"Keeper of the Lost Cities" 8-Book Giveaway

For A Mighty Girl's new book giveaway, you can win all eight books in the magical, bestselling Keeper of the Lost Cities series! 12-year-old Sophie always knew she was different and had never met anyone quite like her – until one day she encounters a mysterious boy who Sophie discovers can also read minds. The existence of other telepaths is only the first of Fitz's shocking revelations: it turns out that Sophie isn't even human after all but an elf from another world that parallels our own and she's in terrible danger. Forced to leave the human world behind, Sophie must start a new life in the Lost Cities of the elves. But as she dives deeper into the hidden agendas and schemes of the Lost Cities, she discovers that the future of her new world – and the safety of the human one she left behind – may rest in her hands. In this riveting 8-book series starring a courageous and clever Mighty Girl, author Sharon Messenger has created a thrilling world of magic, mystery, and adventure hiding just beneath the surface of our real one!

Thanks to its publisher Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, three A Mighty Girl supporters will each receive a Keeper of the Lost Cities prize package, including a hardcover edition of the eighth book in the series, Legacy; paperback editions of books 1 to 7; and a Keeper of the Lost Cities-themed button, print, mirror, and t-shirt. With apologies to our many non-US-based supporters, due to legal restrictions, the giveaway is only open to US residents. The last day to enter is Wednesday, June 17 at 12 pm EST.

To sign up for our Keeper of the Lost Cities giveaway, visit the Giveaway Entry Page.

Susie King Taylor: First Black Army Nurse of the Civil War

When Susie King Taylor was born into slavery in 1848, it was illegal to educate African Americans in Georgia but she learned to read and write at a young age thanks to a secret school. After she fled to Union-controlled St. Simons Island during the U.S. Civil War, her talents brought her to the attention of Union officers who asked the teenager if she would organize a school if they could obtain books and materials. She gladly agreed and, at age 14, Taylor became the first black teacher for freed African-Americans at a freely operating school in Georgia. She taught 40 children in a day school and, as she wrote in her memoir, "a number of adults who came to me nights, all of them so eager to learn to read, to read above anything else."

Soon after, she married Edward King, an African-American non-commissioned officer stationed there with the First South Carolina Volunteers of African Descent. When the island was evacuated in 1862, she opted to follow his regiment as a nurse. For three years, she served as an unpaid nurse for the regiment, and taught many black soldiers to read and write in their off-duty hours. After the war was over, Taylor and her husband returned to Savannah, Georgia where she established another school for freed African-American children. Sadly, her husband died shortly afterward, and the opening of a free school nearby forced Taylor to close hers. Seeking new opportunities, she traveled to Boston as the domestic servant of a wealthy family and remarried in 1879.

More than ten years later – and over thirty years after the end of the Civil War – she wrote one of the most detailed memoirs ever written by a woman about life in a Civil War camp. Her memoir, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers, was also the only memoir ever written by an African-American woman about her experience during the Civil War. In it, Taylor emphasized the important role of black troops, as well as the often unrecognized role that women played during the Civil War: "There were loyal women, as well as men, in those days who did not fear the shell or the shot, who cared for the sick and the dying."

Susie King Taylor's memoir is still in print and available for order. To introduce children to her heroic story, we recommend Memoir of Susie King Taylor: A Civil War Nurse for ages 9 to 12.

Taylor's Civil War contributions are also recounted in the excellent book about 16 women who made a mark during the war, Courageous Women of the Civil War, for teens and adults, 12 and up.