Collection: Biography & Memoir

Bipolar disorder is a lifelong challenge--but it doesn't have to rule your life. Find the science-based information you need in the revised third edition of this indispensable guide. Trusted authority Dr. David J. Miklowitz shares proven strategies for managing your illness or supporting a loved one with the disorder. Learn specific steps to cope with mood episodes, reduce recurrences, avoid misdiagnosis, get the most out of treatment, resolve family conflicts, and make lifestyle changes to stay well. Updated throughout, the third edition has a new chapter on kids and teens; the latest facts on medications and therapy, including important advances in personalized care; and expanded coverage of the bipolar II subtype. It features boxes on complementary and alternative treatments and provides downloadable practical tools.

Learn about the dazzling Dolly Parton in this adorable board book for little ones with flaps and wheels to turn on each page!

Introduce your little ones to the incredible Dolly Parton--a singer, songwriter, philanthropist, style icon, and so much more! This colorful book shows all inspirational work of Dolly Parton with cute text and fun interactive elements like flaps and wheels that allow kids to get Dolly ready for a show, play different instruments, style her legendary look, and more. By celebrating Dolly's amazing impact, Have You Heard of Dolly Parton is the perfect book to teach kids to make the world a better place by just being themselves.

A classic and highly acclaimed biography of civil rights activist Malcolm X, ever more relevant for today's readers.

As a 14-year-old he was Malcolm Little, the president of his class and a top student. At 16 he was hustling tips at a Boston nightclub. In Harlem he was known as Detroit Red, a slick street operator. At 19 he was back in Boston, leading a gang of burglars. At 20 he was in prison.

It was in prison that Malcolm Little started the journey that would lead him to adopt the name Malcolm X, and there he developed his beliefs about what being black means in America: beliefs that shook America then, and still shake America today.

Few men in American history are as controversial or compelling as Malcolm X. In this Coretta Scott King Honor Book, Walter Dean Myers, winner of a Newbery Honor and four-time Coretta Scott King Award winner, portrays Malcolm X as prophet, dealer, convict, troublemaker, revolutionary, and voice of black militancy.

The Bible is an Ancient Near Eastern text, which was written millennia ago within a time and culture that is vastly different from our own. The authors of the Bible had a perspective on life and the world around them that was steeped with their own traditions, customs and thoughts. When reading and studying this text we cannot interject our own cultural perspectives into the text, to do so would bring about interpretations and conclusions that are far removed from its intended meaning. But if we read the Bible from the perspective of those who wrote it and study their language, philosophy and culture from within its original context, the Bible will spring to life in ways you never thought possible.

A renowned political speechwriter rediscovers Judaism, finding timeless wisdom and spiritual connection in its age-old practices and traditions.

"Sarah Hurwitz was Michelle Obama's head speechwriter, and with this book she becomes Judaism's speechwriter."--Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and co-author of Option B

After a decade as a political speechwriter--serving as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign--Sarah Hurwitz decided to apply her skills as a communicator to writing a book . . . about Judaism. And no one is more surprised than she is.

Hurwitz was the quintessential lapsed Jew--until, at age thirty-six, after a tough breakup, she happened upon an advertisement for an introductory class on Judaism. She attended on a whim, but was blown away by what she found: beautiful rituals, helpful guidance on living an ethical life, conceptions of God beyond the judgy bearded man in the sky--none of which she had learned in Hebrew school or during the two synagogue services she grudgingly attended each year. That class led to a years-long journey during which Hurwitz visited the offices of rabbis, attended Jewish meditation retreats, sat at the Shabbat tables of Orthodox families, and read hundreds of books about Judaism--all in dogged pursuit of answers to her biggest questions. What she found transformed her life, and she wondered: How could there be such a gap between the richness of what Judaism offers and the way so many Jews like her understand and experience it?

Sarah Hurwitz is on a mission to close this gap by sharing the profound insights she discovered on everything from Jewish holidays, ethics, and prayer to Jewish conceptions of God, death, and social justice. In this entertaining and accessible book, she shows us why Judaism matters and how its message is more relevant than ever, and she inspires Jews to do the learning, questioning, and debating required to make this religion their own.

"Searching for meaning in the ancient scripture and traditions of Judaism, Sarah Hurwitz takes us along on an enriching journey of discovery. In Here All Along, she explores her birthright as a Jew and finds timeless and valuable life lessons."--David Axelrod, director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and former senior advisor to President Barack Obama

Life changes forever for six-year-old Nada when Iraq's invasion of her birth country of Kuwait pushes her mother to immigrate with her to the United States. Just as she finally settles into her strange new existence apart from her father in Rhode Island, learns English, and grasps the fact that she is there to stay, Nada begins discovering revelation after revelation that changes her perspective on her world and family. With an imaginative blend of folklore and history that explores the relationship between our bodies, ancestors, and the lands that hold us, All Water Has Perfect Memory is a memoir that takes readers through the author's ancestral origins-the coast of Palestine, Kuwait, and the shores of Rhode Island- and explores generations of silence and eventually, connection.

Meet Ella Fitzgerald, one of the most influential jazz singers of all time! Part of the beloved Little People, BIG DREAMS series, this inspiring and informative little biography follows the inspirational life of the First Lady of Song, from her early singing days on the streets of Harlem to her success as a jazz legend, with the message: "It's not where you come from, but where you're going that counts."

Ella Fitzgerald grew up near Harlem, in New York, where she was surrounded by music and dance. After winning first prize in a talent competition at the Apollo Theater, she went on to tour the world with her pioneering voice. This moving book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the singer's life.

Little People, BIG DREAMS is a best-selling biography series for kids that explores the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream.

This empowering series of books offers inspiring messages to children of all ages, in a range of formats. The board books are told in simple sentences, perfect for reading aloud to babies and toddlers. The hardcover and paperback versions present expanded stories for beginning readers. With rewritten text for older children, the treasuries each bring together a multitude of dreamers in a single volume. You can also collect a selection of the books by theme in boxed gift sets. Activity books and a journal provide even more ways to make the lives of these role models accessible to children.

Inspire the next generation of outstanding people who will change the world with Little People, BIG DREAMS!

On December 18, 1999, Julia Butterfly Hill's feet touched the ground for the first time in over two years, as she descended from "Luna," a thousandyear-old redwood in Humboldt County, California.

Hill had climbed 180 feet up into the tree high on a mountain on December 10, 1997, for what she thought would be a two- to three-week-long "tree-sit." The action was intended to stop Pacific Lumber, a division of the Maxxam Corporation, from the environmentally destructive process of clear-cutting the ancient redwood and the trees around it. The area immediately next to Luna had already been stripped and, because, as many believed, nothing was left to hold the soil to the mountain, a huge part of the hill had slid into the town of Stafford, wiping out many homes.

Over the course of what turned into an historic civil action, Hill endured El Nino storms, helicopter harassment, a ten-day siege by company security guards, and the tremendous sorrow brought about by an old-growth forest's destruction. This story--written while she lived on a tiny platform eighteen stories off the ground--is one that only she can tell.

Twenty-five-year-old Julia Butterfly Hill never planned to become what some have called her--the Rosa Parks of the environmental movement. Shenever expected to be honored as one of Good Housekeeping's "Most Admired Women of 1998" and George magazine's "20 Most Interesting Women in Politics," to be featured in People magazine's "25 Most Intriguing People of the Year" issue, or to receive hundreds of letters weekly from young people around the world. Indeed, when she first climbed into Luna, she had no way of knowing the harrowing weather conditions and the attacks on her and her cause. She had no idea of the loneliness she would face or that her feet wouldn't touch ground for more than two years. She couldn't predict the pain of being an eyewitness to the attempted destruction of one of the last ancient redwood forests in the world, nor could she anticipate the immeasurable strength she would gain or the life lessons she would learn from Luna. Although her brave vigil and indomitable spirit have made her a heroine in the eyes of many, Julia's story is a simple, heartening tale of love, conviction, and the profound courage she has summoned to fight for our earth's legacy.

NSTA OUTSTANDING SCIENCE TRADE BOOK 2024 SELECTION
The wax palm knows what it's like to defy the odds. Ynes Mexia knew it too. QUEEN OF LEAVES tells the true story of Ynes Mexia, the inspiring and fearless Mexican-American adventurer-botanist, and her quest to find the mysterious wax palm tree. Ynes enrolled in university in her 50s, at an age when women were not expected to be students. There she discovered botany -- a passion that would lead her all over the world on many adventures and change the study of botany forever. She went on to lead expeditions gathering plant and flower samples for universities and museums around the globe, introduce the botany world to the elusive wax palm tree, and forever cement herself as the QUEEN OF LEAVES.

In this book from the highly acclaimed Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the inspiring life of Beyoncé, the chart-topping superstar.

Beyoncé was quiet as a child but always enjoyed singing and dancing. At a young age, she went to see a concert, and from that moment on, she felt inspired to perform. She loved putting on shows for the people having their hair cut in her mom's salon, but knew she was destined for a bigger audience.

After winning a local talent show, Beyoncé joined the newly formed girl group Girls Tyme. The band eventually became Destiny's Child and shot to stardom with their catchy R&B songs and fierce dance routines.

As a solo artist, she has since achieved incredible success with numerous number one hits, including 'Irreplaceable' and 'Crazy in Love', and several critically acclaimed and award-winning albums, including 'I am... Sasha Fierce', 'Lemonade', and 'Renaissance'.

She has received the most grammy nominations of any artist in history and is now one of the most influential people in the world. As well as being a performer, she is a mother, businesswoman, philanthropist, and role model for all those who want to reach for the stars.

This powerful book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the performer's life. Little People, BIG DREAMS is a bestselling biography series for kids that explores the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream. This empowering series of books offers inspiring messages to children of all ages, in a range of formats. The board books are told in simple sentences, perfect for reading aloud to babies and toddlers. The hardcover and paperback versions present expanded stories for beginning readers. With rewritten text for older children, the treasuries each bring together a multitude of dreamers in a single volume. You can also collect a selection of the books by theme in boxed gift sets. Activity books and a journal provide even more ways to make the lives of these role models accessible to children. Inspire the next generation of outstanding people who will change the world with Little People, BIG DREAMS!

He had been through hell--his own and the devil's--and had emerged free of hate, free of encumbrance. If the person who had laid the bomb that took his legs were standing before him, Greg knew he would lay down his own weapon in forgiveness. The waypoints were becoming clearer. He would recover his body as well as his soul.

In military jargon, the word "waypoints" refers to guideposts on a map used to direct soldiers in or out of a location like a rendezvous point. For Colonel Greg Gadson-- a battalion commander and former West Point football player-- who lost both legs as a result of an IED attack in Iraq in 2007, these waypoints were to change drastically, and inform his future life through his long, painful recovery and emergence as a spiritual guide and assistant coach to the NY Giants during their own trials of fire in the 2007 season that took them from last place to a Super Bowl championship in 2008. Soon after, Gadson also starred in a major motion picture ("Battleship") and since then has become a motivational speaker for thousands of individuals, both civilian and military, and leader for veterans' programs and outdoor experiential healing expeditions. This honest and deeply personal story of transformation from battlefield leader to speaker and life coach, will inspire readers to consider their own waypoints towards their own life's betterment and the lives of those around them.

The bestselling exploration of the dimensions of love, marriage, mourning, and kinship from two-time Booker Prize finalist Deborah Levy.

A New York Times Notable Book
A New York Public Library Best Nonfiction Book of 2018

What does it cost a woman to unsettle old boundaries and collapse the social hierarchies that make her a minor character in a world not arranged to her advantage?

This vibrant memoir, a portrait of contemporary womanhood in flux, is an urgent quest to find an unwritten major female character who can exist more easily in the world. Levy considers what it means to live with meaning, value, and pleasure, to seize the ultimate freedom of writing our own lives, and reflects on the work of such artists and thinkers as Simone de Beauvoir, James Baldwin, Elena Ferrante, Marguerite Duras, David Lynch, and Emily Dickinson.

The Cost of Living, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal in Nonfiction, is crucial testimony, as distinctive, witty, complex, and original as Levy's acclaimed novels.

Lyrical, inspiring, and affecting text paired with bright, appealing illustrations make Ready to Fly perfect for aspiring ballerinas everywhere who are ready to leap and to spread their wings!

Ready to Fly is the true story of Sylvia Townsend, an African American girl who falls in love with ballet after seeing Swan Lake on TV. This nonfiction picture book is an excellent choice to share at home or in the classroom.

Although there aren't many ballet schools that will accept a girl like Sylvia in the 1950s, her local bookmobile provides another possibility. A librarian helps Sylvia find a book about ballet and the determined seven-year-old, with the help of her new books, starts teaching herself the basics of classical ballet.

Soon Sylvia learns how to fly--how to dance--and how to dare to dream.

Includes a foreword from Sylvia Townsend, a brief history of the bookmobile, an author's note, and a further reading list.

This award-winning true Holocaust story, newly updated, connects generations through one woman's quest to find the truth behind a mysterious suitcase.

In March 2000, Fumiko Ishioka, the curator of a small Holocaust education center in Tokyo, received an empty suitcase from the museum at Auschwitz. On the outside, in white paint, were the words "Hana Brady, May 16, 1931, Orphan."

Fumiko and the children at the center were determined to find out who Hana was and what happened to her all those years ago, leading them to a startling and emotional discovery.

The dual narrative intertwines Fumiko's international journey to find the truth about Hana Brady's fate with Hana's own compelling story of her life in a quiet Czech town, which is shattered by the arrival of the Nazis, tearing apart the family she loves. This suspense-filled work of investigative nonfiction draws in young readers and makes them active participants in the search for Hana's identity.

Praise for Hana's Suitcase
- "Hana wanted to become a teacher, and surely through this little book her dream is being realized." --Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from his new foreword to Hana's Suitcase
- "The account . . . is part history, part suspenseful mystery . . . with an incredible climactic revelation." --Booklist

Vogue on Christian Dior tells the story of Dior's search for the perfect line and how his unique style and vision of women's ideal silhouette developed.

In 1947, Christian Dior stunned the fashion world with his first collection, the "New Look," which transformed the way women dressed, and he continued to send shock waves with his later shows, significantly altering the fashion landscape. One of the most famous designers of the 20th century, his name still fronts one of the most successful haute couture fashion houses.

Vogue on Christian Dior is a volume from the series created by Charlotte Sinclair and the editors of British Vogue. It features 20,000 words of original biography and history and is studded with 80 color and black-and-white images from their unique archive of photos taken by the leading photographers of the day, including Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon.

A deeply moving testimony and celebration of how to embrace life. No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.

"A series of heart-rending yet ultimately uplifting essays....A lasting gift to readers." --The Washington Post

"It is the fate of every human being," Sacks writes, "to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death." Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.

"My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure."
--Oliver Sacks

"Oliver Sacks was like no other clinician, or writer. He was drawn to the homes of the sick, the institutions of the most frail and disabled, the company of the unusual and the 'abnormal.' He wanted to see humanity in its many variants and to do so in his own, almost anachronistic way--face to face, over time, away from our burgeoning apparatus of computers and algorithms. And, through his writing, he showed us what he saw."
--Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal