Michael L. Cooper

Photograph by Sam Luna, Washington, D.C.

Upcoming Books

Viking will publish a young adult biography of Theodore Roosevelt in its Up Close series in 2009. The 196 page biography focuses on Roosevelt's remarkable personal life as well as on his extraordinary political career.

National Geographic will publish Dead Men Do Tell Tales in 2010. This nonfiction book is about the trial in 1850 of Professor John Webster who was convicted of murdering Dr. George Parkman in Boston, MA. It was the first criminal trial in the United States where the prosecution relied extensively on forensic evidence to win a conviction.

Recent Books

Hero of the High Seas: John Paul Jones and the American Revolution (National Geographic Books, 2007)

Jamestown 1607 (Holiday House Books, 2007)

Previous Books

DUST TO EAT: DROUGHT AND DEPRESSION IN THE 1930s
(Clarion/Houghton Mifflin 2004)

REMEMBERING MANZANAR: LIFE IN A JAPANESE AMERICAN RELOCATION CAMP (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, 2002).
*Carter Woodson Award for the Best Children’s Book of 2003 on ethnicity in American history; the National Council for the Social Studies.
*2003 CCBC Choices List.
*A Notable Children Books in Social Studies.

SLAVE SPIRITUALS AND THE JUBILEE SINGERS (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, 2001).

FIGHTING FOR HONOR: JAPANESE AMERICANS AND WORLD WAR II (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, 2000).
*A Notable Children Books in Social Studies.
*Books for the Teen Age, New York Public Library.

INDIAN SCHOOL: LEARNING THE WHITE MAN'S WAY (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, 1999)

Klondike Fever: The Famous Gold Rush of 1898

Racing Sled Dogs: An Original North American Sport

BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LODESTAR / E .P. DUTTON

Double V Campaign: African Americans and World War II

Hell Fighters: African Americans in World War I

Bound for the Promised Land: The Great Black Migration

From Slave to Civil War Hero: The Life and Times
of Robert Smalls

Playing America's Game: The Story of Negro League
Baseball

(The publisher closed the Lodestar imprint and these books are out of print, but used copies are available on the Web.)

AWARDS

Golden Kite Award for Best Nonfiction Children’s Book of 2004 from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) for Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, 2004).

Special Award for Young Readers from the Colonial Dames of America for Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, 2004).

Capital Choices 2005, Dust to Eat:Drought and Depression in the 1930s (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, 2004).

Carter Woodson Award for the Best Children’s Book of 2003 on ethnicity; the National Council for the Social Studies for Remembering Manzanar: Life in a Japanese American Relocation Camp (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, 2002).

RECENT SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators annual conference.
National Council for the Social Studies annual conference.
Baltimore Children's Literacy Jamboree.
Children’s Book and Author Showcase, Frostburg, MD.
Saint Patrick’s Episcopal Day School, Washington, DC. Abington Friends School, Philadelphia, PA.
St. Albans School, Washington, DC.
Union College, Silver Spring, MD.
Queens College, New York, NY.
Timber Lane Elementary School, Falls Church, VA.
Walden School, Louisville, KY.
Washington (DC) Independent Writers annual conference.