Showing titles in Military & Wars

April 1941. Britain is at war, and a secret agency called the Ministry of Unladylike Activity is training up children as spies - because grown-ups always underestimate them. Enter May, Eric and Nuala: courageous, smart, and the Ministry's newest recruits. They have travelled to London for spy training, and are staying on a quiet street close to the Ministry, home to an unlikely collection of people thrown together by the war.

This is a story of friendship. This is a story of hope. It’s the story of an era that helped shape our country and define our times, told through one boy’s extraordinary journey through his own small patch of America. And it’s the story of a debt he can never repay to someone he knows only as The Bicycle Man.

It's 1918, and the Great War is entering its final phase. In Northern France, young Aimee has just found out that her mother is part of a spy network working with the British. After reluctantly befriending Marius, a German boy who has been left behind by his countrymen, she must try to help him get back behind German lines while evading traitor she has helped to discover.

“The Persians are coming…” Hearing these words, Gorgo of Sparta is plunged into a dangerous world of vengeful gods and invincible heroes. For a mighty empire threatens Athens, Sparta and all who stand in its path... Calling on the ancient power to transform into a wolf and the blood of Zeus that runs through her veins, Gorgo must lead her nation in one of history's greatest wars. Multi-award-winning author Tom Holland and acclaimed illustrator Jason Cockcroft boldly weave myth and history in this dramatic tale of Greeks and Gods.

At the outbreak of World War 1, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. He's soon caught up in enemy fire and fate takes him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to the trenches to find him and bring him home....

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Back Home written and read by Michelle Magorian. Back Home tells the story of Rusty, returning to England after being evacuated to America for five years in the Second World War. After five happy years in America, Rusty must return to England: the place she used to call home. But it doesn't fell like home. Rusty's mother is like a stranger, her little brother doesn't know her, and why does the food taste so bad? Rusty just can't get used to the rigid rules and rationing and her strict new boarding school.

More and more settlers are coming to Limestone, but who is this stranger called Jefferson, and can he be trusted? Joshua Stewart struggles as he gets ready to help his Pa fight the Indians. What if they include the very Shawnees he has come to love? When the militia is forced to march to Blue Licks, Pa and Joshua join them and run into unexpected danger. Colonel Daniel Boone warns them of a possible ambush - Indians hiding in the ravines. Will the journey end in disaster, and will Dr. Strong's Wonder Tonic reach Grandma Sarah in time?

Marcus has one brother in a youth offender centre and the other is working with their dad on plans for their next theft. Everyone assumes Marcus will follow in their footsteps, but he has other ideas, different hopes. When a mysterious accident lands a man in hospital, it confirms what everyone in their community expects and Marcus gets the blame. He feels trapped. Only new girl Emma - with her peace protest banners and political badges - questions this story. Can they work together to clear his name – and help Marcus become the person he really wants to be?

Eli dresses up in his best clothes, Mama gathers the mayflowers, Papa straightens his hat, and together they join the crowds filling the streets of Charleston with bouquets, crosses, and wreaths. Joined by abolitionists, missionaries, teachers, military officers, and a sea of faces black, brown, and white, they march as one and sing for all those who gave their lives fighting for freedom during the Civil War.

Tinker’s mother works at the local radio factory. Vital to the war effort, she tells him. Apparently, people need radios to listen to Hitler’s armies rampaging across Europe. But that doesn’t explain the mysterious note he finds in his mother’s bag. Nor the appearance of Ola, the girl with the Eastern European accent. And when his sheep dog, Fidget, leads him to strange whirring sounds coming from Hut 8 in Bletchley Park, Tinker knows he must solve the puzzle, with the survival of his world dependent upon it.

Every day, more and more people fleeing war in the north show up at Kyung Tak and her family’s house on the southeastern shore of Korea. With nowhere else to go, the Taks' home is these migrants' last chance of refuge “before falling into the sea,” and the household quickly becomes crowded, hot, and noisy. Then war sirens cry out over Kyung's city too, and her family and their guests take shelter underground. When the sirens stop, Kyung is upset—she wishes everything could go back to the way it was before: before the sirens, before strangers started coming into their home.

It is wartime and Carrie and her little brother Nick have been evacuated from their London home to the Welsh hills. In an unfamiliar place, among strangers, the children feel alone and find little comfort with the family they are billeted with: Mr Evans, a bullying shopkeeper and Auntie Lou, his kind but timid sister. When Carrie and Nick visit Albert, another evacuee, they are welcomed into Hepzibah Green's warm kitchen. Hepzibah is rumoured to be a witch, but her cooking is delicious, her stories are enthralling and the children cannot keep away.

The tide of war has turned against the Nazis, but desperation has made them more brutal than ever. After the Gestapo hung members of the White Rose for distributing leaflets. Their father solicits the help from the Edelweiss Pirates to save a Jewish girl in hiding.

Written in 1940 in Yiddish, this heart-wrenching story of two nine-year-old friends caught up in the earliest tremors of anti-Semitic hatred in Vienna is all the more shocking because its author had no idea of what was still to come. Despite the casual violence done to their families - Karl's parents were socialists and Emil is Jewish - the boys find moments of kindness, courage and hope along their painful journey.

Know your enemy. Liam Scott is back in Afghanistan, this time with 4 Rifles. No longer the new guy, it's his chance to prove himself and take the lead. But the warzone has changed dramatically, and so have the rules. Working alongside the Afghan National Army, Liam and his new patrol face daily attacks from Taliban insurgents. But the real threat seems to be coming from within his unit. It looks like there's a traitor in their midst.

I don't want to remember the truck, or the night I was taken, or the family I left behind. I am not a sad Polish girl. I am a good and happy German girl. I am. I am. I am. It's the Second World War and Himmler's Lebensborn Program is in full flight when eight-year-old Zofia Ulinski is kidnapped by the Germans. She has blonde hair and blue eyes, just like the other Polish children taken from their families and robbed of their names, their language, their heritage.

When Col's childhood imaginary friends come to life, he discovers a world where myths and legends are real. Accompanied by his guardians - a six-foot tiger, a badger in a waistcoat and a miniature knight - Col must race to Blitz-bombed London to save his sister. But there are darker forces at work, even more than the Nazi bombings. Soon Col is pursued by the terrifying Midwinter King, who is determined to bring an eternal darkness down over everything.

Finding Moon Rabbit is the story of one Japanese American family held at Heart Mountain. The story is told from the point of view of the family's youngest daughter, Koko. While Koko, her sister, and her mother are held at Heart Mountain, the father is incarcerated at a special prison camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where suspected Japanese American collaborators have been placed.

Jack can't wait for the school trip to the D-Day landing beaches. It's his chance to learn more about the war heroes he has always admired – brave men like his dad, who is a reserve soldier. But when his dad is called up to action and things at home spiral out of control, everything Jack believes about war is thrown into question. Finding comfort only in the presence of his loyal dog, Finn, Jack is drawn to the heart-wrenching true story of one particular D-Day paratrooper.

It’s September 1939 and Britain has just entered the Second World War. But in the small town of Golfodd there are no bombs, no soldiers and no machine guns. For Tom, Mary, Gary and Dil the whole thing is a disappointment. They want excitement. But they aren’t looking for trouble, so when they start shadowing the mysterious new woman in town, they don’t expect it to lead them down to the bottom of the old, rotten mines of Golfodd. Then things get dark and dangerous...