Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado
Sir Walter Ralegh (the way he spelled it) was so much more than a promoter of tobacco--although he certainly did promote tobacco. He was so much more than a man who lay down his cloak so Queen Elizabeth I would not get her feet wet--a story which may or may not be true. He was a man from a poor background who rose almost as high as one could in Elizabethan England--and then fell about as low. Stunningly researched, brilliantly written, full of fascinating facts (did you know there were no maps of England that showed ROADS until the 1590s), this is young adult writing at its finest.

"Aronson's portrait of "the first modern man" is both provocative and tantalizing, revealing his subject as a person of canny wit and magnetism with all-too-human shortcomings. Age 11-up."
-- Publishers Weekly