Books : Teens : Biographies & Memoirs

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Go Ask Alice
Alex Haley & Malcolm X's the Autobiography of Malcolm X (Bloom's Notes)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Student's Virago)

Maya Angelo
I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust

Livia Bitton-Jackson

The author, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz as a teenager, describes her terrible experiences as one of the camp's few adolescent inmates and the miraculous twists of fates that enabled her to survive.
Chinese Cinderella: The true story of an unwanted daughter

Adeline Yen Mah
Boy: Tales of Childhood

Roald Dahl

Filled with excitement, humor, and the unexpected, this entertaining collection of tales--inspired by Roald Dahl's remarkable childhood--are stories that are not easily forgotten.
Up from Slavery

Booker T. Washington
Story of My Life

Helen Keller
Breaking Through

At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for twenty hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice. How they sustain their hope, their goodheartedness, and tenacity is revealed in this moving sequel to The Circuit. Without bitterness or sentimentality, Francisco Jiménez finishes telling the story of his youth.
Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo

Zlata Filipovic

The experiences of Zlata Filipovic+a7 from 1991 through 1993 in Sarajevo reveal an innocent life of piano lessons and birthday parties horrifyingly transformed into days of food shortages, friends dying, and hiding out in a neighbor's cellar during bombings. Reprint.
Pavilion of Women

Pearl S. Buck

A Pulitzer Prize-winning Author
A Nobel Prize-winning Author
Many of Pearl Buck's award-winning novels dealt largely with the peasants, the plain people of China, whose lives - though sturdy and dramatic - were rarely complex, whose thoughts and words were simple and direct. In Pavilion of Women, the story is of a great family of the landed gentry, well-to-do, cultivated, aware and in the midst of the variety of human experience.
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography

William Anderson

Laura Ingalls Wilder has charmed generations of readers with her "Little House" books. Fans of the series feel as if they know Laura and her family, having read all about their adventures in the Big Woods and on the prairie. But Laura's readers always want to know more, to hear what happened to Laura after the last "Little House" book ends.
Finally, in Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography, Laura's fans will find their answers. Noted Wilder historian William Anderson gives a warm, detailed account of both Laura's childhood and her adult life with her husband, Almanzo, and their daughter, Rose. Here too is a fascinating look at how Laura came to write the "Little House" books.
Maps and photographs, some never before published, illustrate this affectionate biography of one of America's most beloved authors. The authoritative expert of the Little House series ‘chronicles the life of author Wilder in a readable biography that is easily accessible to [readers of] the Little House books. Particularly interesting are the sections that fill in the gaps in Wilder's stories'including the time spent in Burr Oak, Iowa, and the years following her marriage to Almanzo Wilder.' 'BL.
1990 Washington Post/Children's Book Guild Award for Nonfiction
Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager

Anonymous

When Annie discovers she's pregnant by her boyfriend, she's devastated. She has never felt so alone. With no one she can talk to, she pours her heart out to her diary, confiding her feelings of panic, self-doubt, and the desperate hope that some day she can turn her life around. She decides she wants to keep her baby and dreams of loving and caring for this little person. But after the baby is born, it's in her diary that she faces the agonizing question: Can she really raise this child on her own?
Looking Back: A Book of Memories

Lois Lowry

"I would like to introduce you to this book. It has no plot. It is about moments, memories, fragments, falsehoods, and fantasies. It is about things that happened, which caused other things to happen, so that eventually stories emerged." Children as well as adults often ask Lois Lowry where the ideas for her stories came from. In this fascinating, moving autobiography, the Newbery Medalist answers this and many other questions. Her writing often transports readers into her own world. She explores her rich history through family pictures, memories, and recollections of childhood friends. She details pivotal moments that affected her life, inspired her writing, and that magically evolved into rich and wonderful stories that one is reluctant to put down. Lowry fans, and anyone interested in the writing process, will tremendously enjoy this poignant trip through a remarkable writer's past.
The Endless Steppe (rack): Growing Up in Siberia

Esther Hautzig

In the bitter desolation of Siberia, Esther and her family fight to stay alive.
It is June 1941. The Rudomin family has been arrested by the Russians. They are "capitalists--enemies of the people." Forced from their home and friends in Vilna, Poland, they are herded into crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia.
For five years, Esther and her family live in exile, weeding potato fields and working in the mines, struggling for enough food and clothing to stay alive. Only the strength of family sustains them and gives them hope for the future.

Notable Children's Books of 1968 (ALA)
1968 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor Book
Outstanding Children's Books of 1968 (NYT)
1969 Jane Addams Award
1971 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
Nominee, 1969 National Book Award for Children's Literature
1969 Shirley Kravitz Children's Book Award
1987 Deutsche Jugenliteraturpreis (German Youth Literature Prize) "Honorable List"
1969 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)
Lemony Snicket: The Unfortunate Life of the Author of 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'

Lemony Snicket
Diary of an Anorexic Girl

Morgan Menzie

Morgan Menzie takes readers through a harrowing but ultimately hopeful and inspiring account of her eating disorder. Her amazing story is told through the journals she kept during her daily struggle with this addiction and disease. Her triumphs and tragedies all unfold together in this beautiful story of God's grace.

Features include: daily eating schedule, journal entries, prayers to God, poems, and what she wished she knew at the time. It's the true story of victory over a disease that is killing America's youth.
Going Solo

Roald Dahl

Superb Stories, Daring Deeds, Fantastic Adventures

Here is the action-packed sequel to Boy, a tale of Dahl's exploits as a World War II pilot. Told with the same irresistible appeal that has made Roald Dahl one the world's best-loved writers, Going Solo brings you directly into the action and into the mind of this fascinating man.

Performed by Derek Jacobi.
The Dark Side of Camelot

Seymour M. Hersh
Bad Boy: A Memoir

Walter Dean Myers

Into a memoir that is gripping, funny, heartbreaking, and unforgettable, Walter Dean Myers richly weaves the details of his Harlem childhood in the 1940s and 1950s: a loving home life with his adopted parents, Bible school, street games, and the vitality of his neighborhood. Although Walter spent much of his time either getting into trouble or on the basketball court, secretly he was a voracious reader and an aspiring writer. But as his prospects for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and his books for comfort. Here in his own words is the story of one of the strongest voices in children's and young adult literature today.