Understanding Your Legal Rights

By John Micklos, Jr.

Order in the court! What do free speech, due process, freedom of assembly, and search and seizure have to do with our legal rights? Using engaging, age-appropriate language and colorful photos, readers decipher our nation's complex legal system and understand their rights under the law.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543503333

John Micklos, Jr.

John Micklos, Jr. has written more than 50 children’s books spanning a wide range of ages and genres. His work includes picture books, poetry books, and numerous nonfiction books. Popular titles include One Leaf, Two Leaves, Count with Me! (Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books, 2017), which was chosen for inclusion in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program for multiple years. John’s other top-selling books include 125 True Stories of Amazing Pets (contributor) and 125 Cute Animals (contributor), both published by National Geographic Kids. He also has written dozens of biographies, history books, and social studies books for educational publishers such as Capstone and Cavendish Square. Biographies include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amelia Earhart, Alexander Graham Bell, Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali, Sequoyah, Geronimo, and others. History topics include the Revolutionary War (six-book series), Civil War, Challenger tragedy, Gold Rush, Lewis and Clark Expedition, and many others. A resident of Newark, Delaware, John enjoys visiting schools (in person or via Zoom) and conducting writing workshops with students of all ages. His presentations and workshops center on writing poetry, nonfiction, and persuasive pieces, as well as the art of research and revision, to name just a few. Learn more about John’s work at www.JohnMicklosWriter.com.

Book preview

Cover

Chapter 1

Founded on Freedom

Everybody in the United States has legal rights — even children. We receive our legal rights from the U.S. Constitution and laws passed by the federal and state government.

We haven’t always had the rights we have today. In the mid-1700s, Great Britain ruled America’s 13 colonies. The British made the laws.

The colonists had to pay increasingly high taxes to Great Britain but had no voice in the British government. The colonists protested and demanded the same rights as British citizens. They grew angrier. This eventually led to the Revolutionary War and America’s fight for its independence.

The Revolutionary War

In April 1775 fighting broke out between British troops and American colonists in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. This marked the first shots of the Revolutionary War. The war between the colonists and Great Britain raged for years. In 1783 Great Britain agreed to recognize America as an independent nation. The two sides signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the war.

an engraving