Collection: Biography & Memoir

Explore one of the most powerful and highest-ranking female figures in American history with this biography of Vice President Kamala Harris in this Level 2 reader.

On January 20, 2021, Kamala Harris made history. That day, she became the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected as Vice President of the United States. Young readers will learn about Harris's childhood, her early career, and her journey that led to winning the vice presidency. This early reader also explores how Harris devoted her life to helping others, from serving as the Attorney General of California, to being elected as a U.S. Senator, to working alongside President Joe Biden on the campaign trail and in the White House.

The level 2 text provides accessible, yet wide-ranging information for independent readers. Explore Harris's life, achievements, and the challenges she faced along the way to becoming a barrier-breaking leader and an inspiration to young people everywhere.

Key features include:

• Expert-vetted text appropriate for ages 5 to 8
• Engaging and brilliant historical images sourced by National Geographic
• Fun approach to high-interest biographies

About the series: This high-interest, educationally-vetted readers series features magnificent National Geographic images accompanied by text written by experienced, skilled children's book authors. Each reader includes a glossary and interactive features in which kids get to use what they've learned in the book. Level 1 readers reinforce the content of the book with a kinesthetic learning activity. Level 2 readers feature slightly higher-level text and additional vocabulary words. Level 3 readers have more layers of information to challenge more proficient readers. For emerging readers, the Pre-reader level introduces vocabulary and concepts, and the Co-reader level provides a collaborative reading experience.

Praise for National Geographic Readers:

"Reliable in format and solid in execution, this series works well to introduce children of varying
levels of reading comfort to nonfiction and research formats."
--Maggie Reagan, Booklist

Complete your collection with these popular National Geographic Biography Readers:

• National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2)
• National Geographic Readers: Harriet Tubman (Level 2)
• National Geographic Readers: Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Level 3)
• National Geographic Readers: Barack Obama (Level 2)

From the critically acclaimed, multimillion-copy best-selling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the incredible life of tennis star Rafa Nadal.

Little Rafa was born in Majorca, Spain. Encouraged by his two uncles, he loved playing football and tennis, but found that he particularly excelled at tennis.

At only fifteen years old, he became a professional! Soon, he was ranked as one of the best on the court, and at age twenty-two, he was proclaimed the number one tennis player in the whole world.

Since then, Rafa has won many trophies, including twenty-two Grand Slams. His self-confidence, perseverance, and determination are the keys to his success. Today, he is considered one of the best tennis players in history.

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!

Central Oregon was the last frontier of the American West. Mountains, deserts, and deep river gorges kept it isolated well into the twentieth century. The region was almost uninhabited when William Plutarch Vandevert, legendary bear hunter, homesteaded a site on the Little Deschutes River in 1892 and built a log house that served his family for three generations. The Vandeverts raised cattle, sold timber, and served their community as civilization grew up around them. The ranch has been home to a stage stop, a frontier post office, a one room schoolhouse, a dance pavilion, horses, dogs, sheep, and even a duel. Today the ranch is home to some of the finest log homes in the west.

A Taiwanese American writer unfurls themes of memory, dislocation, language, and loss to tell a unique story about reclaiming one's heritage while living in a diaspora.

Born in Taiwan, Grace Loh Prasad was two years old when the threat of political persecution under Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship drove her family to the United States, setting her up to become an "accidental immigrant." The family did not know when they would be able to go home again; this exile lasted long enough for Prasad to forget her native Taiwanese language and grow up American. Having multilingual parents--including a father who worked as a translator--meant she never had to develop the fluency to navigate Taiwan on visits. But when her parents moved back to Taiwan permanently when she was in college and her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she recognized the urgency of forging a stronger connection with her birthplace before it was too late. As she recounts her journey to reclaim her heritage in The Translator's Daughter, Prasad unfurls themes of memory, dislocation, and loss in all their rich complexity. The result is a unique immigration story about the loneliness of living in a diaspora, the search for belonging, and the meaning of home.

A memoir of homecoming - Heidi Across America is a gritty story of how opening our hearts to others enables us to open our hearts to ourselves and love what we find there.

In the summer of 2010, Heidi Beierle had just finished her first year of graduate studies in community and regional planning and decided to pedal her bicycle solo from her home on the west coast across rural America to the Preserving the Historic Road conference in Washington, D.C. What started as a research trip turned into an intimately physical and psychological encounter with self and nationhood.

Heidi was 35 at the time and didn't love much about herself except her ability to endure grueling physical undertakings. She viewed her journey as an opportunity to fix her failures and insufficiencies. There were also some research questions she wanted to explore: Why do people live in small towns and what do they like about it? Did a bicyclist like herself bring economic benefit to the small towns she visited? What could communities do to support or invite cyclists to stay in their towns? What could cyclists do to support the communities?

Along the way, she was surprised by the kindness of strangers and the emotional pinch of traveling through Wyoming where she grew up. Her journey led her through the Plains and into the Ozarks where the heat climbed to agonizing temperatures and every pedal stroke in the heat felt one closer to death. By the time she completed the trip, Heidi discovered a newfound compassion for herself and a growing love for her country. Strangers opened their hearts to her and in turn, she opened her heart to herself.

And her questions began to change and mirror things many Americans are asking themselves today: How can I be okay in my own skin? What does it mean to be enough? How do I satisfy my desire to travel without harming the planet? What does it mean to love America?

For many young people, it is a rite of passage to light out on an adventure to see the world and expose themselves to new experiences, but we don't often talk about how Americans seeing America can open us to the diversity, awe, and wonder available right here in our nation. Heidi Across America offers a journey to self-love, empathy, consideration for others, and respect for the spirit of place as pathways to find connection and home.

This visual celebration of the world's most celebrated thinkers tells the fascinating stories of their lives and pioneering ideas.

Writers Who Changed History places well-known writers in their historical and cultural context, showing you how they came to influence literature as we know it today. This illustrated guide is ideal for those interested in literature, writing, poems, and novels or who want to broaden their general understanding of literature and writers' lives.

Inside this book on writers, you'll find:

-An overview of the lives and works of around 100 of the world's most important novelists, poets, and playwrights - from the Middle Ages to the present

-Eight pages of brand-new content with 12 new entries, including Charles Waddell Chesnutt and Zora Neale Hurston

-Portraits of each writer alongside photographs of their homes and studios, original manuscripts, notebooks, letters, first editions

In this literature guide, each writer is introduced with a realistic portrait and biographical entries that trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired and influenced their work, revealing insights into the larger-than-life characters, plots, and evocative settings they created. Entries explore each individual's key ideas and working methods and set their ideas in context, conveying a powerful sense of the place and the period of history in which they lived. Writers Who Changed History provides revealing insights into what drove each individual to develop new ways of understanding the world.

The Limeliters were the most vibrant urban folk group of the early 1960s, second only to the Kingston Trio in popularity at their peak. They were a diverse, volatile mix of highly intelligent personalities: Lou Gottlieb, a bass-playing comic with a Ph.D. in musicology; Alex Hassilev, a debonair virtuoso banjo player fluent in six languages; and Glenn Yarbrough, an independent-minded, hugely gifted natural tenor.

They recorded a string of best-selling albums for RCA Victor, made TV appearances and commercials, and toured North America and Europe 300 days out of the year at the height of the folk revival era.

In 1963, the three went their separate, erratic ways for the next ten years. Alex became a record producer and actor; Glenn went solo, had a big hit record, "Baby, the Rain Must Fall," but yearned to become a full-time sailor; and Lou had a mid-life crisis, grew his hair long, took LSD, and founded the notorious hippie commune, Morningstar Ranch, in Northern California. Eventually the trio reunited in 1973 and became a successful touring act, surviving with various changes in personnel to this day.

The saga of Lou, Alex and Glenn is also the story of many of the cultural ideas and trends of the second half of the 20th century in America-how they influenced their times, and how the times affected them.

Author Richard S. Ginell, who has known and interviewed the trio over a span of more than four decades, brings the whole slightly fabulous story of The Limeliters to life for the first time.

Eleanor Davis's bike tour from Tucson, Arizona to Athens, Georgia is a quest of epic proportions -- not just geographically, which it surely is, but inwardly as well. While facing off formidable headwinds, drivers with reckless abandon, and screaming knee pain, the author confronts an even greater challenge -- her own mind. Life on two wheels teaches her many lessons, and she narrates them with keen observation and self-deprecating candor through a series of funny, touching vignettes. Companionship from fellow travelers and the generosity of colorful strangers propel Davis along the open road. A tale of serendipitous encounters, surprising friendship, perseverance, and tenderness, Eleanor Davis's You and a Bike and a Road reveals the power, and truth, of the most efficient mode of human transportation -- a bicycle.

Bernardo de Galvez was a Spanish general who played a key role in the American Revolution. Without him, the patriots would not have won the war or at the very least, it would have taken them a much longer time to do so. That's a fact! His role was so important that on a wall of the Capitol the seat of the U.S. Congress there is a portrait of him, and he was even granted honorary United States citizenship by President Barack Obama not long ago. Would you like to get to know Galvez? Open this book and start reading!

Shaunie Henderson--wife, mother, entrepreneur, producer, and creator of the hit TV show Basketball Wives--opens up about finding love, offers advice for raising strong, smart, grounded Black children in today's world, and reveals how to define your career and personal life by your own terms in this inspirational memoir.

Today, Shaunie Henderson is a force to be reckoned with--a TV personality, producer of multiple hit reality shows, entrepreneur, philanthropist, mother of five children, First Lady of her husband's church, and role model. But before she found her voice and her purpose, she was one more young woman trying to find her way as a partner, a parent, and a person.

In Undefeated, Henderson opens up about the struggles, heartbreaks, losses, and triumphs that have made her who she is today--stories that will inspire you to rise up, discover your strength and self-love, and be who you are meant to be. Featuring her relatable voice and filled with candor, Undefeated is so much more than a memoir--it is a stirring guidebook that will change your life for the better.

Discover the life of Leonardo da Vinci--a story about uncovering new things for kids ages 6 to 9

Leonardo da Vinci was a famous artist and thinker. He created well-known paintings like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and even had ideas for modern-day inventions like cars and contact lenses. Before he amazed the world with his creative mind, he was a bright kid who loved asking questions.

As a teenager, he studied under an expert artist who taught him different ways to create, like painting and sculpting. Explore how Leonardo went from being a thoughtful young boy to an artistic genius whose artwork still hangs in museums all over the world.

The Story of Leonardo da Vinci includes:

• Core curriculum standards--Learn the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Leonardo's life, and test your knowledge with a fun quiz.
• His lasting legacy--Discover more about how Leonardo da Vinci changed the world for future generations, including you!
• A visual timeline--Explore a timeline marking the major milestones of Leonardo's life so you can watch him progress from a little kid to a brilliant artist.

How will Leonardo's unstoppable imagination inspire you?

In 1908 at the age of two, Henry Pu Yi ascended to become the last emperor of the centuries-old Manchu dynasty. After revolutionaries forced Pu Yi to abdicate in 1911, the young emperor lived for thirteen years in Peking's Forbidden City, but with none of the power his birth afforded him. The remainder of Pu Yi's life was lived out in a topsy-turvy fashion: fleeing from a Chinese warlord, becoming head of a Japanese puppet state, being confined to a Russian prison in Siberia, and enduring taxing labor. The Last Manchu is a unique, enthralling record of China's most turbulent, dramatic years.

A memoir-in-essays about how skateboarding re-defines space, curates culture, confronts mortality, and affords new perspectives on and off the board

Chipping a board--where small pieces of deck and tape break off around the nose and tail--is a natural part of skateboarding. Novice or pro, you'll see folks riding chipped boards as symbols of their stubborn dedication toward a deck, a toy, and aging bodies that will also reach their inevitable end.

In Chipped, José Vadi personalizes and expands upon this symbol. Written after finishing his debut collection Inter State: Essays From California, Vadi used these essays to explore his own empathy in aging, and to elaborate on the impact skateboarding has had on culture, power, and art. From tracing a critical mass skater takeover of San Francisco's streets, to an analysis of visceral '90s skate videos and soundtracks, to the solace found skating a parking lot during a global pandemic, Vadi expands our understanding of the ways skateboarding can alter one's life.

Vadi acts as a "ethnographer on a skateboard," writing, living, and animating an object, likening the board and skate ephemera to the fear of being discarded, wanting to be seen as useful, functional, living. These essays analyze the legacy of seminal texts like Thrasher Magazine, influential programming giants like MTV, and skateboard artists like Ed Templeton. They imagine jazz composer Sun Ra as a skateboarder to explore sonic connections between skateboarding and jazz, obsessively follow bands, chronicle tours, and discover the creative bermuda triangle Southern California suburbs have to offer. Chipped is an intimate, genre-pushing meditation on skateboarding and the reasons we continue to get up after every fall life throws our way.

"Look at the birds"

Through the painful days of the pandemic stuck in her home, Courtney Ellis found herself looking down in despair. Soon after, her beloved grandfather died unexpectedly.

It was around this same time that Ellis took up watching birds. "Took up" might not be exactly right--as she puts it, "the switch flipped," and she's been borderline obsessed with birds ever since.

Looking Up is a meditation on birding as a practice of hope. Weaving together stories from her own life, including the death of her grandfather, with reflections on birds of many kinds, Ellis invites us to open our eyes to the goodness of God both in the natural world and in our own lives. By "looking up" to the birds, Ellis found the beauty and wonder of these creatures calling her out of her darkness into the light and hope of God's promises.