Showing titles in Biographies

In curiously parallel lives, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were both orphaned at an early age. Both were brilliant students who attended college--one at Princeton, the other at Columbia--and studied law. Both were young staff officers under General George Washington, and both became war...

Two new Appalachian stories from the author of the award winning Listening for the Crack of Dawn; an ideal introduction to contemporary storytelling for adults. Both stories are based upon real people. In the first, a disastrous birthday enables a child to learn more than an adult possibly could. In the second, two unusual people live their conviction that people are more important than things.

From the award-winning author of Marching for Freedom comes a turbulent novel, told from the point of view of the brave American and Vietnamese men and women who fought, healed, and lived through the seemingly endless Vietnam War. “A necessary, conscientious look at a factious time in American...

Do You Know: A good reason to be phobic about oysters and olives? That you can step inside a roaring coal furnace and feet cool? That Jesus had an older brother? How shutting your mouth can help you avoid brain surgery? How to avoid cow-pies during your baptism? How to survive...

Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

Straight from police blotters across the country, The Stupid Crook Book chronicles idiotic criminals and their foiled attempts to turn a quick buck or cause general mischief. In this hilarious volume, witness stories about dopey crooks such as: A former convict robs a bar to get cash to feed his drug habit. Unfortunately, he lives above the bar in question, and the victim of his crime - his landlord! A man is stopped for speeding in Oklahoma and pleads with the officer not to give him a ticket, IF he finds drugs in the car.

In this unsparing exploration of one of the most powerful Americans of the 20th century, accomplished historian Marc Aronson unmasks the man behind the Bureau: his tangled family history and personal relationships; his own need for secrecy, deceit, and control; and the broad trends in American society that shaped his world. Hoover may have given America the security it wanted, but the secrets he knew gave him—and the Bureau—all the power he wanted.

Muhammad Ali's considerable skills as a boxer earned him the world heavyweight championship, a title that he lost and regained twice. But it was the force of his personality and his unwavering personal convictions that made him a lightning rod of the turbulent 1960s and elevated him to the status of the most recognized, controversial, and admired athlete in the world.

In the hills of Appalachia, humor and wisdom are mixed up forever in funny, wise stories that seem to grow more lustrous with each telling. Here are two of the best: "Uncle Frank Invents the Electron Microphone", Appalachian folk wisdom rolled into one of Davis' funniest stories; "Uncle Frank and the Crown Feed Boys", Davis' legendary Uncle Frank teaches a couple of traveling salesmen the lesson of their lives.

Gary Soto writes that when he was five "what I knew best was at ground level." In this lively collection of short essays, Soto takes his listener to a ground-level perspective, recreating in vivid detail the sights, sounds, smells, and textures he knew growing up in his Fresno, California, neighborhood. The "things" of his boyhood tie it all together: his Buddha "splotched with gold", the taps of his shoes, and the "engines of sparks that lived beneath my soles", his worn tennies smelling of "summer grass, asphalt, the moist sock breathing the defeat of baseball". The child’s world is made up of small things - small, very important things.

On a bitter cold day in January 1741 Benedict Arnold was born. Little did anyone know that he would grow up to become the most infamous villain in American history. But first, he would be one of the country’s greatest war heroes. Fearless in the line of fire, a genius at strategy and...

NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author James Swanson delivers a riveting account of the chase for Abraham Lincoln's assassin. Based on rare archival material, obscure trial manuscripts, and interviews with relatives of the conspirators and the manhunters, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER is a fast-paced thriller about the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth: a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia.

Donald Davis was born into a southern Appalachian mountain world rich in stories. He grew up listening to his father and his Uncle Frank tell stories of their boyhood, all the while taking in the details of his own childhood experience.

In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer desperate for adventure, college cash, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners...

Teen advocate and trailblazer Jazz Jennings—named one of “The 25 Most Influential Teens” of the year by Time—shares her very public transgender journey, as she inspires people to accept the differences in others while they embrace their own truths. “[Jazz’s] touching book serves as a...

In this “superb history” (The Wall Street Journal), award-winning author Candace Fleming tells the extraordinary true story of Russia’s last royal family—and transports readers back to a time when both a bloodline and an empire came tumbling down. “Has all the elements of a fictional...

IRENE GUT WAS just 17 in 1939, when the Germans and Russians devoured her native Poland. Just a girl, really. But a girl who saw evil and chose to defy it. “No matter how many Holocaust stories one has read, this one is a must, for its impact is so powerful.”—School Library Journal...

In his award-winning young-adult book on the Kennedy assassination, James Swanson will transport listeners back to one of the most shocking, sad, and terrifying events in American history. As he did in his bestselling Scholastic YA book, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER, Swanson deploys his signature "you are there" style -- a riveting, ticking-clock pace, with an unprecedented eye for dramatic details and impeccable historical accuracy. Here is the story of the JFK assassination as it has never been told before.

From Chelsea House’s Black Americans of Achievement series comes this biography of the legendary anti-slavery activist.

A SIBERT INFORMATIONAL BOOK MEDAL HONOR BOOK Discover the power of youth activism in this moving memoir about the Civil Rights Movement, ideal for young readers interested in America’s fight for equality. “A testament to the power we each have within us to stand up for what is right and...