAN is now in paperback with a dynamic repackaging! It's August 1867 and Sean has just arrived from Chicago, planning to work with his father on the Intercontinental Railroad. Sean must start at the bottom, as a water carrier, toting barrels of it to the thirsty men who are doing the backbreaking work on the line. At night, everyone is usually too tired to do anything but sleep, yet Sundays are free, and Sean discovers the rough and rowdy world of the towns that seem to sprout up from nowhere along the railroad's path over the prairie. But prejudices run rampant for both the Irish and Chinese workers -- especially when they start a deadly race to see who can lay track the fastest. Through Sean's eyes, the history of this era and the magnitude of his and his fellow workers' achievements come alive.

Until the Last Spike, the Journal of Sean Sullivan, a Transcontinental Railroad Worker, Nebraska and Points West, 1867

According to thirteen-year-old Ben Ward’s father, lumberjacks look forward to two things: mealtime and springtime. In the winter of 1898, Ben leaves school for a job as a cook’s assistant to his father at the Blackwater Logging Camp. As Ben spends long hours peeling potatoes and frying flapjacks, he dreams of working in the woods with the other men, felling trees, driving a team, and skidding timber. While enduring a long, cold winter in a camp filled with outlandish characters, as well as an orphan boy named Nevers, Ben comes to understand himself and his family’s past. Peppered throughout with heart and humor—and including a glossary and afterword with facts about logging—Blackwater Ben paints a vivid picture of the north woods of Minnesota at the end of the nineteenth century.

William Durbin

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