2015 SUMMER READING LIST
English 10 & 10 Honors:
Read 2 full length biographies, autobiographies or memoirs
21: THE STORY OF ROBERTO CLEMENTE by Wilfred Santiago
"21" is a graphic biography of baseball star Roberto Clemente and chronicles the star's early days growing up in rural
Puerto Rico, the highlights of his career, the prejudice he faced, and his humanitarian mission. (Good Reads)
A LONG WAY GONE: MEMOIRS OF A BOY SOLDIER by Ishamel Beah
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life.
"Why did you leave Sierra Leone?"
"Because there is a war."
"You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?"
"Yes, all the time."
"Cool."
I smile a little.
"You should tell us about it sometime."
"Yes, sometime."
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers
of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers.
Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers
have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a
first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking
rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government
army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.
This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty. (Good Reads)
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank. 1952
Through the diary she kept while in hiding, thirteen-year-old Anne Frank puts a human face on
the Holocaust experience. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
ALWAYS RUNNING: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. by Luis Rodriguez
By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang
culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as drugs,
murder, suicide, and senseless acts of street crime claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez
saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of
violence and desperation.
BAD BOY: A MEMOIR by Walter Dean Myers
In a memoir that is gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable, New York Times bestselling author
Walter Dean Myers travels back to his roots in the magical world of Harlem during the 1940s and 1950s.
Here is the story of one of the most distinguished writers of young people's literature today.
As a boy, Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read
voraciously—he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags
in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer.
But while growing up in a poor family in Harlem, his hope for a successful future diminished as he came to
realize fully the class and racial struggles that surrounded him. He began to doubt himself and the values
that he had always relied on, attending high school less and less, turning to the streets and to his books
for comfort. (Good Reads)
THE BASKETBALL DIARIES by Jim Carroll
The original classic story about growing up with drugs and sex and about learning to survive on the streets of
New York--once again in print. An urban classic of coming of age. (Good Reads)
BEHIND THE MASK: THE LIFE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH
I by Jane Resh Thomas
Elizabeth I (1533-1603) impressed herself more vividly on the memory of the world than any other monarch in the
history of England. She successfully established and maintained power while refusing to bow to the wishes of those who
believed no woman was fit to occupy the English throne. This biography describes the opulent but cruel childhood that
shaped the woman Elizabeth became and details her triumphant reign, as well as the unrelenting forces that opposed
her. Exploring the answers to some of history's most persistent and intriguing questions, Jane Resh Thomas has created
a compelling account of Elizabeth's life that shatters the myths surrounding her and allows readers an unprecedented
view of the queen as a human being. Full-color insert, chronology, bibliography, index. (Good Reads)
Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth. Richard Wright.
Wright recalls his pre-World War II youth when racial and personal obstacles seemed
insurmountable. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
BOY: TALES OF CHILDHOOD by Roald Dahl
In Boy, Roald Dahl recounts his days as a child growing up in England. From his years as a prankster at
boarding school to his envious position as a chocolate tester for Cadbury's, Roald Dahl's boyhood was as
full of excitement and the unexpected as are his world-famous, best-selling books. Packed with anecdotes
-- some funny, some painful, all interesting -- this is a book that's sure to please. (Good Reads)
A CHILD CALLED IT by David Pelzer
This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the
story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who
played tortuous, unpredictable games--games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games
in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy, but an "it."
Dave's bed was an old army cot in the basement, and his clothes were torn and raunchy. When his mother allowed him
the luxury of food, it was nothing more than spoiled scraps that even the dogs refused to eat. The outside world knew
nothing of his living nightmare. He had nothing or no one to turn to, but his dreams kept him alive--dreams of someone
taking care of him, loving him and calling him their son. (Good Reads)
CLAUDETTE COLVIN: TWICE TOWARD JUSTICE by
Philip Hoose
“When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can’t sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and
say, ‘This is not right.’” – Claudette Colvin
On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused
to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as
Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her
classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation
again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of
Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.
Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth
account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, skillfully weaving her dramatic story into the
fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history.
(Good Reads)
CIRCUIT: STORIES FROM THE LIFE OF A MIGRANT CHILD by
Francisco Jimenez
These independent but intertwined stories follow a migrant family through their circuit, from picking
cotton and strawberries to topping carrots - and back again - over a number of years. As it moves from
one labor camp to the next, the little family of four grows into ten. Impermanence and poverty define
their lives. But with faith, hope, and back-breaking work, the family endures. (Good Reads)
The Color of Water: a Black Man's Tribute to His White
Mother. James McBride.
McBride blends his story with that of his mother, who battled poverty and racism to raise twelve
children. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Coming of Age in Mississippi. Ann Moody.
One of the first brave young African American students to participate in a lunch counter sit-in,
Moody becomes a heroine of the civil rights movement. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. Bernard Edelman, editor..
Letters from those who made it back and from those who did not return provide a glimpse into
the lives of the men and women who served during the Vietnam War. (ALA Best YA
Biographies)
The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande
Mago pointed to a spot on the dirt floor and reminded me that my umbilical cord was buried there. “That
way,” Mami told the midwife, “no matter where life takes her, she won’t ever forget where she came
from.”
Then Mago touched my belly button . . . She said that my umbilical cord was like a ribbon that connected
me to Mami. She said, “It doesn’t matter that there’s a distance btween us now. That cord is there
forever.”
When Reyna Grande’s father leaves his wife and three children behind in a village in Mexico to make the
dangerous trek across the border to the United States, he promises he will soon return from “El Otro
Lado” (The Other Side) with enough money to build them a dream house where they can all live together.
His promises become harder to believe as months turn into years. When he summons his wife to join him,
Reyna and her siblings are deposited in the already overburdened household of their stern, unsmiling
grandmother.
The three siblings are forced to look out for themselves; in childish games they find a way to forget the
pain of abandonment and learn to solve very adult problems. When their mother at last returns, the
reunion sets the stage for a dramatic new chapter in Reyna’s young life: her own journey to “El Otro Lado”
to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father.
In this extraordinary memoir, award-winning writer Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous
early years, capturing all the confusion and contradictions of childhood, especially one spent torn between
two parents and two countries. Elated when she feels the glow of her father’s love and approval, Reyna
knows that at any moment he might turn angry or violent. Only in books and music and her rich
imaginary life does she find solace, a momentary refuge from a world in which every place feels like “El
Otro Lado.”
The Distance Between Us captures one girl’s passage from childhood to adolescence and beyond. A funny,
heartbreaking, lyrical story, it reminds us that the joys and sorrows of childhood are always with us,
invisible to the eye but imprinted on the heart, forever calling out to us of those places we first called
home. (Good Reads)
DREAM SELLER: An Addiction Memoir
Partridge chronicles the emotional highs and paralyzing lows John Lennon transformed
into brilliant, evocative songs. With photos spanning his entire life, this is the
unforgettable biography of one of rock's biggest legends. (Park Ridge Public Library)
Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol. 1:1884-1933. Blanche Wiesen Cook. 1992.
Born into a privileged world, Eleanor Roosevelt became a champion of the underprivileged and a
fighter for human rights. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey
from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden
A New York Times bestseller, the shocking story of one of the few people born in a North Korean political prison to
have escaped and survived.
There are some people in this world who remain unaware of the repressive regime of the late Kim Jong Il.
They have never heard of him, Pyongyang, South Korea, or freedom. They are North Koreans, specifically
those unfortunate ones born in and confined to labor camps. Harden tells the harrowing story of Shin
Dong-hyuk, a young man born in the notorious Camp 14. Shin's parents were given to each other as a
reward for good work, and he rarely saw them because familial bonds were discouraged. Shin lived in
barracks, working from a young age in labor that killed many. Everyone was encouraged to snitch on each
other, a policy so ingrained that Shin snitched on his mother, resulting in her public execution. In his early
twenties, Shin became the first person to escape a North Korean labor camp. Harden details the difficult
years that follow: months in rural China, cultural shock in affluent and competitive South Korea, and
existential confusion once Shin reaches the U.S.--Parsons, Blair Copyright 2010 Booklist
© Copyright 1997-2013 American Library Association.
The American Library Association is providing information and services on the web in furtherance of its non-profit and tax-exempt status. Permission to use, copy and
distribute documents delivered from this web site and related graphics is hereby granted for private, non-commercial and education purposes only, provided that the
above copyright notice appears with the following notice: this document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not
for resale. No resale use may be made of material on this web site at any time. All other rights reserved.
FALLING LEAVES: A TRUE STORY OF UNWANTED CHINESE
DAUGHTER by Adeline Yen Mah
The author's memoir of life in mainland China and--after the 1949 revolution--Hong Kong is a gruesome
chronicle of nonstop emotional abuse from her wealthy father and his beautiful, cruel second wife. (Good
Reads)
FEYNMAN by Jim Ottaviani
Richard Feynman: physicist . . . Nobel winner . . . bestselling author . . . safe-cracker. In this substantial
graphic novel biography, First Second presents the larger-than-life exploits of Nobel-winning quantum
physicist, adventurer, musician, world-class raconteur, and one of the greatest minds of the twentieth
century: Richard Feynman. Written by nonfiction comics mainstay Jim Ottaviani and brilliantly illustrated
by First Second author Leland Myrick, Feynman tells the story of the great man’s life from his childhood in
Long Island to his work on the Manhattan Project and the Challenger disaster. Ottaviani tackles the bad
with the good, leaving the reader delighted by Feynman’s exuberant life and staggered at the loss
humanity suffered with his death. Anyone who ever wanted to know more about Richard P. Feynman,
quantum electrodynamics, the fine art of the bongo drums, the outrageously obscure nation of Tuva, or
the development and popularization of the field of physics in the United States need look no further than
this rich and joyful work. (Good Reads)
FINDING FISH: A MEMOIR by Antwone Q. Fisher
Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He
ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In
his mid-teens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the
family he created for himself.
Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born -- first as the
child who painted the feelings his words dared not speak, then as a poet and storyteller who would
eventually become one of Hollywood's most sought-after screenwriters.
A tumultuous and ultimately gratifying tale of self-discovery written in Fisher's gritty yet melodic literary
voice, Finding Fish is an unforgettable reading experience. (Good Reads)
FAREWELL TO MANZANAR: A TRUE STORY OF JAPANESE
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE DURING AND AFTER WORLD WAR
II INTERNMENT by Jeanne Wakatsuki and James D. Houston
The true story of one spirited Japanese American family's attempt to survive the indignities of forced
detention...and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire
in the United States.
Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of
Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen
Full Body Burden is a haunting work of narrative nonfiction about a young woman, Kristen Iversen, growing up in a small
Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated "the most contaminated site in
America." It's the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly
beautiful and--unknown to those who lived there--tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium.
It's also a book about the destructive power of secrets--both family and government. Her father's hidden liquor bottles,
the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood, the truth about what was made at Rocky Flats (cleaning supplies,
her mother guessed)--best not to inquire too deeply into any of it.
But as Iversen grew older, she began to ask questions. She learned about the infamous 1969 Mother's Day fire, in which
a few scraps of plutonium spontaneously ignited and--despite the desperate efforts of firefighters--came perilously close
to a "criticality," the deadly blue flash that signals a nuclear chain reaction. Intense heat and radiation almost melted the
roof, which nearly resulted in an explosion that would have had devastating consequences for the entire Denver metro
area. Yet the only mention of the fire was on page 28 of the Rocky Mountain News, underneath a photo of the Pet of the
Week. In her early thirties, Iversen even worked at Rocky Flats for a time, typing up memos in which accidents were
always called "incidents."
And as this memoir unfolds, it reveals itself as a brilliant work of investigative journalism--a detailed and shocking
account of the government's sustained attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic and radioactive waste released by
Rocky Flats, and of local residents' vain attempts to seek justice in court. Here, too, are vivid portraits of former Rocky
Flats workers--from the healthy, who regard their work at the plant with pride and patriotism, to the ill or dying, who
battle for compensation for cancers they got on the job.
Based on extensive interviews, FBI and EPA documents, and class-action testimony, this taut, beautifully written book
promises to have a very long half-life. (Good Reads)
GIFTED HANDS: THE BEN CARSON STORY by Ben
Carson
Gifted Hands by and about Ben Carson, M.D., is the inspiring story of an inner-city kid with poor grades and little
motivation, who, at age thirty-three, became director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.
Gifted Hands will transplace you into the operating room to witness surgeries that made headlines around the world,
and into the private mind of a compassionate, God-fearing physician who lives to help others. In 1987, Dr. Carson gained
worldwide recognition for his part in the first successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the back of the head -- an
extremely complex and delicate operation that was five months of planning and twenty-two hours of actual surgery,
involving a surgical plan that Carson helped initiate. Gifted Hands reveals a man with humility, decency, compassion,
courage, and sensitivity who serves as a role model for young people (and everyone else) in need of encouragement to
attempt the seemingly impossible and to excel in whatever they attempt. Dr. Carson also describes the key role that his
highly intelligent though relatively uneducated mother played in his metamorphosis from an unmotivated ghetto
youngster into one of the most respected neurosurgeons in the world. (Good Reads)
A GIRL NAMED FAITHFUL PLUM by Richard
Bernstein
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. (Good Reads)
THE GLASS CASTLE: A MEMOIR
by Jeannette Walls
The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply
dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's
imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest
and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of
raising a family.
The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually
found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.
The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family. (Good
Reads)
GEEKS: HOW TWO LOST BOYS RODE THE INTERNET OUT OF
IDAHO by Jon Katz
Geeks is the story of how Jesse and Eric--and others like them--used technology to try and change their lives
and alter their destiny. (Park Ridge Library)
Growing Up. Russell Baker.
A columnist with a sense of humor takes a gentle look at his childhood in Baltimore during the
Depression. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
HAWK: OCCUPATION, SKATEBOARDER
by Tony Hawk with Sean
Mortimer
The grand master of extreme skateboarding, a.k.a. "The Birdman", shares the trials and
tribulations that have made him a legend in skateboarding. (Park Ridge Library)
THE HIDING PLACE by Corrie Ten Bloom
Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983) was a Dutch woman admired the world over for her courage, her
forgiveness, and her memorable faith. In World War II, she and her family risked their lives to help Jews
escape the Nazis by hiding them in their home in Haarlem, and their reward was a trip to Hitler's
concentration camps. Corrie's father, sister, brother, and nephew died as a result of their imprisonment.
But she survived and was released as a result of a clerical error and now shares the story of how faith
triumphs over evil. For thirty-five years Corrie's dramatic life story, full of timeless virtues, has prepared
readers to face their own futures with faith, relying on God's love to overcome, heal, and restore. The
Hiding Place tells the riveting story of how a middle-aged Dutch watchmaker became a heroine of the
Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's death camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the
twentieth century.After the war, Corrie ten Boom returned to the Netherlands to set up rehabilitation
centers. She returned to Germany in 1946, and many years of itinerant teaching in over sixty countries
followed, during which time she wrote many books. In 1967, Corrie ten Boom was honored as one of the
"Righteous Among the Nations" by the State of Israel. The Hiding Place (1971) was made into a film in
1975. (Amazon)
HOLE IN MY LIFE by Jack Gantos
Becoming a writer the hard way
In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out
of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of
hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up
with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison.
In Hole in My Life, this prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and
confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to
the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal,
and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos - once he was locked up in a small,
yellow-walled cell - moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how dedicating himself more fully to the thing he
most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life. (Good Reads)
House of Houses. Pat Mora.
With magic and imagination, author Pat Mora weaves the voices of her ancestors into her own
personal account of growing up in a Mexican-American family in El Paso, Texas. (ALA Best YA
Biographies)
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was
Shot by the Taliban
by Malala Yousafzai
I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls'
education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and
attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
(Good Reads)
I AM NUJOOD, 10 AND DIVORCED by Nujood Ali
Chosen by Glamour magazine as a Woman of the Year in 2008, Nujood of Yemen has become an
international hero for her astonishingly brave resistance to child marriage. Sold off by her impoverished
family at the age of 10, continually raped by her husband before she even reached puberty, Nujood found
the courage to run away, and with the help of an activist lawyer, sympathetic judges, and the
international press, she divorced her husband and returned home. Her clear, first-person narrative,
translated from the French and written with Minoui is spellbinding: the horror of her parents’ betrayal and
her mother-in-law’s connivance, the “grown-ups” who send the child from classroom and toys to
nightmare abuse. She never denies the poverty that drives her parents and oppresses her brothers, even
as she reveals their cruelty. Unlike her passive mother, she is an activist, thrilled to return to school,
determined to save others, including her little sister. True to the child’s viewpoint, the “grown-up” cruelty
is devastating. Readers will find it incredible that such unbelievable abuse and such courageous resistance
are happening now. Hazel Rochman (Booklist)
© Copyright 1997-2013 American Library Association.
The American Library Association is providing information and services on the web in furtherance of its non-profit and tax-exempt status. Permission to use, copy and
distribute documents delivered from this web site and related graphics is hereby granted for private, non-commercial and education purposes only, provided that the
above copyright notice appears with the following notice: this document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not
for resale. No resale use may be made of material on this web site at any time. All other rights reserved.
I HAVE LIVED A THOUSAND YEARS: GROWING UP IN THE
HOLOCAUST Livia Britton-Jackson
In a graphic present-tense narrative, this Holocaust memoir describes what happens to a Jewish
girl who is 13 when the Nazis invade Hungary in 1944. She tells of a year of roundups,
transports, selections, camps, torture, forced labor, and shootings, then of liberation and the
return of a few.
Hunger of Memory: the Education of Richard Rodriguez: an
Autobiography. Richard Rodriguez.
Rodriguez's journey through the educational system leads to his belief that family, culture, and
language must be left behind to succeed in mainstream America. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya Angelou. 1970.
An African American writer, poet, and actress traces her coming of age. (ALA Best YA
Biographies)
JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH by
Elizabeth Partridge
Award-winning biographer Elizabeth Partridge dives into Lennon’s life from the night he was born in 1940 during a
World War II air raid on Liverpool, deftly taking us through his turbulent childhood and his rebellious rock’n’roll teens to
his celebrated life writing, recording, and performing music with the Beatles. She sheds light on the years after the
Beatles, with Yoko Ono, as he struggled to make sense of his own artistic life—one that had turned from youthful angst
to suffocating fame in almost a split second.
Partridge chronicles the emotional highs and paralyzing lows Lennon transformed into brilliant, evocative songs. With
striking black-andwhite photographs spanning his entire life, John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth is the unforgettable
story of one of rock’s biggest legends. (Good Reads)
JANIS JOPLIN: RISE UP SINGING by Ann Angel
Forty years after her death, Janis Joplin remains among the most compelling and influential figures in rock-and-roll
history. Her story—told here with depth and sensitivity by author Ann Angel—is one of a girl who struggled against rules
and limitations, yet worked diligently to improve as a singer. It’s the story of an outrageous rebel who wanted to be
loved, and of a wild woman who wrote long, loving letters to her mom. And finally, it’s the story of one of the most
iconic female musicians in American history, who died at twenty-seven. (Good Reads)
Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age
in Apartheid South Africa. Mark Mathabane.
Growing up under the brutalities of apartheid South Africa, Mathabane describes the growing
unrest in his country and his eventual escape through his ties to the tennis community. (ALA
Best YA Biographies)
LAKOTA WOMAN by Mary Crow Dog and Erdoes,
Richard
Mary Brave Bird grew up fatherless in a one-room cabin, without running water or electricity, on the
Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Rebelling against the aimless drinking, punishing missionary
school, narrow strictures for women, and violence and hopeless of reservation life, she joined the new
movement of tribal pride sweeping Native American communities in the sixties and seventies. Mary
eventually married Leonard Crow Dog, the American Indian Movement's chief medicine man, who revived
the sacred but outlawed Ghost Dance.
Originally published in 1990, Lakota Woman was a national best seller and winner of the American Book
Award. It is a unique document, unparalleled in American Indian literature, a story of death, of
determination against all odds, of the cruelties perpetuated against American Indians, and of the Native
American struggle for rights. Working with Richard Erdoes, one of the twentieth century's leading writers
on Native American affairs, Brave Bird recounts her difficult upbringing and the path of her fascinating life.
(Amazon)
The Liars' Club: A Memoir. Mary Karr.
Growing up in "a family of liars and drunks" is never easy, and yet, despite alcoholism, rape, and
other dark secrets, the author makes childhood in an East Texas refinery town sound as funny
as it was painful. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
LITTLE GIRL LOST by Drew Barrymore with Todd Gold
She was a modern-day Shirley Temple, but at the age of nine Drew Barrymore was
drinking alcohol. At ten she took up marijuana, and by twelve she began snorting
cocaine. Here is her gripping, heart-wrenching story--a story of a childhood gone awry
and a young woman battling to restore order to her chaotic life.
LITTLE PRINCES: ONE MAN’S PROMISE TO BRING
HOME THE LOST CHILDREN OF NEPAL by Conor Grennan
Grennan volunteered to spend three months at an orphanage in Nepal, helping to tend 18 children
orphaned during the civil war when their villages were attacked by Maoist rebels. It was supposed to be a
one-off experience, but when he learned that the children were not orphans but had been taken from their
families by a child trafficker who enslaved them, he was pulled into their lives in ways he hadn’t
anticipated. What followed was another three-month stay that grew into a commitment to establish a
separate children’s house and attempt to reconnect the children and their families. Grennan details his
personal learning curve as he went from a man motivated by making himself look good to a man obsessed
with traveling across rugged terrain to reunite families, a childless man learning the joys and agonies of
parenthood. He also details the incredible stories of families caught in a civil war, frightened and anxious
about the future of their children, and the endearing resiliency of the children themselves, many of them
traumatized by war, enslavement, and separation from their families.— Vanessa Bush
© Copyright 1997-2013 American Library Association.
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above copyright notice appears with the following notice: this document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not
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LIVING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD: A TEENAGER’S
SURVIVAL IN THE TUNELS OF GRAND CENTRAL STATION by S.
Tina and Jamie Pastor Bolnick
When Tina S. meets April, a teenage runaway, she thinks she's found her best friend.
She leaves behind her dysfunctional family to join April in the tunnels of Grand Central
Station amidst the homeless and drug addicted. Soon she's bingeing on crack--just like
April--and stealing, scamming and panhandling to support her habit and to survive on
the streets. (Park Ridge Library)
LONGSHOT: THE ADVENTURES OF A DEAF
FUNDAMENTALIST MORMON KID AND HIS JOURNEY TO THE
NBA by Lance Allred
The NBA's first legally deaf player recounts his childhood on a polygamist compound in Montana,
the difficulties he faced playing collegiate basketball, his brief time playing professionally in
Europe, and the success that brought him to the NBA.
A LONG WAY GONE: MEMOIRS OF A BOY
SOLDIER by Ishmael Beah
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have
become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there
are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop?
Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But
until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and
survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he
fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been
picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly
terrible acts.
This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
(Amazon)
“We went to work killing everyone in sight. We didn’t waste a single bullet.” The prose is flat, almost
detached, as the writer speaks quietly of what he witnessed, and what he did, as a young teen soldier in
Sierra Leone. It could be a kids’ war game, but it was real. On the run in 1993 after the rebels (“freedom
fighters”) invaded his town and killed his parents, the 12-year-old sees massacre up close: heads chopped
off, people burned alive. A year later, recruited by the army to get revenge (“think of it as . . . the highest
service you can perform for your country ”), always drugged, he becomes a perpetrator. At 15, he is
rescued by a UN committee, which helps him slowly confront the trauma and begin to recover; then he is
brought to the UN in New York to bear witness. A final note tells you he graduated from Oberlin College.
One boy’s horrific memoir captures the reality of those distant news pictures of kids with guns somewhere
in Africa.
— Hazel Rochman
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distribute documents delivered from this web site and related graphics is hereby granted for private, non-commercial and education purposes only, provided that the
above copyright notice appears with the following notice: this document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not
for resale. No resale use may be made of material on this web site at any time. All other rights reserved.
LOST BOY, LOST GIRL: ESCAPING CIVIL WAR IN
THE SUDAN by Jon Bul Dau
The tragic story of Sudan's lost boys and lost girls is told in simple language by two survivors. The authors
explain that a civil war between Muslim Arabs in the north and Christian Africans in the south led to
thousands of Sudanese being displaced from their homes. In 1987, when Dau was 13 and Akech was 6,
war came to their village. Both traveled hundreds of miles to a UN refugee camp in Ethiopia. After a few
years of safety, the refugees were forced to move again, back into Sudan and eventually to a new camp in
Kenya. Through all those years, starvation, thirst, and disease plagued the Sudanese. Both Dau and Akech
kept hope for the future by going to school and learning. Their story has a happy ending, with immigration
to the United States and marriage. Teens who know little about Sudan and its problems will be drawn into
this moving, inspirational story. More than just a memoir, it is a reflection on a lost lifestyle, with plenty of
details about the beliefs and culture of the Dinka, the southern Sudanese people to which both Dau and
Akech belong to. Ideal for classroom use, this book is also a heartbreaking but hopeful read.–Melissa
Rabey (School Library Journal)
LOST IN PLACE:GROWING UP ADSURD IN SUBURBIA by
Mark Salzman
Review by School Library Journal Review
YA‘As a youth, Salzman was remarkably self-directed and came from a loving and supportive family. At
13, he saw his first kung fu movie with actor Bruce Lee and decided on the spot to become a ``wandering
Zen monk.'' His parents allowed him the freedom to pursue this new interest. After much meditating and
practicing at home, he enrolled in a martial-arts school. Soon the boy's interest in Asian philosophy and
mysticism led him to study the Chinese language, which in turn led to practicing and learning the art of
Chinese brush painting. All of these interests are described as adventures, some of which are frightening;
others are simply wonderful fun. All are interesting. Readers come away from this memoir refreshed and
inspired by this young person's quest to become ``someone'' and to discover himself. This very different
journey through adolescence is a delight to read, and is one that many YAs will relate to and enjoy.‘Helen
Lazar, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
Madam Curie: a Biography. Eve Curie.
In sharing personal papers and her own memories, a daughter pays tribute to her unique and
generous mother, a scientific genius. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Malcolm X with the Assistance of Alex Haley.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X . With the assistance of Alex Haley.
A great and controversial Black Muslim figure relates his transformation from street hustler to
religious and national leader. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
MARLEY AND ME: LIFE AND LOVE WITH THE WORLD’S
WORST DOG by John Grogan
Review by Booklist Review
Oh my. I don't think I've ever seen anything so cute in my life. Thus author Grogan's wife sealed their fate
when they just went to look at a litter of Labrador retriever puppies and ended up picking out Marley.
Maybe their first clue should have been that the breeder had discounted the price on their puppy, or when
they saw his father charging out of the woods covered in mud with a crazed but joyous look in his eye.
Despite these portents, Marley entered their lives, and nothing was ever the same again. Between
careening through screen doors and swallowing everything that would fit in his mouth, Marley also
managed to comfort these two when they miscarried their first child. Although Marley got kicked out of
obedience training after he dragged the instructor across the parking lot and terrorized his pet sitter, he
also landed a minor role in a straight-to-video movie. Marley, incorrigible though he was, had inserted
himself into the author's life in a way no normal dog could. A warm, friendly -memoir-with-dog. --Nancy
Bent Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
MARTHA GRAHAM, A DANCER’S LIFE by Russell
Freedman
The renowned dancer, choreographer, and teacher is a fascinating subject. Graham was a woman who
defied the odds. She did not start dancing until she was 19, she did not have a traditional tall, lithe
dancer's physique, and yet through sheer will power and perseverance, she became the most important
name in modern dance. A living legend, she performed until she was 75, created 181 dances, the last at
age 95. The personal cost of such fame was high indeed. She would be the first to admit that she lived to
dance. Freedman has done an extraordinary job of conveying that passion and of presenting Graham's
complex personality as viewed through multiple perspectives. It is evident through his careful notes and
annotated bibliography that he did his research. As in his previous books, the format utilizes generous
margins and a wealth of sharply reproduced black-and-white photographs depicting the many faces and
poses of Graham dancing, teaching...always performing. This book has more detail and photographs than
Trudy Garfunkel's Letter to the World: The Life and Dances of Martha Graham (Little, Brown, 1995).
Recommend it to students looking for a great woman's biography, as well as to dance fans or, for that
matter, any aspiring artists. A remarkable look at a remarkable talent. Marilyn Payne Phillips (School
Library Journal)
Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and
Declarations of Independence. John Hockenberry. 1995.
Journalist Hockenberry is fearless and funny as he relates the personal and professional
experiences he encounters from his wheelchair. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
My Brother. Jamaica Kincaid.
The author returns to the Caribbean island of her birth to help care for her younger brother who
is dying of AIDS. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
MY DOG SKIP by Willie Morris
In 1943 in a sleepy town on the banks of the Yazoo River, a boy fell in love with a puppy with a lively gait
and an intellingent way of listening. The two grew up together having the most wonderful adventures. A
classic story of a boy, a dog, and small-town America, My Dog Skip belongs on the same shelf as The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Russell Baker's Growing Up. It will enchant readers of all ages for
years to come. (Good Reads)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American
Slave, Written by Himself. Frederick Douglass. 1845.
Former slave and famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass describes the horrors of his enslavement
and eventual escape. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Nicholas and Alexandra. Robert K. Massie
At the brink of revolution, the last Tsar of Russia and his family become victims of their own
mismanagement and personal problems. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
NIGHT by Elie Wiesel ;
translated from the French by Stella Rodway
Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz
and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War. In just over
100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with
humanity, reflected in the inversion of the father–child relationship as his father declines to a helpless state and Wiesel
becomes his resentful teenage caregiver.
Penetrating and powerful, as personal as The Diary Of Anne Frank, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its
absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again. (Good
Reads)
NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE by Jerry Hopkins and Danny
Sugarman
Poet, rock star, philosopher, shaman: Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, was all
these-and more. In the midst of the turbulent 1960s, this uncompromising, unique artist
burst onto the music scene like a force of nature. Here is the definitive biography of a
compelling, tormented, brilliant man, written by noted rock writer Jerry Hopkins and
Daniel Sugarman, a journalist and intimate of the band.
NO PRETTY PICTURES: A CHILD AT WAR by Anita Lobel
The beloved Caldecott Honor artist now recounts a tale of vastly different kind -- her own achingly potent memoir of a
childhood of flight, imprisonment, and uncommon bravery in Nazi-occupied Poland. Anita Lobel was barely five when
the war began and sixteen by the time she came to America from Sweden, where she had been sent to recover at the
end of the war. This haunting book, illustrated with the author's archival photographs, is the remarkable account of her
life during those years. Poised, forthright, and always ready to embrace life, Anita Lobel is the main character in the
most personal story she will ever tell.Anita Lobel was barely five years old when World War II began and the Nazis burst
into her home in Krakow, Poland, changing her life forever. She spent the days of her childhood in hiding with her
brother--who was disguised as a girl--and their Catholic nanny in the countryside, the ghetto, and finally in a convent
where the Nazis caught up with her. She was imprisoned in a succession of concentration camps until the end of the
war. Sent by the Red Cross to recuperate in Sweden, she slowly blossomed as she discovered books and language and
art. Since coming to the United States as a teenager, Anita Lobel has spent her life making pictures. She has never gone
back. She has never looked back. Until now. (Good Reads)
OCTOBER SKY by Homer Hickam
The true story, originally published as Rocket Boys, that inspired the Universal Pictures film.
It was 1957, the year Sputnik raced across the Appalachian sky, and the small town of Coalwood, West
Virginia, was slowly dying.
Faced with an uncertain future, Homer Hickam nurtured a dream: to send rockets into outer space. The
introspective son of the mine’s superintendent and a mother determined to get him out of Coalwood
forever, Homer fell in with a group of misfits who learned not only how to turn scraps of metal into
sophisticated rockets but how to sustain their hope in a town that swallowed its men alive.
As the boys began to light up the tarry skies with their flaming projectiles and dreams of glory, Coalwood,
and the Hickams, would never be the same.
OLD SCHOOL by by Tobias Wolff
At one prestigious American public school, the boys like to emphasise their democratic ideals - the only
acknowledged snobbery is literary snobbery. Once a term, a big name from the literary world visits and a
contest takes place. The boys have to submit a piece of writing and the winner receives a private audience
with the visitor. But then it is announced that Hemingway, the boys' hero, is coming to the school. The
competition intensifies, and the morals the school and the boys pride themselves on - honour, loyalty and
friendship - are crumbling under the strain. Only time will tell who will win and what it will cost them.
(Good Reads)
THE OTHER WES MOORE by Wes Moore
In 2000, Wes Moore had recently been named a Rhodes Scholar in his final year of college at Johns
Hopkins University when he read a newspaper article about another Wes Moore who was on his way to
prison. It turned out that the two of them had much in common, both young black men raised in innercity neighborhoods by single mothers. Stunned by the similarities in their names and backgrounds and the
differences in their ultimate fates, the author eventually contacted the other Wes Moore and began a long
relationship. Moore visited his namesake in prison; he was serving a life sentence, convicted for his role in
an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of an off-duty policeman. Growing up, both men were subject
to the pitfalls of urban youth: racism, rebellion, violence, drug use, and dealing. The author examines
eight years in the lives of both Wes Moores to explore the factors and choices that led one to a Rhodes
scholarship, military service, and a White House fellowship, and the other to drug dealing, prison, and
eventual conversion to the Muslim faith, with both sharing a gritty sense of realism about their pasts.
Moore ends this haunting look at two lives with a call to action and a detailed resource guide. --Vanessa
Bush (Booklist)
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The American Library Association is providing information and services on the web in furtherance of its non-profit and tax-exempt status. Permission to use, copy and
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above copyright notice appears with the following notice: this document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not
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Paula. Isabel Allende. 1995.
At the bedside of her dying daughter, Allende spins tales of childhood, of ancestors,
and of becoming a novelist. (ALA Best Ya Biographies)
PUPPY CHOW IS BETTER THAN PROZAC: THE TRUE STORY
OF A MAN AND THE DOG WHO SAVED HIS LIFE by Bruce
Goldstein and Tom Amico
To Bruce Goldstein-an edgy, twenty-something New Yorker, just waking up in the morning was an ordeal.
Underemployed and recently dumped, he was well into the downward spiral of bipolar disorder. Then came
Ozzy, a black Labrador pup (named after metal’s “Prince of Darkness”) who leads Bruce toward recovery
through complete, canine dependence.
Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution . Ji-li Jiang.
A young Chinese girl must make difficult choices when the government urges her to repudiate
her ancestors and inform on her own parents. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
ROCKET BOYS: A MEMOIR by Homer H. Hickam, Jr.
In 1957, when fourteen-year-old Homer Hickam, Jr. (aka Sonny) watches Sputnik fly
over his hometown of Coalwood, West Virginia, his life is changed forever. Knowing he
wants to be part of the space race, Sonny and his friends, set out to learn as much as
they can about launching rockets. Soon, these Rocket Boys wind up enlisting the help of
everyone in the town -- and blowing up some of Sonny's mother's best kitchenware in
the process.
RYAN WHITE, MY OWN STORY by Ryan White and Ann
Marie Cunningham
Ryan White describes how he got AIDS, engaged in a legal battle to return to school, and became a celebrity
and spokesman for issues concerning the deadly disease. (Park Ridge Public Library)
SHE SAID YES: THE UNLIKELY MARTYRDOM OF CASSIE
BERNALL by Misty Bernall
A story of growing up in the '90s, of peer pressure, adolescent turmoil, and the tough choices parents make. It is
the story of a mother's loss - of dreams and hopes dashed by the cruel reality of death at an early age. But it is
also a story of redemption more enduring than the tragedy that cut a young life short. (Park Ridge Public
Library)
Soul to Soul: A Black Russian American Family, 1865-1992.
Yelena Khanga and Susan Jacoby.
A young Russian journalist of African American and Jewish heritage analyzes and compares
attitudes on race, religion, and sexism in Russia and America. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Sound-Shadows of the New World. Ved Mehta.
Leaving his home, family, and culture behind, a blind Indian boy travels to Arkansas to attend a
special school where he is challenged by handicap, loneliness, poor preparation, and culture
shock. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
STITCHES: A MEMOIR by David Small
In this profound and moving memoir, Small, an award-winning children's book illustrator, uses his
drawings to depict the consciousness of a young boy. The story starts when the narrator is six years old
and follows him into adulthood, with most of the story spent during his early adolescence. The youngest
member of a silent and unhappy family, David is subjected to repeated x-rays to monitor sinus problems.
When he develops cancer as a result of this procedure, he is operated on without being told what is wrong
with him. The operation results in the loss of his voice, cutting him off even further from the world around
him. Small's black and white pen and ink drawings are endlessly perceptive as they portray the layering of
dream and imagination onto the real-life experiences of the young boy. Small's intuitive morphing of
images, as with the terrible post surgery scar on the main character's throat that becomes a dark
staircase climbed by his mother, provide deep emotional echoes. Some understanding is gained as family
secrets are unearthed, but for the most part David fends for himself in a family that is uncommunicative
to a truly ghastly degree. Small tells his story with haunting subtlety and power. (Publisher Weekly)
The Story of My Life. Helen Keller. 1902.
Overcoming deafness and blindness to become an outstanding citizen, Helen Keller embodies
courage, passion, and perseverance. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend. James I.
Robertson. 1997
Both the genius and the failings of this confederate Civil War general are chronicled in this
meticulous account. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a
Curious Character. Richard P. Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton. 1985.
This Nobel Prize-winning physicist was also a bongo drummer, a practical joker, and a loving
husband. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
SWIMMING TO ANTARCTICA: TALES OF A LONG-DISTANCE
SWIMMER by Lynne Cox
Cox has been a risk-taker ever since she was nine and chose the freezing water of a New
Hampshire pool in a storm over getting out and doing calisthenics. At 15, she broke the Channel
record, and decided she needed a new goal. She plans more ambitious swims around the sharkinfested Cape of Good Hope, across Alaska's Glacier Bay - to prepare for her big dream, a swim
from Alaska to the Soviet Union across the Bering Strait.(Park Ridge Library)
TED WILLIAMS: THE BIOGRAPHY OF AN AMERICAN HERO
by Leigh Montville
A splendid story about Ted Williams, who joined the majors in 1938 at the age of 17 and played for 19
years. During his career, he served in both WW II and Korea. (Park Ridge Library)
This Boy's Life: A Memoir. Tobias Wolff.
In and out of trouble in his youth, this charter member of the "Bad Boys' Club" survives a
boyhood that stretches from Florida to the Pacific Northwest. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
Truman. David G. McCullough.
This notable president earned America's respect by helping to end World War II and reshape the
world for postwar peace. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
TWENTY CHICKENS FOR A SADDLE: THE STORY OF
AN AFRICAN CHILDHOOD by Robyn Scott
For a white child in Botswana on the borders between South Africa and Zimbabwe in the 1980s and
1990s, home is an adventure in paradise, with horses, snakes, crocodiles, baobab trees, starry nights, and
more. Growing up “on the fringe,” Robyn and her siblings are homeschooled by their independent mother,
who argues all the time with her physician husband, who flies around to rural clinics and argues with his
eccentric dad. Robyn’s dream is to go to school, but when she finally does in neighboring Bulawayo, it is
not what she expected, including the raging racism. Immensely privileged as they are, her family is not
prejudiced (Mum hates being called Madam), and they are aware of the power struggles and disasters,
whether it is the diamond boom (for a very few) or the devastation of AIDS (for many). But nature is the
story in this idyllic memoir, and not as background. Out of Africa fans will be enthralled. Hazel Rochman
(Booklist)
© Copyright 1997-2013 American Library Association.
The American Library Association is providing information and services on the web in furtherance of its non-profit and tax-exempt status. Permission to use, copy and
distribute documents delivered from this web site and related graphics is hereby granted for private, non-commercial and education purposes only, provided that the
above copyright notice appears with the following notice: this document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not
for resale. No resale use may be made of material on this web site at any time. All other rights reserved.
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson,
and the Opening of the American West. Stephen E. Ambrose.
Lewis and Clark brave the wilds of North America in this vivid account of exploration and
adventure. (ALA Best YA Biographies)
WHEN I WAS PUERTO RICAN by Esmeralda
Santiago
Esmeralda Santiago's story begins in rural Puerto Rico, where her childhood was full of both tenderness
and domestic strife, tropical sounds and sights as well as poverty. Growing up, she learned the proper way
to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs in the mango groves at night, the taste of the delectable sausage
called morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. As she enters school we see
the clash, both hilarious and fierce, of Puerto Rican and Yankee culture. When her mother, Mami, a force
of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must
learn new rules, a new language, and eventually take on a new identity. In this first volume of her muchpraised, bestselling trilogy, Santiago brilliantly recreates the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of
her earliest years and her tremendous journey from the barrio to Brooklyn, from translating for her
mother at the welfare office to high honors at Harvard. (Amazon)
Many individuals who grew up in the barrios, whether of Puerto Rico, Brooklyn, or elsewhere, may have
found life to be one long, continuous struggle for survival. In Santiago’s memoir, she lovingly recalls her
own passage through childhood, when her mother moved her children away from their father and the
humble dwelling they all shared in the country outside San Juan to a Brooklyn apartment adjoining the
projects. For Santiago, who at age 14 was an exceptional student but still spoke little English, the ticket
out of the cycle of poverty was acceptance to New York City’s High School of Performing Arts. At once
heart-wrenching and remarkably inspirational, this lyrical account depicts rural life in Puerto Rico amid the
hardships and tensions of everyday life and Santiago’s awakening as a young woman, who, although
startled by culture shock, valiantly confronted New York head-on. When in the epilogue Santiago refers to
her studies at Harvard, it is both a stirring and poignant reminder of the capacities of the human spirit.
(Reviewed Oct. 1, 1993)— Alice Joyce
© Copyright 1997-2013 American Library Association.
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above copyright notice appears with the following notice: this document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not
for resale. No resale use may be made of material on this web site at any time. All other rights reserved.
WILD: FROM LOST TO FOUND ON THE PACIFIC
CREST TRAIL by Cheryl Strayed
“[A] vivid, touching and ultimately inspiring account of a life unraveling, and of the journey that put it
back together. . . . The darkness is relieved by self-deprecating humor as [Strayed] chronicles her hiking
expedition and the rebirth it helped to inspire. . . . Wild easily transcends the hiking genre, though it
presents plenty of details about equipment ordeals and physical challenges. Anyone with some
backpacking experience will find Strayed's chronicle especially amusing. Her boots prove too small. The
trail destroys her feet. Then there is the possibility of real mortality: She repeatedly finds herself just
barely avoiding rattlesnakes. Strayed is honest about the tedium of hiking but also alert to the selfdiscovery that can be stirred by solitude and self-reliance. . . . Pathos and humor are her main
companions on the trail, although she writes vividly about the cast of other pilgrims she encounters.
Finding out ‘what it was like to walk for miles,’ Strayed writes, was ‘a powerful and fundamental
experience.’ And knowing that feeling has a way of taming the challenges thrown up by modern life.”
Michael J. Ybarra (The Wall Street Journal)
Echoing the ever-popular search for wilderness salvation by Chris McCandless (Back to the Wild, 2011)
and every other modern-day disciple of Thoreau, Strayed tells the story of her emotional devastation after
the death of her mother and the weeks she spent hiking the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail. As her family,
marriage, and sanity go to pieces, Strayed drifts into spontaneous encounters with other men, to the
consternation of her confused husband, and eventually hits rock bottom while shooting up heroin with a
new boyfriend. Convinced that nothing else can save her, she latches onto the unlikely idea of a long solo
hike. Woefully unprepared (she fails to read about the trail, buy boots that fit, or pack practically), she
relies on the kindness and assistance of those she meets along the way, much as McCandless did. Clinging
to the books she lugs along—Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Adrienne Rich—Strayed labors along the
demanding trail, documenting her bruises, blisters, and greater troubles. Hiker wannabes will likely be
inspired. Experienced backpackers will roll their eyes. But this chronicle, perfect for book clubs, is certain
to spark lively conversation. — Colleen Mondor
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distribute documents delivered from this web site and related graphics is hereby granted for private, non-commercial and education purposes only, provided that the
above copyright notice appears with the following notice: this document may be reprinted and distributed for non-commercial and educational purposes only, and not
for resale. No resale use may be made of material on this web site at any time. All other rights reserved.
WISENHEIMER: A CHILDHOOD SUBJECT TO DEBATE
by Mark Oppenheimer
In this wise, witty shout-out to geek culture, Oppenheimer relays his evolution from problem child to
world-class debater. Part of what makes this memoir so special is the author’s openness about the
frustration and isolation he met with as a precocious kid, especially during third and fourth grades, when
he had a teacher who literally despised him. Tension at school caused him to act out and to remain
friendless until he joined debate club in middle school. There he finally met other kids who, like him, loved
language and lived to talk. He was so gifted at debate that he was soon participating in international
tournaments—and winning them. This outlet for his verbosity not only garnered him the esteem he was so
desperate to attain but also exposed him to some world-class talkers, among them the wry English,
gregarious Australians, and hot-dogging Scots, who possessed a “merry nihilism.” His deft running
narratives of various competitions contain the same suspense and thrills as the best sports books, while
his astute analyses of teammates, coaches, and competitors read like the best kind of psychology. Read it
for its sheer entertainment value or for its exuberant celebration of language—just make sure you read it.
Joanne Wilkinson (Booklist) © Copyright 1997-2013 American Library Association.
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