New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient Steve Sheinkin gives young readers the causes and curses that divided America into Union and Confederate nations in Two Miserable Presidents: The Amazing, Terrible, and Totally True Story of the Civil War, illustrated by Tim Robinson.

A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year
A Beacon of Freedom Award Winner

Get the feeling something big is about to happen? Welcome to the Civil War-one of the scariest, saddest, and occasionally wackiest stories in American History.

1856: Northern and Southern settlers attack each other in Kansas.
1858: Congressmen start sneaking guns and knives into the Senate chamber.
1860: President James Buchanan is heard wailing, "I am the last president of the United States!"

Unraveling a very complicated string of events--the small things, the personal ones, the big issues--Steve Sheinkin takes readers behind the scenes that led to The Civil War. It is a time and a war that threatened America's very existence, revealed in the surprising true stories of the soldiers and statesmen who battled it out.

"Chatty and accessible, this book does double duty: it introduces Civil War history for readers who don't know much about it and supplies browsable commentary for those familiar with the big picture...Beginning with a look at the role cotton played in the history, his fast-paced narrative is broken into short, tersely titled vignettes...The horrors of slavery and battlefield slaughter are clear, as are achievements of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and many more." -Booklist

Also by Steve Sheinkin:

Bomb: The Race to Build-and Steal-the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights
Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team
Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War
Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion
King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution
Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America