The Papers We Carried

Washington is burning, and fourteen-year-old Clara Avery is carrying papers too important to leave behind.In August 1814, war still feels distant to Clara: something for newspapers, soldiers, and faraway roads. Then British troops march on Washington, D.C., and her father, a careful government clerk, hands her a packet of papers that must not be lost.With the capital in flames, Clara must make her way through smoke-filled halls, hidden passages, and crowded roads, never sure whom she can trust. Alongside a sharp-witted kitchen girl, a rigid clerk forced to rethink everything, and her wounded father, she learns that courage isn't the absence of fear. It's holding on to what matters even when your hands are shaking.The Papers We Carried is Book 2 of Through My Own Eyes, a historical fiction series that brings real events to life through the eyes of the young people who lived them.