Childhood Biography

From one of the country's most beloved comedians and host of CBC Radio's incredibly popular program The Debaters comes a funny, poignant, and at times unexpectedly wise look at what it means to be a dad in this day and age. Steve Patterson has been thinking about dad-dom for quite a while. In...

What does it really mean to be a good father? What did your father tell you, that has stayed with you throughout your life? Was there a lesson from him, a story, or a moment that helped to make you who you are? Is there a special memory that makes you smile when you least expect it? After the...

We all have past experiences we wish we could redo or undo altogether. In Nothing Wasted, counselor and teacher Kasey Van Norman's vulnerability invites you to discover God's personal and purposeful design for your future--not in spite of your story, but through it. What if the pain and...

The definitive account of the life and tragic death of baseball legend Lou Gehrig. Lou Gehrig was a baseball legend—the Iron Horse, the stoic New York Yankee who was the greatest first baseman in history, a man whose consecutive-games streak was ended by a horrible disease that now bears his...

The funny, sad and compelling diary kept by an overweight teenage girl that became the basis for the British television sensation of the same name available to stream on HULU. It's 1989 and Rae Earl is a fat, boy-mad 17-year-old girl, living in Stamford, Lincolnshire with her mum and their deaf...

“A riveting memoir that takes readers on a roller coaster ride from the depths of hell to triumphant success.”—Dave Pelzer, author of A Child Called “It” Michelle Stevens has a photo of the exact moment her childhood was stolen from her: She’s only eight years old, posing for her...

“I want to start conversations, and even better, arguments.” – From the Introduction One of the most outspoken and original voices in sports sounds off while revealing his incredible life story. Jalen Rose has never been quiet. Not as a kid growing up in Detroit in the 70’s and...

Of Kenya's largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu, Ngugi wa Thiongo was born in 1938 in the backlands of his country (Kiambu district) to a father whose four wives bore him two dozen or so children. Ngugi was the fifth child of the third wife. His father was a peasant farmer forced to become a squatter after the British Imperial Act of 1915. Before going off to school, he had what was then considered a bizarre and inexplicable thirst for learning....

Michaela DePrince was born in Sierra Leone and grew up in the United States. She rose to fame as a ballet dancer in the late 2000s. Learn more about DePrince's life as a famous ballerina!

In this memoir, Natasha takes on the therapist's role with her past selves to drag her social anxiety into the open. From feisty Miss 6, lonely Miss 14 reeling from a tumultuous childhood, and defiant Miss 18 pushing back against a world where she didn't fit, through to her present self, Natasha explores the way social anxiety colored her experiences and finds healing through self-acceptance.

A shocking and hopeful account of one woman's extraordinary courage to face her past and embrace truth in order to help others find hope and healing In The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child, Tana Amen shares her incredible story of transformation—of growing up in poverty, a bullied...

In 1931, the US was in the throes of the Depression, money was scarce, and most children went to work in blue-color jobs before finishing high school. Into this world, Thomas Sawyer arrived and was soon shuttled to various relatives following his mother’s affair before moving with his mother and two siblings into a small apartment in South Baltimore with another of her paramours.

What’s it like to parent a child in transition? Inspired by the acclaimed podcast How to Be a Girl, this is a highly personal and beautifully narrated memoir by Marlo Mack recounting the journey she’s been on since her three-year-old declared he should have been born a girl. And Mack agrees to the child’s request to be a girl.

Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

How a Florentine orphanage rescued thousands of children and revolutionized childhood education amid the splendor of Renaissance art. The story begins with the abandonment of the newborn Agata Smeralda on February 5, 1445, in Florence’s Hospital of the Innocents, the first—but certainly not...

His Life in His Own Words On March 13, 2013, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, longtime Archbishop of Buenos Aires, now Pope Francis, was elected to succeed Pope Benedict. He is the first Latin American pope, the first Jesuit pope, and the first to take the name Francis, after St...

Adopted at six months old by Dubliners Sean and Helen Gallagher, PJ spent much of his childhood knocking back Lucozade with the local alcoholics in his parents' northside pub. But the chaos that reigned for his first ten years was nothing compared to what happened when - having lost the pub - Helen took in psychiatric patients from the local hospital to give them 'care in the community'. Now it was a household of ten - PJ, his sister, his parents and six lost souls. Worst. Idea. Ever. Madhouse is PJ's riotous life story.

Experience music history with this memoir by one of the last of the genuine old school Blues and R&B legends, the Grammy-winning dynamic showman Bobby Rush. This memoir charts the extraordinary rise to fame of living blues legend, Bobby Rush. Born Emmett Ellis, Jr. in Homer, Louisiana, he...

“I’m a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no.” Nujood Ali's childhood came to an abrupt end in 2008 when her father arranged for her to be married to a man...

The PEN Literary Award–winning author “writes with honesty, intelligence, tenderness, and love” about her Colombian-Cuban heritage and queer identity in this poignant coming-of-age memoir (Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street). In this lyrical, coming-of-age memoir, Daisy...