Biography – Autobiography- Memoir

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.

Meltem’s Journey: A Refugee Diary

Recounts the story of Meltem and her Kurdish family from Eastern Turkey, who journey to the United Kingdom, and whose courage and resilience lead them to a new home and a new life.

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.

A Boy Named Beckoning: The True Story of Dr. Carlos Montezuma, Native American Hero

This story reveals the life of a Yavapai-Apache boy named Wassaja, who was kidnapped from his tribe and sold as a slave. Adopted and renamed Carlos Montezuma, the young boy traveled throughout the Old West, bearing witness to the poor treatment of American Indians. Carlos eventually became a doctor and leader for his people.

Rattlesnake Mesa: Stories from a Native American Childhood

Chronicles the childhood of EdNah New Rider Weber as she is moved from her Pawnee home to live with her father on a Navajo reservation and then is again uprooted and placed in the Phoenix Indian School.

Quiet Hero

A biography of Native American Ira Hayes, a shy, humble Pima Indian who fought in World War II as a Marine and was one of six soldiers to raise the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima, an event immortalized in Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph.