Primary

"Bertha, Richard, and Eugen pushed a strange machine out of the shop and into the alley. They were sneaking away with Papa's invention!"

Bertha Benz is no ordinary woman. She's determined to show the world a revolutionary invention: the automobile.

With her two young boys, Bertha defies Germany's law against motor vehicles and sets out to drive nearly sixty miles in her husband's Benz Motorwagen. The vehicle hits many bumps in the road, but nothing can stop Bertha - she's fearless and resourceful, and a savvy hands-on mechanic.

When Ruth Bader was growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and 1040s, women were not encouraged to work outside the home or go to college. But Ruth loved to read and learn. She went to Cornell University, where men outnumbered women four to one. There she found her calling as a lawyer, a job where she felt she could make a difference in the world.

Back in the 1830s, who was a young blacksmith from Vermont, about to make his mark on American history? John Deere, that’s who!

Who moved to Illinois, where farmers were struggling to plow through the thick, rich soil they called gumbo? Who tinkered and tweaked and tested until he invented a steel plow that sliced into the prairie easy as you please?

Long before the first tractor, who changed farming forever? John Deere, that’s who!

Beautiful illustrations―including spectacular landscapes―reflect the time period and bring John Deere's remarkable story to life.