Children take center-stage in four new non-fictions; two recount children's roles over time and two focus on specific periods. Putting children in the middle of history is an instant draw, but true success means the authors must juggle historical accuracy with audience accessibility.

Phillip Hoose pulls it off without a hitch! His We Were There, Too! Young People in U.S. History (FSG, $26.00; ages 9 and up) , was a well-chosen National Book Award finalist. It was conceived when a child told him, "We're not taught about younger people who have made a difference. Studying history almost makes you feel like you're not a real person." Hoose soon discovered, "if you scratch the surface of any major event in U.S. history, young people are everywhere."

His book is a gargantuan undertaking. He describes the tales and times of over sixty influential children, from twelve-year- old Diego Bermudez, who sailed with Columbus, to fifteen-year-old Mary Fister, an active member of Nation One, a global network of young people working for social justice. With children as his focus, Hoose avoids limits of color, country and social status, and comes up with an unbiased, seamless, vivid history. His writing is compelling and he places events and people in dramatic context. Illustrations, pictures, maps and photographs are scattered throughout the book as well as small blue boxes with the kind of trivia children enjoy.

Tonya Bolden takes on a similar mission in her Tell All the Children Our Story: Memories and Mementos of Being Young and Black in America (Abrams, $24.05; ages 9 and up) . The book is a satisfying historical collage of images and words from slave trade to 20th century. The author summarizes periods of time with a balance of fact, emotion and lyricism. She begins, "Only the ocean knows how many children and adults perished during the Middle Passage: that horrendous thirty- to ninety-day journey to the Americas.." These voids of knowledge continue through the book, each highlighting historical inequities and her attempts to give a balanced picture.

Few pages pass without some kind of illustration to add explanation and emotion to the text. A 1864 photo of two young black children shows their condition. They appear in ripped, ragged clothes with bare feet and haunted eyes. There's tenderness in way the older child's protective arm wraps around the younger's shoulder. Also illustrative are the stories of individuals threaded through the telling and introduced in boxed narrative bits where figures are shown through their own words; children like enslaved musical child prodigy Thomas Greene and Paul Robeson who reflects on his father's escape from slavery.

Warren's first book, Orphan Train Rider:One Boy's True Story (Houghton Mifflin) won thirteen awards and fueled her desire to capture more first-hand experiences of Orphan Train passengers. In We Rode the Orphan Train she interviews seven riders who are now between 70- 90 years old. Again, story is the secret of Andrea Warren's We Rode the Orphan Train (Houghton Mifflin, $18.00; ages 9 and up) .

Warren begins with an introductory chapter describing how an estimated 200,000 American orphans were "placed out" by the Children's Aid Society of New York City and traveled west to find new homes. Her introduction is anecdotal as she draws on the remembrances of the founders and directors. The overview allows the author an opportunity to touch on the wrenching separation of siblings, children adopted as laborers, and others who were "physically, emotionally, and sexually abused."

In relating stories, Warren does not soften the difficult transitions and backgrounds of these orphans. Six-year-old twins, Nettie and Nellie were first placed with a sadistic woman and only removed after sixteen months. Ruth Hickock's background of poverty, abuse and depravation was echoed in her first placement, but she finally found loving parents and a full plate she didn't have to shield from the "long fingers" she'd defended against in institutional homes.

The stories are sometimes heart-warming, sometimes heart-breaking, and mostly positive in presentation. Warren's tone is honest, but her interview subjects seem reticent to talk about the horrific parts of their past. Instead, they speak about being teased by peers and wondering about their places in the world. There emerges from these individual stories common themes which give an emotional context for this historical happening. The book's many black and white photos capture the emotions of these orphaned children, from wistfulness and worry to the self-confidence and happiness of later years. The themes of vulnerability and need for family gain relevance when the author likens the orphans to today's foster children who learn "that "family' can transcend biology, that strangers can learn to love each other, and that their bonds as family can be strong and true."

G. Clifton Wisler, the author of When Johnny Went Marching: Young Americans Fight The Civil War (HarperCollins, $18.95; ages 10 and up) , gathers sketches of forty-nine young people who faced war time horrors. In some chapters, Wisler unites short biographies into common themes like drummer boys, those who got around age restrictions, and immigrants who fought. His more successful profiles are those that devote several pages to one individual, like 17 year-old Belle Boyd who became a Confederate celebrity because of her spying talents.

While these short profiles make a cumulative impact, the depth of the other books were missing in this volume and lack of story is part of the reason. For the most part, Wisler's children are introduced in terms of the war, little is told about their growing up years, and few details are given to develop them. Sometimes, the accompanying black and white photographs are more poignant than the stories themselves. This is a book led by ideas, rather than people and while it lacks the emotional tone of the other books, it will please Civil War buffs.

The more successful three books lead with story, present dynamic and engaging characters, reveal dramatic contexts and events, provide lots of visuals and are written in a style that brings long-ago closer and reveals children's power to change the world .

Short Take: For younger history buffs, two of the Pleasant Company characters act as wonderful tour guides of the past. An interactive scrapbook takes you on a turn-of-the-19th-century cruise with Samantha's Ocean Liner Adventure ($15.95, ages 7-10) and the depression era is crammed with kid-centered trivia and loads of pictures in Welcome to Kit's World: 1934: Growing Up During America's Great Depression ($16.95; ages 8 and up)