Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

In 1939, the Germans invaded the town of Lodz, Poland, and moved the Jewish population into a small part of the city called a ghetto. As the war progressed, 270,000 people were forced to settle in the ghetto under impossible conditions. At the end of the war, there were about 800 survivors. Of those who survived, only twelve were children. This is the story of one of the twelve.

Growing up in 19th-century London, England, Ada is curious about absolutely everything. She is obsessed with machines and with creatures that fly. She even designs her own flying laboratory! According to her mother, Ada is a bit too wild, so she encourages Ada to study math. At first, Ada thinks: bleh! Who can get excited about a subject without pictures? But she soon falls in love with it. One day, she encounters a mysterious machine, and from that moment forward, Ada imagines a future full of possibility - one that will eventually inspire the digital age nearly 200 years later.

When pirates attacked her town and the captain took a liking to her, she saw a way out. Zheng Yi Sao agreed to marry him only if she got an equal share of his business. When her husband died six years later, she took command of the fleet. Over the next decade, the pirate queen built a fleet of over 1,800 ships and 70,000 men. On land and sea, Zheng Yi Sao's power rivaled the emperor himself. Time and again, her ships triumphed over the emperor's ships.

This Splash Read collection includes 15 historical fiction short stories about women in history. While Splash Read stories are enjoyed by kids of all ages, they were written to facilitate a conversation between a child and parent, or student and teacher. Each story introduces an influential person from history. Stories discuss life skills, challenges, problem-solving, and important issues. We’ve heard positive reviews from kids as young as first graders and as old as 10th graders.

Tomie invites listeners to share in his childhood memories as he prays for his brand-new baby sister to get over pneumonia and finally learns to read.

Neftalí’s father wants him to be a doctor. But Neftalí is not like other children. How he reconciles his own dreams with his father’s is at the heart of this profoundly moving story of the life of poet Pablo Neruda.

Based on a true story. In October 1660, Etienne Gayneau rushes through the cobblestone streets of La Rochelle, France, to meet his cousin at the harbor. A ship carrying King Louis XIV's elite musketeers is docking. He dreams of becoming one himself, but has no idea that their arrival will force his Huguenot family to flee in the dead of night. His cousin has offered him a safe haven. Now he must choose - stay and pursue his dream or leave and face an uncertain destiny. Both choices are fraught with dangers. Either way his life will never be the same.

I found inspiration to pen another children’s book just this morning (November 20, 2023). This time, it draws from the lives of my father, Mr. Stifford John Snow, a farmer in Coker, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, and my Uncle-in-law, Mr. Vinrow Small, from St. Mary, Jamaica. And so, I have chosen to entitle it The Rasta Farmer. The purpose of writing this book is to pay homage to these two remarkable individuals my biological father, Mr. Stifford John Snow and my Uncle-in-law, Mr. Vinrow Small, who raised me from the age of twelve (12) to twenty-six (26) years old.

In 1939 the Nazis invade Lodz, Poland, forcing four-year-old Syvia Perlmutter and 270,000 other Jews into a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed men. Scared and confused, Syvia and the others have no idea how terrible their lives will soon be.

Twelve-year-old Viviani Fedeler, proud resident of the New York Public Library, has her sights set on becoming a star reporter. She’s thrilled when Miss Hutch announces a story contest where the winner gets their essay printed in the New York Times! But then, Viviani gets her first-ever case of writer’s block. As she struggles to find inspiration, the library is hit with a strange mystery involving overdue books, secret messages, and perhaps a spy lurking among the shelves.... Will Viviani be able to crack the code and find the perfect story worthy of a byline?

In 43 CE Roman conquest of Britannia seems all but certain - until a chance meeting between King Prasutagus of the Iceni and a runaway slave of royal decent from the Aedui tribe in Gaul changes the fate of the British islands forever. Rise up for liberty with the true story of Boudicca: Britain's Queen of the Iceni and discover one of the most inspiring stories in history!

Eleven-year-old Viviani Fedeler has spent her whole life in the New York Public Library. She knows every room by heart, except the ones her father keeps locked. When Viviani becomes convinced that the library is haunted, new girl Merit Mubarak makes fun of her. So Viviani decides to play a harmless little prank, roping her older brothers and best friend Eva to help out. But what begins as a joke quickly gets out of hand, and soon Viviani and her friends have to solve two big mysteries.

Jeska doesn't know why her mother keeps the curtains drawn so tightly every day. And what exactly is she trying to drown out when she floods the house with Mozart? What are they hiding from? When Jeska's grandmother accidentally calls her by a stranger's name, she seizes her first clue to uncovering her family's past, and hopefully to all that's gone unsaid. With the help of an old family photo album, her father's encyclopedia collection, and the unquestioning friendship of a stray cat, the silence begins to melt into frightening clarity.

Mariel is a young girl who is struggling with her identity. As a Chinese-American being raised by her adoptive Latino family in Miami, she doesn't understand who she really is. All of the other kids make fun of her but Mariel feels connected to her Latino culture. After a trip to China, where she was born, Mariel learns about her Chinese heritage. Seeing the orphanage and all the children who are still up for adoption allow Mariel to be happy with her life. She is finally able to accept who she really is—a "Florida chica china by the way of Fujian!"

This is your one chance. You have your secret dreams. Follow them! Make them come true ...In a poor village in northern China, a small boy is about to be taken away from everything he's ever known. He is so afraid, but his mother urges him to follow his dreams. For soon he will become a dancer, one of the finest dancers in the world...So begins The Peasant Prince, the true story of Li Cunxin's extraordinary life.

Berlin is where Anna lived before Hitler, when she was still a German child; before she spoke a word of English, before her family had all become refugees. Long before her happy new existence in London. But Mama is there, dangerously ill. Anna is forced to go back, to deal with questions of life and death, to face old fears, and to discover the past which she has so long shut away.

Charlotte Parkhurst was raised in the mid-1800s and was expected to live her life without the freedoms she dreamed of. But Charlotte was smart and determined, and she figured out a way to live her life the way she wanted; Charlotte became an expert horse rider, a legendary stagecoach driver, and the first woman ever to vote—at a time when such things were outlawed for women.

Wangari lives in the lush, green land of rural Kenya, where the soil is perfect for planting, the trees tower into the sky and the streams are full of mysterious creatures. All day, she plays beneath her favourite fig tree, and at night, she gathers around the fire with her family to listen to her mother's stories. Then Wangari grows up and goes away to school, and things start changing at home. Farmers chop down the trees. Landslides bury the stream. The soil becomes overworked and dry, and nothing will grow. People go hungry.

From number-one New York Times best-selling author Dr. Spencer Johnson comes a wonderful new kind of children's story, the Imaginography. These are imaginative biographies - stories of real people and real events - told in a fun new way that children find irresistible.

Sophie est une petite fille adorable mais elle fait des bêtises, beaucoup de bêtises, les plus belles bêtises jamais commises ! Il ne se passe pas un jour sans qu'elle ne se lance dans une nouvelle aventure qui se termine toujours en catastrophe.