Growing Up with Challenges
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to his White Mother* by James McBride. The moving memoir of growing up in the early 1960s with a mother who was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in the South and an African-American father who grew up Christian in the North. What is the soul, the spirit of a person? Is it black or white? It's the color of water.
The remarkable women on this list of unputdownable memoirs have shared the most personal and painful parts of their lives through their writing. They have suffered from mental illness, escaped abuse, stood up for their political beliefs, experienced tragic loss, redefined gender and stressed the importance of equality. Jan 25, 2014 Memoirs by Scientists: A Crowd-Sourced List. 1 Minute Read. By Carl Zimmer. PUBLISHED January 25, 2014. I’m reviewing a memoir by a.
Girl, Interrupted* by Susanna Kaysen. For olderreaders, this memoir of a teenaged girl’s breakdown and hospitalization in apsychiatric hospital in the 1960s is an unsettling and moving account.
Angela’s Ashes* by Frank McCourt. The first linessay it all! 'When I look back on my childhood I wonder how Imanaged to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happychildhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserablechildhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserableIrish Catholic childhood.'Funny, revealing, ultimately inspiring, this is best for older middleschoolers.
The Glass Castle* by Jeanette Walls. Jeanette’s parents are freethinking, free-living nomads who periodically “do the skedaddle” when bill collectors come calling. Charming, creative, charismatic – her parents are all of these until alcoholism grips her father and a kind of toxic self-absorption overtakes her mother. Jeanette and her siblings find themselves trapped in a world where she and her siblings must fend for themselves – stealing food, creating their own braces when the orthodontist is too expensive, but ultimately escaping and flourishing. Gripping, immediate and inspiring.
Look Me in the Eye: My Life withAsperger's* by John ElderRobison.Growing up, John ElderRobison didn’t understand why he couldn’t communicate with other people and whyhe did so badly in school when he knew he was smart.Was he really lazy and weird? It wasn’t until Robison was 40years old, and a successful antique car restorer, that he learned that he hasAsperger’s syndrome. A fascinating, touching story of growth and discovery.
Amazing Life Stories
The Pursuit of HappYnessby Chris Gardner.The rags-to-riches memoir by a man who overcame his tough childhood to find economic and emotional success. Recommended by Henry Pearson.
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama. How did this child of afather from Kenya and a mother from Kansas find his way to the White House? Theremarkable story of a man who had to create his own life – but did not do soalone or without great thought and appreciation for the disparate backgroundsfrom which he comes. With this book, written long before the presidentialcampaign, Barack Obama proves himself to be one of the best writers ever tolive in the White House.
Incredible People
Buddha by Osamu Tezuka. Think a life of Buddha told in seven volumes of manga must be sensationalized or trivialized? You will think again – and think again – as you fall into this beautifully written and drawn life of Buddha and his spiritual journey. No prior knowledge or interest in Buddhism required. And no need to abandon your own religious beliefs to be thoroughly transported into one man’s quest for the meaning of life. Take a chance with Volume 1. You will be glad so many other volumes await.
Escape! The Story of the GreatHoudini by Sid Fleischman.Harry Houdini remains the gold standard of illusionists. Why is this Midwesternboy so well-remembered today? Discover his secrets here.
The Freedom Writers Diary : How a Teacher and 150 Teens UsedWriting to Change Themselves and the World Around Themby Freedom Writers and ZlataFilipovic. Student diaries from a first-year teacher in a California school whohas been handed the “unteachables” to teach. Can writing save your life? Well,maybe!
Shakespeare: The World’s a Stage by Bill Bryson.The personable and readable Bill Bryson conveys a full andengaging account of one of the world’s best-known personages – WilliamShakespeare – who also happens to be one of the least-known, since so few factsremain about his life.
Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium by Carla Killough McClafferty. The Greatest: Muhammad Ali by Walter Dean Myers.
I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson. A man oftalent and character tells how he became one of baseball’s – and history’sgreats.
Living History: Memoirs and Biographies of Extraordinary and
Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a BoySoldier* by IshmaelBeah.For older readers.Ishmael was a 12-year-old in Sierra Leone who loved hiphop, his family, andhanging out with friends. When his village is attacked and his family killed,Ishmael is forced into service as a boy solder where he sees and does terriblethings that are hard to read about. That Ishmael is able to come to America andgraduate from Oberlin College – and do all that as a whole, positive person –is as astonishing and compelling a story as the harrowing events he describeswith clarity and immediacy in the first part of the memoir.
TheLong Walk by Slavomir Rawicz.Unjustly imprisoned by the Communist Russians early in WorldWar II, Rawicz was later transported to Siberia by train, and then marchedthrough the cold countryside to a Soviet Gulag, witnessing the death byexposure and exhaustion of other unfortunate captives. In the prison camp, hewas kept in horrendous conditions, over-worked, and underfed. Near the end ofhis rope, Rawicz and a handful of companions orchestrated a daring anddesperate escape, and proceeded to run for their lives, on foot, toward freedomin India -- 4,000 miles away. And that was just the beginning of their hardshipand adventure!
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Survivors: True Stories of Children in the Holocaust by Allan Zullo and Mara Bovsun.
Surviving Hitler: ABoy in the Nazi Death Camps by Andrea Warren. Warren tells the horrifying yet inspiring taleof Holocaust survivor Jack Mandelbaum who was only 12 when he was first held inthe Blechhammer death camp. This book designed for middle school and highschool students includes photos from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing up in Auschwitz by Livia Bitton-Jackson.
Night by Elie Wiesel. The classic taleof a Holocaust survivor’s experience.
In MyHands: Memoirs of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Opdyke is written for middle school readers and iscompletely gripping.A Catholicnursing student in Poland, Irene was abused by Russian soldiers and horrifiedby the treatment of Jews in the ghetto.How she made up her mind to act to save Jews is a riveting, inspiringstory.
Diary of a Young GirlbyAnne Frank. The original Holocaust memoir, still intimate, personal,claustrophobic and incredibly moving.
Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon. A graphic novel rendering of the true story and historical background of Anne Frank's life.
Persepolis by MarjaneSatrapi. Like Art Spiegelman’s Maus,this wonderful graphic novel is a page turning memoir and world history lesson.Satrapi takes her readers on a journey of youth and revolution in her nativecountry, Iran. At times joyful, saddening, and always interesting, Persepolis gives readers a peek intomodern Iran through the real life experiences of a young and courageous girl.
Red Scarf Girl: AMemoir of the Cultural Revolutionby Ji-li Jiang. First-hand accountof one of the most brutal periods of China’s history. For older middleschoolers.
MarchingFor Freedom by ElizabethPartridge (grades 6 and up) Ten-year-old Joanne Blackmon and many other brave children became the youngestto be arrested for participating in freedom marches in 1964 with Dr. MartinLuther King. Through quotes, songs, poetry and pictures, the writerpresent an inspiring account of the important role of children in the CivilRights Movement. The stories of these young people have never been told in sucha special way.
By Any MeansNecessary: A Biography of Malcolm Xby Walter Dean Myers. Thisbiography of this important American figure is intended for the middle schoolstudent.
Going Solo by Roald Dahl
On the Lighter Side
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell.
Knucklehead: Tall Tales andAlmost True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka. Visiting writer (andfather of two BC alumni) Jon Scieszka has written a rollicking, light-heartedmemoir of growing up in a family of six brothers during the 1960s. Not muchmoney, not much “stuff” – but good times a-plenty, growing up Scieszka and alittle bit wild.
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Boy by Roald Dahl. Growing up in Britain in the 1930s in the world of the elite but often brutal prep schools. Humor is terror recollected in tranquility, they say, and nobody makes terror more delightful to read than Roald Dahl. Sparkling writing style and a fascinating look at a lost world.
Coming of Age in Different Worlds
Rocket Boys* by Homer Hickam. Homer is a 14-year-old ina small coal mining town in West Virginia in the 1950s when the space missionsbegin. Inspired by NASA, Homer decides to build his own rockets as his ticketout. A fantasy? Not at all. An American gem.
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff. The coming of ageof a sensitive boy in a brutal household – and the prep school life in which hefinds himself. Old Schoolcontinuesthat story as Toby continues to struggle to find his place in the prep schoolworld
When I Was PuertoRican byEsmeralda Santiago. Touching memoir of a young girl moving to Manhattan fromPuerto Rico in the 1970s.
Don't Let's Go to theDogs Tonight: An African Childhoodby Alexandra Fuller. The memoir ofa white English girl’s tough, often bigoted, often thrilling childhood on a Zimbabwefarm in the 1960s.