Showing results for "The Book" in Biographical Fiction

Growing up in 19th-century London, England, Ada is curious about absolutely everything. She is obsessed with machines and with creatures that fly. She even designs her own flying laboratory! According to her mother, Ada is a bit too wild, so she encourages Ada to study math. At first, Ada thinks: bleh! Who can get excited about a subject without pictures? But she soon falls in love with it. One day, she encounters a mysterious machine, and from that moment forward, Ada imagines a future full of possibility - one that will eventually inspire the digital age nearly 200 years later.

Wangari lives in the lush, green land of rural Kenya, where the soil is perfect for planting, the trees tower into the sky and the streams are full of mysterious creatures. All day, she plays beneath her favourite fig tree, and at night, she gathers around the fire with her family to listen to her mother's stories. Then Wangari grows up and goes away to school, and things start changing at home. Farmers chop down the trees. Landslides bury the stream. The soil becomes overworked and dry, and nothing will grow. People go hungry.

Alicia was born to dance. From the moment she slips on pointe shoes for the first time, she’s determined to become a professional ballerina. A few years later, Alicia moves from Cuba to the United States to follow her dreams. Then, Alicia begins to lose her sight. How can a ballerina dance if she can’t see where she’s going? Stuck in bed and only able to practice with her fingertips, Alicia doesn’t give up. She finds a way to get back on stage, dancing into the hearts of audiences as one of the world’s most famous prima ballerinas.

Sarah is the first person in her family who wasn’t born into slavery in Delta, Louisiana. But being free doesn’t mean that Sarah doesn’t have to work. She cooks, she cleans, she picks cotton, she does laundry and she babysits. And when she works, she wraps up her hair. One day, Sarah’s hair starts to fall out! It’s itchy, crunchy, patchy and won’t grow. Instead of giving up, Sarah searches for the right products. And then she invents something better than any shampoo or hair oil she’s used before.

Junko is bad at athletics. Really bad. Other students laugh because they think she is small and weak. Then her teacher takes the class on a trip to a mountain. It’s bigger than any Junko’s ever seen, but she is determined to make it to the top. Ganbatte, her teacher tells her. Do your best. After that first trip, Junko becomes a mountaineer in body and spirit. She climbs snowy mountains, rocky mountains and even faraway mountains outside of her home country of Japan.

Berlin is where Anna lived before Hitler, when she was still a German child; before she spoke a word of English, before her family had all become refugees. Long before her happy new existence in London. But Mama is there, dangerously ill. Anna is forced to go back, to deal with questions of life and death, to face old fears, and to discover the past which she has so long shut away.

After facing a flamethrowing Little League hurler, 13-year-old “Stosh” Stoshack time-travels back to 1942 to join Satchel on an unforgettable road trip to the Negro League World Series. With nobody out and the series on the line, Stosh watches as Old Satch intentionally walks three straight batters, waves all but his catcher off the field, and then challenges the best hitter in baseball.

It's not easy growing up as an only child in the only funeral home in town, especially when your parents suck every dime out of every living and dead soul that comes through the door. Kids at school think I'm creepy, unclean—okay, that's kind of my fault, but hey, it was an accident. Lesson learned: never give a girl a tour of the crematory and prep-room when Mom and Dad are gone, no matter what she promises.

When pirates attacked her town and the captain took a liking to her, she saw a way out. Zheng Yi Sao agreed to marry him only if she got an equal share of his business. When her husband died six years later, she took command of the fleet. Over the next decade, the pirate queen built a fleet of over 1,800 ships and 70,000 men. On land and sea, Zheng Yi Sao's power rivaled the emperor himself. Time and again, her ships triumphed over the emperor's ships.

Born of Mohawk and Cayuga descent, musical icon Robbie Robertson learned the story of Hiawatha and his spiritual guide, the Peacemaker, as part of the Iroquois oral tradition. Now he shares the same gift of storytelling with a new generation. Hiawatha was a strong and articulate Mohawk who was chosen to translate the Peacemaker's message of unity for the five warring Iroquois nations during the 14th century.

In 1939 the Nazis invade Lodz, Poland, forcing four-year-old Syvia Perlmutter and 270,000 other Jews into a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed men. Scared and confused, Syvia and the others have no idea how terrible their lives will soon be.

It's the day before the big parade. Alta can think about only one thing: Wilma Rudolph, three-time Olympic gold medalist. She'll be riding on a float tomorrow. See, Alta is the quickest kid in Clarksville, Tennessee, just like Wilma once was. It doesn't matter that Alta's shoes have holes because Wilma came from hard times, too. But what happens when a new girl with shiny new shoes comes along and challenges Alta to a race? Will she still be the quickest kid?

Melvin is an imaginative and noisy little boy who grows up to be Mel Blanc, Looney Tunes cartoon character pioneer and the voice behind Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker, the Tasmanian Devil, and so many more familiar personalities. Listeners are treated to a typical day for young Melvin, when ordinary tasks like getting ready for school, riding the bus, and completing his chores are charged with sound effects and accompanied by his own personal soundtrack.

Aspiring writer Aggie Morton is ready to enjoy a trip to a Yorkshire spa, where her widowed mother can take the waters and recover from a long mourning period. Having solved yet another murder and faced extreme peril with her best friend, Hector, over Christmas, Aggie’s Morbid Preoccupation is on alert when rumors abound about the spa's recently deceased former patient...and then another body appears under mysterious circumstances. Aggie and Hector take a closer look at the guests and staff of the Wellspring Hotel, and venture into the intriguing world of the local undertaker.

Dan Gutman has won a wide and growing audience among young readers, who have eagerly devoured all the books in the sports-loving author’s Baseball Card Adventure series. In Ted & Me, time-traveling Stosh has finally been found out by the FBI. Tasked with using his Ted Williams card to go back to 1941 to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor, Stosh also seizes on the chance to help the Splendid Splinter add even more home runs to his already legendary tally.

"Apples, ho!" This delectable tale is a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. Daddy has uprooted the family to move to Oregon—but not without his babies—apples, peaches, pears, plums, grapes, and cherries! Will Daddy's precious plants persevere? This tall tale is loosely based on a real-life fruit pioneer who brought his fruit trees along on the Oregon Trail.

Old Man Hawkins was a larger-than-life character among deer hunters, or, more precisely, among tellers and hearers of tall tales. His self-proclaimed method of hunting deer by holding a mirror in one hand and his rifle in the other, pointing backward over a shoulder, was, he said, "to be fair to the deer". It was a story, Davis tells us, that would occupy his father on the drive to Grandma's house.

In 43 CE Roman conquest of Britannia seems all but certain - until a chance meeting between King Prasutagus of the Iceni and a runaway slave of royal decent from the Aedui tribe in Gaul changes the fate of the British islands forever. Rise up for liberty with the true story of Boudicca: Britain's Queen of the Iceni and discover one of the most inspiring stories in history!

What if Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony sat down over tea to reminisce about their extraordinary lives? What would they recall of their triumphs and struggles as they fought to achieve civil rights for African Americans and equal rights for women? And what other historical figures played parts in their stories?

Sam Kerr is an Aussie Rules fan through and through. When she’s excluded from her team she doesn’t know what to do. Netball? No thanks. Chess? Bleugh. Her best friends Dylan and Indi think she should flip from Aussie Rules to soccer – and it doesn’t seem so bad at first. The coach is okay. The team seems nice enough.... But with Chelsea the school bully on her case and the pressure of learning new rules weighing her down, will it all be too much? Will Sam give up – or will she make the flip?