Showing titles in Biographies

Explore the many facets of your identity through hundreds of big and small questions. In this affirmations audiobook created for Black girls, M. J. Fievre tackles topics such as family and friends, school and careers, body image, and stereotypes. By reflecting on these themes, you confront the issues that can hold you back from discovering your inner Black joy. Embrace authenticity and celebrate who you are. Finding the courage to live as you are is not easy, so Badass Black Girl is designed to help you nurture creativity and positive self-awareness.

Once upon a time in America, there were two Jasons. Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin. One a poet. One an artist. One Black. One white. Two voices. One journey in mind: to move to New York, the city of dreams, to make their own dreams come true. Willing to have a life not un-hard, so long as it wasn’t unhappy. Willing to let the city swallow them whole, so long as it gives them their chance. They had each other. “What if painting was a sin, and the poetry became taboo. And no one ever clapped for me again. My question is, would you?” Oh, they clapped. And aren’t we glad?

After a deadly attack in South Sudan left six-year-old Achut Deng without a family, she lived in refugee camps for ten years, until a refugee relocation program gave her the opportunity to move to the United States. When asked why she should be given a chance to leave the camp, Achut simply told the interviewer: I want life. But the chance at starting a new life in a new country came with a different set of challenges. Some of them equally deadly. Taught by the strong women in her life not to look back, Achut kept moving forward, overcoming one obstacle after another.

High school sucks for a lot of people. High school extra sucks when you believe, deep in your soul, that every kid in the school is out to get you. I wasn't popular before I got locked up in Straight Inc., the notorious "tough love" program for troubled teens. So it's not like I was walking around thinking everyone liked me. But when you're psychologically beaten for 16 months, you start to absorb the lessons. The lessons in Straight were: You are evil. Your peers are evil. Everything is evil except Straight, Inc. Before long, you're a true believer.

With witty humor and a strong sense of self, musician, model, and technology executive Shavone Charles recounts her journey through Google, Twitter, and more–and outlines her mission to make space for herself and other young women of color both online and IRL.

Obamas Erinnerungen aus der Kindheit und als junger Mann - erzählt für die neue Generation. Die fesselnde Auseinandersetzung Barack Obamas mit seiner Herkunft und zugleich das beeindruckende Porträt eines jungen Schwarzen Mannes, der sich und der Welt Fragen nach Selbstfindung, Menschlichkeit und Zugehörigkeit stellt. Obama wächst in bescheidenen Verhältnissen auf, doch er ist entschlossen, ein Leben voller Sinn und Wahrhaftigkeit zu führen. Als er in der Schule wegen seiner Hautfarbe diskriminiert wird, weckt das seinen Ehrgeiz.

Jimmy, known by his friends as Meathead, wants to be a good kid...he really does. But his friends are wild and lead him into serious trouble. Stealing, fighting slingshot battles, and lying to girls, Meathead hilariously struggles to be honest while enduring growing pains and dealing with a terrible loss. Set in the suburbs in the late '70s, even Meathead starts to understand what it takes to grow up and be a good man.

As a youth, when you're told that your mom should have crossed her legs and broke your neck when she was giving birth to you, you have a tendency to believe that your existence is a mistake. When you are told that you don't deserve to breathe the same air as normal people, you naturally feel worthless and powerless. Ironically though, after a life of murder, prison, and other survival-induced traumas that resulted in blood and sirens, you come to learn that true power comes from knowing of, not believing in, the things that you cannot see.

Augusta Savage was arguably the most influential American artist of the 1930s. A gifted sculptor, Savage was commissioned to create a portrait bust of W.E.B. Du Bois for the New York Public Library. She flourished during the Harlem Renaissance, and became a teacher to an entire generation of African American artists, including Jacob Lawrence, and would go on to be nationally recognized as one of the featured artists at the 1939 World’s Fair. She was the first-ever recorded Black gallerist, and worked to advance equal rights in the arts. And yet popular history has forgotten her name.

Essays of bullying, heartbreak, racism, and confidence, Ashley taps into her own past and shares those stories that made her who she is today as she seamlessly weaves in parallel experiences that both she and Mrs. Obama have faced in their separate childhoods as well as their adult lives. Open, searing, and honest, these are stories listeners will feel seen with. listeners who are growing and learning as they move forward through life's triumphs and pitfalls will undoubtedly gravitate to and find comfort within its audio.

Jaime Richards has spent most of her life in Pakistan, and returning to Australia seems like another planet compared to the country she has left behind. Here in Australia, boys try to kiss her, men wear shorts, and everyone says 'cool' all the time. How will she ever know the right things to say or do or wear? After all, this is meant to be her own culture. This is a story of living beyond borders and discovering the gift of adapting to new cultures, especially one’s own.

At age 16, most high schoolers are trying to navigate college applications, Friday night football games, and SAT scores. But for Jess Kimball, age 16 meant graduating high school and moving abroad, alone. Her decision to focus on running a business instead of going to college is one that she had no regrets about - except for her curiosity about college life. At age 19, Jess decided to audit classes at Dartmouth College; an experience that would change her life. What resulted was the social experience of college, minus the debt and anxiety - a pseudo-college experience.

Journalist Diana Kapp has crisscrossed this country writing for and about empowered girls, girls who expect to be leaders, founders, and inventors. This book takes it a step further. It says to girls: While you’re striving to be CEOs and world leaders, consider solving the biggest challenge of our lifetime, too - because you can do both at the same time, and here are 34 women doing just that.

In Sweet Shot, Dr. Vernon Wendt reveals the secret behind the motivation of one of basketball’s greatest long-range shooter of all time. Discover with Sugar a greater purpose for your gifts than personal glory. Sweet Shot will inspire you to chase after your dreams, revisit past, or discarded dreams, and dream even more dreams - to dare to be great like Sugar, and keep on shooting until you realize the sweet shot of discovering God's purpose for your dreams.

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.

It's 1972, and 12-year-old GJ Philip lives most of the time on the wharves of Wellington, NZ, afraid to go home where his schizophrenic father rules with an iron fist. But GJ carves a life of sorts from the rough-and-tumble world of pubs and railway stations in New Zealand's Capital City, selling fish and sleeping in railway carriages, part of a band of Naenae street urchins that find shelter on the public transport network. GJ joins the Wellington Surfcasting and Angling Club to find acceptance in society and recognition among his fishing peers.

I moved from Malibu, California, to Abilene, Texas...on purpose. I was always told as a kid to chase my dreams, and if I did, I could be anything I wanted to be. But then I actually did it...and things got really weird from there. Follow along on my journey from a college graduate to a working adult and all the twists and turns that came along with it. Perfect for the soon-to-be high school or college graduate, Answering the Call proves that great things can happen to you, but often-times, in ways you would never expect.

Uma das coisas mais complexas da vida é a luta para aceitar-se. Todos os dias, travamos uma batalha contra nós mesmas, nossos desejos, nossa sexualidade e nosso corpo. Nunca é o suficiente, sempre falta algo. Por Todas Nós surge como um ombro amigo e solidário, mostrando que não estamos sozinhas em nossos sofrimentos diários e precisamos questionar tudo aquilo que a sociedade impõe - sem julgamentos nem padrões preconcebidos.

Life can seem rough for a young man growing up. There are lessons to be learned, experiences to be had, and emotions to be tested. Not all of which will have a positive outcome. Take a journey back to a time before Amazon, smartphones, and streaming media dared exist. A time known as the early 1990s. It may seem simple today, but to someone who has lived it, the world surrounding a teenage-know-nothing could be turbulent and confusing. Patience and optimism must be found somewhere, and somehow, along the way.

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.