Showing titles in Biographies

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.

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

Gary Paulsen takes listeners along on his maiden voyage, proving that ignorance can be bliss. Also really stupid and incredibly dangerous. He tells of boats that owned him, good, bad, and beloved, and how they got him through terrifying storms that he survived by sheer luck. His spare prose conjures up shark surprises and killer waves as well as moonlight on the sea, and makes listeners feel what it’s like to sail under the stars or to lie at anchor in a tropical lagoon where dolphins leap, bathed in silver.

Growing pains are an essential part of teenage life, for better and for worse. Some “mistakes” turn into positive, life-changing experiences, and some apparent triumphs seem, in retrospect, like low points. Some first kisses leave you feeling on top of the world, and others can make you want to hide under a rock. In Dear Teen Me, your favorite YA authors - including Lauren Oliver, Ellen Hopkins, Tom Angleberger, and Carrie Jones - revisit critical moments from their young lives....

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...

Known as the "Mahatma" or "Great Soul," Gandhi is one of history's best-known spiritual leaders. Through a campaign of nonviolence developed through devotion to Hindu ideals, Gandhi brought world attention to the fight for India's independence from Great Britain. This is an informative introduction to his life, written for all readers. The book is published by Chelsea House Publishers, a leading educational publisher.

As one of the most important and influential leaders of America's civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., became the catalyst for change in a nation marked by segregation and discrimination. Unlike the civil rights activists who argued for a violent response to segregation and prejudice, King believed that peaceful resistance could bring about great change.

On July 16, 1963, Jane Goodall stepped onto the shores of the Tanganyika in Gombe National Park in Tanzania, Africa, for the very first time. The 23-year-old researcher was about to begin the adventure of a lifetime, studying the wild chimpanzees in their forest home. The discoveries she made there about chimpanzee behavior changed the way people thought about chimpanzees, as well as human beings

An informative introduction to the life of Cleopatra. For more than 2,000 years, plays, poetry, movies, and television have portrayed Cleopatra as an ambitious woman who used her beauty to seduce powerful men like Julius Caesar and Mark Antony in a ruthless attempt to increase her own power and wealth. But is this the real Cleopatra, or one invented by male historians anxious to discredit an intelligent, competent woman who was the last great pharaoh of Egypt?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is an informative introduction to the life of this remarkable woman. The former first lady and Yale Law graduate was destined for political life. Hillary Rodham Clinton brought her intelligence and drive to numerous projects during her husband's presidency in the 1990s. In 2000, she campaigned for the U.S. Senate as a representative from New York. Her win made her the first first lady to be elected to the Senate following her husband's presidency.

When Cold War tension was at its height, Joseph ("call me Joe") McCarthy conducted an anti-Communist crusade endorsed by millions of Americans, despite his unfair and unconstitutional methods.

Beethoven era un genio sordo que vivia como cualquier mortal. La vida de Beethoven está llena de detalles curiosos. Fue de los músicos más grandes y admirados de todos los tiempos. Sus avances en el dominio del piano le llevaron a dar su primer concierto a los 8 años.

Mother Teresa is an informative introduction to the famous Catholic nun. Mother Teresa is one of the most admired Nobel laureates of all time. Born in Eastern Europe of Albanian parents, she became a Catholic missionary nun in India when she was still a teenager. After teaching in a convent school in Calcutta for nearly two decades, in 1946 she claimed that she heard God calling her to live and work among "the poorest of the poor" in that city's slums.

Isabel Allende is an informative introduction to the distinguished author. Isabel Allende, one of the world's most widely read Latin American writers, is a Chilean novelest who, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was strongly influenced by her grandparents. Her vivid fiction, such as The House of the Spirits, blends realism with magical elements and spotlights political and often feminist concerns.

Blaze Ginsberg offers a unique view into his mind and life as a high functioning autistic teenager. Inspired by the format of the Internet Movie Database, Ginsberg organizes the events in his life as a collection of "episodes." Some of these are ongoing (like Thanksgiving dinners with his family), some are in syndication, and some (his crush on Hillary Duff, for example) have sadly come to an end. Using a style and a language all his own, Blaze reinvents the traditional memoir for listeners of all ages.

The drive-in is dying. People can blame the demise on cable television, luxury theaters with sound systems so technical NASA engineers are needed to install them, or on a host of other modern conveniences and distractions. In reality, the drive-in operator of the Sulpher Springs Big-Screen Drive-In Theater hired a young Donald Davis to work his high school summers there.

These stories of growing up in Appalachia in the 1950s are funny and true, nostalgic and bittersweet.

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 perspective of the young adult he was then, Francisco Jiménez describes the challenges he faced in his efforts to continue his education. During his college years, the very family solidarity that allowed Francisco to survive as a child is tested. Not only must he leave his family behind when he goes to Santa Clara University, but while Francisco is there, his father abandons the family and returns to Mexico.

At the age of 14, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for 20 hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice.