Childhood Biography

Every great artist started out as a kid. Forget the awards, the sold-out museum exhibitions, and the timeless masterpieces. When the world’s most celebrated artists were growing up, they had regular-kid problems just like you. Jackson Pollock’s family moved constantly - he lived in eight different cities before he was 16 years old. Georgia O’Keeffe lived in the shadow of her “perfect” older brother Francis. And Jean-Michel Basquiat triumphed over poverty to become one of the world’s most influential artists.

Leah Broad's magnificent group biography resurrects these four forgotten voices, recounting lives of rebellion, heartbreak and ambition, and celebrating their musical masterpieces. Lighting up a panoramic sweep of British history over two World Wars, Quartet revolutionises the canon forever.

With a cancer diagnosis in his early forties, the author is compelled to revisit and resolve the mystery of his family’s sadness. The fourth of six children in an Irish-American household distinctly out-of-place in this affluent suburb of New York City, O’Brien grows up in a claustrophobic milieu of secrecy, lies, and mental illness. The turning point in his maturation is an older brother’s attempted suicide—an event he witnesses firsthand. From Scarsdale traces with sensitivity the complex histories and dynamics that lead to this trauma.

In A Matter of Principal, Mandy Davis takes listeners on a heartfelt voyage from the corridors of traditional schooling into the nurturing embrace of homeschooling. Rooted in her experience as an elementary school principal, Mandy highlights the gaps in a system that often overlooks the diverse needs of individual children. As a dedicated mother and educator, she felt the call to transition to homeschooling, seeking a more personalized and meaningful educational experience for her own children.

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...

Tendöl Namling turned 60 in March 2019. She was born at the time when the Dalai Lama fled from Lhasa and the uprising of his people by the Chinese People's Army was brutally suppressed. She has lived for 22 years under Chinese rule. As the daughter of a high government official, she underwent...

In her memoir, Jevranne explores the effects trauma has on the body and how it can often result in blocked-out memories. She shares her personal journey with grief and the struggles that appeared when silencing herself because of not feeling valid in her pain- a childhood and generational wound embedded through the years.

A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard’s poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s.

Sometimes there is an entire year that sparkles in the memory as a time brimming over with the fullness of life. By the age of 10, Annie’s intervals of awakening began to occur more frequently; the hours and minutes of the years that followed were spent reveling in the delights and the anguishes that accompany being fully alive.

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.

This compelling memoir takes listeners through the eyes of a child surviving World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland. As a nine-year-old, the author witnessed his father being herded into a truck - never to be seen again. He, his mother, and sister fled to Warsaw to live in disguise as Catholics under the noses of the Nazi SS, constantly fearful of discovery and persecution. A sobering reminder of the personal toll of the Holocaust on Jews during World War II, this book is a harrowing portrait of one child’s loss of innocence.

True strength lies in the courage to be yourself and speak your truth. When Kath Essing recalled the sexual abuse from her childhood, her life turned upside-down. The secret had been hidden for decades, even from herself. After 23 years of navigating her own mental health issues, Kath was ready to face her greatest challenge and disclose the experiences of her childhood sexual abuse to police.

In Hiding from the School Bus: Breaking Free from Control Fear, Isolation and a Childhood Without Education, Calvin Bagley courageously chronicles his journey through isolation, fear and religious contradiction. This powerful memoir reveals how navigating PTSD, dealing with childhood trauma, and reexamining core beliefs can form the foundation for genuine transformation, resilience, and healing.

Growing up with Autism is hard enough. Growing up with Autism when you're a little gay weirdo is almost impossible. Greatest Hits of my Childhood Trauma is the story of a boy fighting to exist in a world that would rather throw him away. From overly religious mothers to prison sentences, drug overdoses, psychiatric facilities, bizarre sexual encounters, and queer high school romance, this tale of 90s middle America is heartbreaking, hilarious, and hard to put down. Alex Dark takes us through the darkest parts of his life with a charm that will keep you coming back for more.

When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of 300 people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period - people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.

When Alice Ozma was in 4th grade, she and her father decided to see if he could read aloud to her for 100 consecutive nights. On the hundreth night, they shared pancakes to celebrate, but it soon became evident that neither wanted to let go of their storytelling ritual. So they decided to...

This is no ordinary celebrity biography pieced together by an outsider. Steve Martin and author Morris Walker had a close relationship growing up. They were class clowns together, charming the girls and the teachers with their wit, and eventually going on the road as comedians. This personal account will introduce you to the Steve Martin you've never seen before.

To the feelings of shame in our lives, author and teacher Christine Caine has something urgent to say: shame has no place in the purpose, plan, and destiny God has for you. In this audio study, Christine Caine weaves examples from her life with those of biblical characters who failed but...

Childhood Lost in Poverty is an account of the author’s childhood experiences, from infancy to young adulthood. The process enabled him to recognise how the poor parenting skills of his father, as well as his mother’s struggle to raise him and his sister up in poverty, compromised his relationships with his parents and affected his adult life.

In this emotional and laugh-out-loud coming-of-age memoir, the co-creator of Hulu's brilliant Pen15 grapples with the reappearance of her estranged father —and whether it's possible to reconnect before it’s too late. For Anna Konkle’s childhood, her father was her hero—a...