Young Adult Biography

With no word for “gay” in Arabic, Luma may not have known what to call the feelings she had growing up in Jordan during the 1980’s, but she knew well enough to keep them secret. It was clear that not only would her family have trouble accepting who she was, but trapped in a religious society, she could also be killed if anyone discovered she was gay. Luma spent her teenage years increasingly desperate to find a way out. After two suicide attempts, she finally realizes that to survive, she must leave the Middle East for good.

Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth, but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her. On an unremarkable day in middle school, she disclosed to a friend her HIV-positive status - and within hours the bullying began. From that moment forward, every day was like walking through a minefield. Paige was never sure when or from where the next text, taunt, or hateful message would come. Then one night, desperate for escape, 15-year-old Paige found herself in her bathroom staring at a bottle of sleeping pills. That could have been the end of her story. Instead, it was only the beginning.

Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes who ever lived. He played professional football, major league baseball, and won Olympic gold medals in track and field. But his life wasn't an easy one. Born on the Sac and Fox Reservation in 1887, he encountered much family tragedy, and was sent as a young boy to various Indian boarding schools: strict, cold institutions that didn't allow their students to hold on to their Native American languages and traditions.

In 1934, Irene Curie, working with her husband and fellow scientist, Frederic Joliot, made a discovery that would change the world: artificial radioactivity. This breakthrough allowed scientists to modify elements and create new ones by altering the structure of atoms. Curie shared a Nobel Prize with her husband for their work. But when she was nominated to the French Academy of Sciences, the academy denied her admission and voted to disqualify all women from membership.

Through a series of heart-breaking and poignant letters, come explore the 20-year journey of a child longing for the love of his mentally ill mother while facing seemingly insurmountable odds. Witness Manny's transformation in this coming of age story of a forgotten and disfigured child, born into spirit-crushing poverty in Houston, Texas, and thrust into adulthood all too soon. Crying out to the world for understanding and forgiveness, Manny battles the silent and treacherous enemy of mental illness in his mother's often erratic and sometimes terrifying behavior.

Some seemingly preordained lives end up elsewhere entirely when a person manages to break the mold. Mary's mold was broken from the outside. When the unthinkable happened in her traditional southern family, Mary's quiet childhood was transformed into a journey of discovery amidst the world around her and of all the potential that lay within her.

Finding Edith: Surviving the Holocaust in Plain Sight is the coming-of-age story of a young Jewish girl chased in Europe during World War II. Like a great adventure story, the book describes the childhood and adolescence of a Viennese girl growing up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the religious persecution of Jews throughout Europe.

On a rainy day in July 1999, 21 young people lost their lives in the infamous Saxetenbach Gorge Swiss Canyoning Disaster. I should have been one of them. The flash flood swept down the mountain with impossible force, sweeping the victims’ bodies miles downstream. It would take days to recover them all. Many were only identifiable from dental records. But I survived. From little girl lost to lioness. Brave Enough Now is a gripping story of courage, survival, friendship, and transformation.

Voltaire’s Garden is a memoir of creating a sustainable lifestyle, back-to-earth style, on a 15-acre cattle paddock in an idyllic pocket of southeast Australia, made famous by the bushfires of New Year’s Eve 2019. Award-winning author Isobel Blackthorn introduces readers to the wondrous countryside of Cobargo Valley, where in 2005 she bought a parcel of land with spectacular views and built a large villa called Voltaire’s Garden, and surrounded it with swathes of luscious gardens.

The amazing autobiography of a young Sudanese boy who went from a child soldier and struggling refugee to international peace activist and Hollywood actor. Amid fame, trauma, and the memory of home, can this lost boy find himself?

Traces the progression of the civil rights movement and its effect on history through biographical sketches of four prominent and influential African Americans: Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.

At the age of 17, Don Stinson accidentally landed a job in the White House during Watergate, the largest political scandal in American history. A truly insignificant member of the Nixon White House staff, he frequently loitered outside of the Oval Office to watch it unfold. What he saw throughout the White House ran the gamut from the deeply profound to the wildly hilarious.

In the early years of World War II, Josef Stalin issued an order that made the Soviet Union the first country in the world to allow female pilots to fly in combat. This is the story of Marina Raskova’s three regiments, women who enlisted and were deployed on the front lines of battle as navigators, pilots, and mechanics. It is the story of 1,000 young women who wanted to take flight to defend their country and the woman who brought them together in the sky.

Deep Dark Blue is a very personal and impactful account about surving sexual abuse in the Air Force Academy. More than a memoir about sexual assault, it's about breaking boundaries but also setting them. It's about learning to trust your instincts. And it's a story of survival, resilience, and finally, finding joy.

La historia verídica de una niña norteamericana de 12 años y un niño de Zimbabwe, a los que una carta les cambió sus vidas para siempre.Comenzó como una tarea escolar. Todos en la clase de Caitlin escribieron a un estudiante desconocido en algún lugar lejano. Martín tuvo suerte de recibir una carta del proyecto de un amigo por correspondencia. Llegaron sólo 10 cartas y había 50 niños en la clase. Pero él era el estudiante más avanzado del grupo, de modo que se le entregó la primera carta.

November is usually quiet in Holcomb, Kansas, but in 1959, the town is shattered by the quadruple murder of the Clutter family. Suspicion falls on Nancy Clutter's boyfriend, Bobby Rupp, the last one to see them alive. New Yorker Carly Fleming, new to the small Midwestern town, is an outsider. She tutored Nancy, and (in private, at least) they were close. Carly and Bobby were the only ones who saw that Nancy was always performing, and that she was cracking under the pressure of being Holcomb's golden girl.

1939, nine-year-old Piri is happy to spend her spring vacation at her grandmother Babi’s house in the Ukrainian countryside. There, Piri freely enjoys the meadows, rivers and wildflowers. In her busy household, Babi makes sure her granddaughter continues to speak Yiddish and observe the Sabbath. But there is a darker side to this paradise. The Hungarian soldiers riding through the beautiful landscape are a threat not only to the Ukrainians but also to Jews. And when Piri returns to Hungary, she hears rumors of the ghettos.

Kurz, anschaulich und genau spüren wir den Lebensgeschichten großer Komponisten nach. Richard Wagner lebte in seiner Bayreuther Villa...

Apple is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly red on the outside, white on the inside. Eric Gansworth tells his story in Apple (Skin to the Core). The story of his family, of Onondaga among Tuscaroras, of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds. Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

Letters to My Sisters in Engineering inspires girls and women to answer the call and use their gifts to innovate a better world for humanity. This memoir/self-help audiobook will encourage you to fulfill your destiny by being a purpose-driven engineer.