Showing titles in Biographies

Growing pains are an essential part of teenage life, for better and for worse. Some “mistakes” turn into positive, life-changing experiences, and some apparent triumphs seem, in retrospect, like low points. Some first kisses leave you feeling on top of the world, and others can make you want to hide under a rock. In Dear Teen Me, your favorite YA authors - including Lauren Oliver, Ellen Hopkins, Tom Angleberger, and Carrie Jones - revisit critical moments from their young lives....

Once you have read about Chris Crutcher's life as a dateless, broken-toothed, scabbed-over, God-fearing dweeb, and once you have contemplated his ascension to the buckskin-upholstered throne of the King of the Mild Frontier, you will close this book, close your eyes and hold it to your chest, and say, "I, too, can be an author." Hell, anyone can.

Known as the "Mahatma" or "Great Soul," Gandhi is one of history's best-known spiritual leaders. Through a campaign of nonviolence developed through devotion to Hindu ideals, Gandhi brought world attention to the fight for India's independence from Great Britain. This is an informative introduction to his life, written for all readers. The book is published by Chelsea House Publishers, a leading educational publisher.

As one of the most important and influential leaders of America's civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., became the catalyst for change in a nation marked by segregation and discrimination. Unlike the civil rights activists who argued for a violent response to segregation and prejudice, King believed that peaceful resistance could bring about great change.

An informative introduction to the life of Cleopatra. For more than 2,000 years, plays, poetry, movies, and television have portrayed Cleopatra as an ambitious woman who used her beauty to seduce powerful men like Julius Caesar and Mark Antony in a ruthless attempt to increase her own power and wealth. But is this the real Cleopatra, or one invented by male historians anxious to discredit an intelligent, competent woman who was the last great pharaoh of Egypt?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is an informative introduction to the life of this remarkable woman. The former first lady and Yale Law graduate was destined for political life. Hillary Rodham Clinton brought her intelligence and drive to numerous projects during her husband's presidency in the 1990s. In 2000, she campaigned for the U.S. Senate as a representative from New York. Her win made her the first first lady to be elected to the Senate following her husband's presidency.

Beethoven era un genio sordo que vivia como cualquier mortal. La vida de Beethoven está llena de detalles curiosos. Fue de los músicos más grandes y admirados de todos los tiempos. Sus avances en el dominio del piano le llevaron a dar su primer concierto a los 8 años.

Mother Teresa is an informative introduction to the famous Catholic nun. Mother Teresa is one of the most admired Nobel laureates of all time. Born in Eastern Europe of Albanian parents, she became a Catholic missionary nun in India when she was still a teenager. After teaching in a convent school in Calcutta for nearly two decades, in 1946 she claimed that she heard God calling her to live and work among "the poorest of the poor" in that city's slums.

Isabel Allende is an informative introduction to the distinguished author. Isabel Allende, one of the world's most widely read Latin American writers, is a Chilean novelest who, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was strongly influenced by her grandparents. Her vivid fiction, such as The House of the Spirits, blends realism with magical elements and spotlights political and often feminist concerns.

Blaze Ginsberg offers a unique view into his mind and life as a high functioning autistic teenager. Inspired by the format of the Internet Movie Database, Ginsberg organizes the events in his life as a collection of "episodes." Some of these are ongoing (like Thanksgiving dinners with his family), some are in syndication, and some (his crush on Hillary Duff, for example) have sadly come to an end. Using a style and a language all his own, Blaze reinvents the traditional memoir for listeners of all ages.

The drive-in is dying. People can blame the demise on cable television, luxury theaters with sound systems so technical NASA engineers are needed to install them, or on a host of other modern conveniences and distractions. In reality, the drive-in operator of the Sulpher Springs Big-Screen Drive-In Theater hired a young Donald Davis to work his high school summers there.

These stories of growing up in Appalachia in the 1950s are funny and true, nostalgic and bittersweet.

From the perspective of the young adult he was then, Francisco Jiménez describes the challenges he faced in his efforts to continue his education. During his college years, the very family solidarity that allowed Francisco to survive as a child is tested. Not only must he leave his family behind when he goes to Santa Clara University, but while Francisco is there, his father abandons the family and returns to Mexico.

At the age of 14, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for 20 hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice.

Seldom given the credit she deserves, Sacajawea is one of America's true heroines. Without her help, the Lewis and Clark Expedition would never have crossed the Rockies and reached the Pacific Northwest - and the course of U.S. history would have been changed forever. Master Western storyteller Neta Frazier, author of The Stout-Hearted Seven: Orphaned on the Oregon Trail, tells the story of this courageous Native American.

For Chelsey, death was unthinkable. When her only surviving parent, her beloved father, was violently murdered days before her 14th birthday, Chelsey's life was forever changed. As she was forced to come to terms with a new home life, a new school...a new identity as an orphan, Chelsey struggled to make sense of her personal tragedy. Yet she found a way to flourish despite all the odds.

Marni pulls. Pulls her hair, that is.Unable to deal with the mounting stress at home, in school, and with friends, Marni's compulsion to pluck out her eyebrows, eyelashes, even the hair from the top of her head, helped her to quiet her mind and escape the pressures of the world around her. Marni first began pulling the summer just before entering high school, and she was immediately hooked.

Newbery Medal winner Armstrong Sperry has such an affinity for life on the high seas that his readers will imagine themselves right beside the bold John Paul Jones, luring enemy craft into danger and engaging them in close combat. Jones, a talented young captain, became an invaluable figure in America's fight for independence when he offered his sailing skills to the Continental Navy.

Emily's the sick one . . . all of the time.

Plagued with some sort of cold or fever or bizarre aches and pains for much of her life, Emily thought the dizziness and stomachaches at the start of her senior year were just another bout of "Emily flu". But when they didn't go away, she knew something was seriously wrong. Eventually diagnosed with the rare and incurable West Nile virus, Emily watched her senior year and the future she had planned for go up in smoke.

She's 17. She's been abused. She has a child. And she's HIV-positive. She is Ana, and this is her story. It begins the day she is born infected with HIV, transmitted from her young mother. Now she barely remembers her mama, who died when Ana was only three. From then on, Ana's childhood becomes a blur of faint memories and secrets: secrets about her illness and about the abuse she endures.