Biographies & Memoirs (50)

In this official autobiography from four-time Olympic gold-winning and record-setting American gymnast Simone Biles, Simone shares how her faith, family, passion, and perseverance against tremendous odds helped make her one of the top athletes and record-breaking gymnasts in the world - now with 25 world championship medals.

Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. In this installment, youth activist Hannah Testa, the founder of Hannah4Change, chronicles both her personal and political mission to save the Earth's oceans by limiting single-use plastic products.

Adapted for young adults from the award-winning adult edition, The Far Away Brothers is the inspiring true story of two teens making their way in America, a personal look at US immigration policy, and a powerful account of contemporary immigration.Ernesto and Raúl Flores are identical twins, used to being mistaken for each other. As seventeen-year-olds living in rural El Salvador, they are used to thinking that the United States is just a far-off dream. When Ernesto ends up on the wrong side of MS-13, one of El Salvador's brutal gangs, he flees the country for his own safety. Raúl, fearing that he will be mistaken for his brother, follows close behind.Running from one danger to the next, the Flores twins make the harrowing journey north, only to fall into the hands of immigration authorities. When they finally make it to the custody of their older brother in Oakland, California, the difficulties don't end.While navigating a new school in a new language, struggling to pay off their mounting coyote debt, and anxiously waiting for their day in immigration court, Raúl and Ernesto are also trying to lead normal teenage lives. With only each other for support, they begin the process of carving out a life for themselves, one full of hope and possibility.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus, sparking the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott. A year later, when the boycott finally ended, segregation on buses was ruled unconstitutional, the civil rights movement was a national cause, and Rosa Parks was out of a job. Yet there is much more to Rosa Park's story than just one act of defiance. In straightforward, moving language, she tells of her vital role in the struggle for equality for all Americans. Her dedication is inspiring and her story is unforgettable. 192 pages.

At only eight months old, identical twin sisters Ariel and Zan were diagnosed with Crouzon syndrome -- a rare condition where the bones in the head fuse prematurely. They were the first twins known to survive it.Growing up, Ariel and her sister endured numerous appearance-altering procedures. Surgeons would break the bones in their heads and faces to make room for their growing organs. While the physical aspect of their condition was painful, it was nothing compared to the emotional toll of navigating life with a facial disfigurement.Ariel explores beauty and identity in her young-adult memoir about resilience, sisterhood, and the strength it takes to put your life, and yourself, back together time and time again.

Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1942, the oldest of 13 children. When tragedy struck Iturbide as a young mother, she turned to photography for solace and understanding. From then on Iturbide embarked on a photographic journey that has taken her throughout her native Mexico, from the Sonora Desert to Juchitán to Frida Kahlo’s bathroom, to the United States, India, and beyond. Photographic is a symbolic, poetic, and deeply personal graphic biography of this iconic photographer. Iturbide's journey will excite readers of all ages as well as budding photographers, who will be inspired by her resolve, talent, and curiosity.

You’ve heard of the space race, but do you know the whole story?The most ambitious race humankind has ever undertaken was masterminded in the shadows by two engineers on opposite sides of the Cold War—Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi officer living in the US, and Sergei Korolev, a Russian rocket designer once jailed for crimes against his country—and your textbooks probably never told you.Von Braun became an American hero, recognized the world over, while Korolev toiled in obscurity. These two brilliant rocketeers never met, but together they shaped the science of spaceflight and redefined modern warfare. From Stalin’s brutal Gulag prisons and Hitler’s concentration camps to Cape Canaveral and beyond, their simultaneous quests pushed science—and human ingenuity—to the breaking point.From Amy Cherrix comes the extraordinary hidden story of the space race and the bitter rivalry that launched humankind to the moon.

In this adaptation of his best-selling book, The Heart and the Fist, Eric speaks directly to teens, interweaving memoir and intimate second-person narratives that ask readers to put themselves in the shoes of himself and others. Readers will share in Eric’s evolution from average kid to humanitarian to warrior, training and serving with the most elite military outfit in the world. Along the way, they’ll be asked to consider the power of choices, of making the decision each and every day to act with courage and compassion so that they grow to be tomorrow’s heroes.

Astronaut. Empress. Apache Warrior. Throughout history and across the globe, one characteristic connects the daring women of Brazen: their indomitable spirit. Against overwhelming adversity, these remarkable women raised their voices and changed history.With her one-of-a-kind wit and dazzling drawings, Penelope Bagieu profiles the lives of these feisty female role models, some world-famous, some little-known. From Nellie Bly to Mae Jemison or Josephine Baker to Naziq al-Abid, their stories are sure to inspire the next generation of rebel ladies.

In 1945, in a now-famous piece of archival footage, four-year-old Michael Bornstein was filmed by Soviet soldiers as he was carried out of Auschwitz in his grandmother’s arms. Survivors Club tells the unforgettable story of how a father’s courageous wit, a mother’s fierce love, and one perfectly timed illness saved his life, and how others in his family from Zarki, Poland, dodged death at the hands of the Nazis time and again with incredible deftness. Working from his own recollections as well as extensive interviews with relatives and survivors who knew the family, Michael relates his inspirational story with the help of his daughter, Debbie Bornstein Holinstat. Shocking, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, this narrative nonfiction offers an indelible depiction of what happened to one Polish village in the wake of the German invasion in 1939.

The definitive collection of art, poetry, and prose, celebrating fat acceptanceChubby. Curvy. Fluffy. Plus-size. Thick. Fat.The time has come for fat people to tell their own stories. The (Other) F Word combines the voices of Renée Watson, Julie Murphy, Jes Baker, Samantha Irby, Bruce Sturgell, and more in a relatable and gift-worthy guide about body image and fat acceptance. This dazzling collection of art, poetry, essays, and fashion tips is meant for people of all sizes who desire to be seen and heard in a culture consumed by a narrow definition of beauty. By combining the talents of renowned fat YA and middle-grade authors, as well as fat influencers and creators, The (Other) F Word offers teen readers and activists of all ages a tool for navigating our world with confidence and courage.

Michelle Obama’s worldwide bestselling memoir, Becoming, is now adapted for young readers.Michelle Robinson was born on the South Side of Chicago. From her modest beginnings, she would become Michelle Obama, the inspiring and powerful First Lady of the United States, when her husband, Barack Obama, was elected the forty-fourth president. They would be the first Black First Family in the White House and serve the country for two terms.Growing up, Michelle and her older brother, Craig, shared a bedroom in their family’s upstairs apartment in her great-aunt’s house. Her parents, Fraser and Marian, poured their love and energy into their children. Michelle’s beloved dad taught his kids to work hard, keep their word, and remember to laugh. Her mom showed them how to think for themselves, use their voice, and be unafraid.But life soon took her far from home. With determination, carefully made plans, and the desire to achieve, Michelle was eager to expand the sphere of her life from her schooling in Chicago. She went to Princeton University, where she learned what it felt like to be the only Black woman in the room. She then went to Harvard Law School, and after graduating returned to Chicago and became a high-powered lawyer. Her plans changed, however, when she met and fell in love with Barack Obama.From her early years of marriage, and the struggle to balance being a working woman, a wife, and the mom of two daughters, Michelle Obama details the shift she made to political life and what her family endured as a result of her husband’s fast-moving political career and campaign for the presidency. She shares the glamour of ball gowns and world travel, and the difficulties of comforting families after tragedies. She managed to be there for her daughters’ swim competitions and attend plays at their schools without catching the spotlight, while defining and championing numerous initiatives, especially those geared toward kids, during her time as First Lady.Most important, this volume for young people is an honest and fascinating account of Michelle Obama’s life led by example. She shares her views on how all young people can help themselves as well as help others, no matter their status in life. She asks readers to realize that no one is perfect, and that the process of becoming is what matters, as finding yourself is ever evolving. In telling her story with boldness, she asks young readers: Who are you, and what do you want to become?

Uncle Tom's Cabin truly changed history. One of the bestselling books of all time, the heart-wrenching story of Eliza Harris and Uncle Tom not only exposed the horrors of slavery to a national audience but also helped bring about the Civil War. Today, 150 years after it was first published, the gripping realism of the heart-racing narrative still drives readers to question what it means to be human.

Sophia's parents are not who they say they are.Sophia has lived all over the world because of her parents' work. Now going to high school in Central America, she rads a letter she was never meant to see and learns the stunning truth: Her parents are leading double lives. As Sophia struggles to untangle the web of lies that ensnares her, she begins to question everything she knows about her life, her family, and herself.Here is the astonishing true story of a teenage with something to hide.

From National Book Award Finalist Albert Marrin comes the moving story of Janusz Korczak, the heroic Polish Jewish doctor who devoted his life to children, perishing with them in the Holocaust.Janusz Korczak was more than a good doctor. He was a hero. The Dr. Spock of his day, he established orphanages run on his principle of honoring children and shared his ideas with the public in books and on the radio. He famously said that "children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today." Korczak was a man ahead of his time, whose work ultimately became the basis for the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child.Korczak was also a Polish Jew on the eve of World War II. He turned down multiple opportunities for escape, standing by the children in his orphanage as they became confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. Dressing them in their Sabbath finest, he led their march to the trains and ultimately perished with his children in Treblinka.But this book is much more than a biography. In it, renowned nonfiction master Albert Marrin examines not just Janusz Korczak's life but his ideology of children: that children are valuable in and of themselves, as individuals. He contrasts this with Adolf Hitler's life and his ideology of children: that children are nothing more than tools of the state.And throughout, Marrin draws readers into the Warsaw Ghetto. What it was like. How it was run. How Jews within and Poles without responded. Who worked to save lives and who tried to enrich themselves on other people's suffering. And how one man came to represent the conscience and the soul of humanity.Filled with black-and-white photographs, this is an unforgettable portrait of a man whose compassion in even the darkest hours reminds us what is possible.