Biography – Autobiography- Memoir

Jazz Age Josephine

Singer, dancer, actress, and independent dame, Josephine Baker felt life was a performance. She lived by her own rules and helped to shake up the status quo with wild costumes and a you-can’t-tell-me-no attitude that made her famous. She even had a pet leopard in Paris! From bestselling children’s biographer Jonah Winter and two-time Caldecott Honoree Marjorie Priceman comes a story of a woman the stage could barely contain. Rising from a poor, segregated upbringing, Josephine Baker was able to break through racial barriers with her own sense of flair and astonishing dance abilities. She was a pillar of steel with a heart of goldall wrapped up in feathers, sequins, and an infectious rhythm.

Drawing from Memory

Caldecott Medalist Allen Say presents a graphic novel chronicling his journey as an artist during WWII, when he apprenticed under Noro Shinpei, Japan’s premier cartoonist. Shunned by his father, who didn’t understand his son’s artistic leanings, Allen was embraced by Noro Shinpei, Japan’s leading cartoonist and the man he came to love as his “spiritual father.” As WWII raged, Allen was further inspired to consider questions of his own heritage and the motivations of those around him. He worked hard in rigorous drawing classes, studied, trained–and ultimately came to understand who he really is. Part memoir, part graphic novel, part narrative history, this book presents a complex look at the real-life relationship between a mentor and his student. With watercolor paintings, original cartoons, vintage photographs, and maps.

Irena’s Jars Of Secrets

Irena Sendler, born to a Polish Catholic family, was raised to respect people of all backgrounds and to help those in need. She became a social worker; and after the German army occupied Poland during World War II, Irena knew she had to help the sick and the starving Jews who were imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. She began by smuggling food, clothing and medicine into the ghetto, then turned to smuggling children out of the ghetto. Using false papers and creative means of escape, and at great personal risk, Irena helped rescue Jewish children and hides them in safe surroundings. Hoping to reunite families after the war, Irena kept lists of the Children’s identities.

Motivated by conscience and armed with compassion and a belief in human dignity, Irena Sendler confronted an enormous moral challenge and proved to the world that an ordinary person can accomplish deeds of extraordinary courage.

A Stranger at Home

The powerful memoir of an Inuvialuit girl searching for her true self when she returns from residential school. Traveling to be reunited with her family in the Arctic, 10-year-old Margaret Pokiak can hardly contain her excitement. It’s been two years since her parents delivered her to the school run by the dark-cloakednuns and brothers. Coming ashore, Margaret spots her family, but her mother barely recognizes her, screaming, “Not my girl.” Margaret realizes she is now marked as an outsider. And Margaret is an outsider: she has forgotten the language and stories of her people, and she can’t even stomach the food her mother prepares. However, Margaret gradually relearns her language and her family’s way of living. Along the way, she discovers how important it is to remain true to the ways of her people — and to herself. Highlighted by archival photos and striking artwork, this first-person account of a young girl’s struggle to find her place will inspire young readers to ask what it means to belong.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 2

This book has been included in WOW’s Language and Learning: Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Booklist. For our current list, visit our Booklist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.

Dan Eldon: Safari as a Way of Life

Photojournalist Dan Eldon left behind much more than the astonishing illustrated journals that would form The Journey is the Destination when he lost his life at age twenty-two while on assignment in Somalia. He also bequeathed a life story that has inspired students, teachers, artists, and creative activists—as well as a forthcoming film, an apparel line, and the Spring 2011 collection from Tom’s Shoes. Raised in Kenya, Dan grew up with a unique outlook on life. Through adventurous safaris and benevolent crusades around the world, he crafted a philosophy of curiosity, creativity, and charity. This unique visual biography showcases previously unpublished artwork from Dan’s acclaimed journals, letters, and snapshots that takes readers on a journey through Dan’s life and beyond, exploring the impact made by this remarkable artist on everyone who has encountered his story.

A Girl Named Faithful Plum

In 1977, when Zhongmei Lei was eleven years old, she learned that the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy was having open auditions. She’d already taken dance lessons, but everyone said a poor country girl would never get into the academy, especially without any connections in the Communist Party of the 1970s. But Zhongmei, whose name means Faithful Plum, persisted, even going on a hunger strike, until her parents agreed to allow her to go. She traveled for three days and two nights to get to Beijing and eventually beat out 60,000 other girls for one of 12 coveted spots. But getting in was easy compared to staying in, as Zhongmei soon learned. Without those all-important connections she was just a little girl on her own, far away from family. But her determination, talent, and sheer force of will were not something the teachers or other students expected, and soon it was apparent that Zhongmei was not to be underestimated. Zhongmei became a famous dancer, and founded her own dance company, which made its New York debut when she was in just her late 20s.  In A Girl Named Faithful Plum, her husband and renowned journalist, Richard Bernstein, has written a fascinating account of one girl’s struggle to go from the remote farmlands of China to the world’s stages, and the lengths she went to in order to follow her dream.

Django: World’s Greatest Jazz Guitarist

Born into a traveling gypsy family, young Django Reinhardt taught himself guitar at an early age. He was soon acclaimed as the “Gypsy Genius” and “Prodigy Boy,” but one day his world changed completely when a fire claimed the use of his fretting hand. Folks said Django would never play again, but with passion and perseverance he was soon setting the world’s concert stages ablaze. Bonnie Christensen’s gorgeous oil paintings and jazzy, syncopated text perfectly depict the man and his music.

Charles Dickens: England’s Most Captivating Storyteller

See the world of Charles Dickens spring to life in his fascinating notebook. Excerpts from his personal letters, guides to his major works, and enthralling facts about his life and times—including Dickens’s own amazing rags-to-riches story—are accompanied by fascinating new illustrations, drawings from the original books, and photographs from the period.

Mohammed’s Journey: A Refugee Diary

After his home was invaded by Saddam Hussein’s soldiers, a young Kurdish boy named Mohammed and his mother take on a daring quest to flee Iraq; risking their lives to travel through several countries in order to reach freedom in England.

How I Learned Geography

A 2009 Caldecott Honor Book. Having fled from war in their troubled homeland, a boy and his family are living in poverty in a strange country. Food is scarce, so when the boy’s father brings home a map instead of bread for supper, at first the boy is furious. But when the map is hung on the wall, it floods their cheerless room with color. As the boy studies its every detail, he is transported to exotic places without ever leaving the room, and he eventually comes to realize that the map feeds him in a way that bread never could. Based on the artist’s childhood memories of World War II.