Showing titles in Biographies

Perhaps more than even Washington, Jefferson, or Adams, Ben Franklin is the Founding Father who best exemplifies the authentic American spirit and values. Eminent historian Thomas Fleming paints a lively portrait of this self-made man blessed with a wealth of talents: a best-selling author, the most important newspaper publisher in America, and a world-renowned scientist and inventor before he took on the task of becoming the true "Father" of American independence.

Christian teens care very much about their connection and relationship with God, but they are also experiencing all the ups and downs of teenage life, with the attendant joys and sorrows of growing up. This book, filled with stories written by Christian teens for Christian teens, helps teens who care about their faith navigate their teenage years.

Matt Groening is a cartoonist, animator, and producer best known for creating The Simpsons, television's longest-running primetime animated series. Although it debuted as a series of cartoon shorts for another television show in 1987, The Simpsons launched on its own in 1989, making the dysfunctional family of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie famous almost overnight.

Inspired by his nearly-deaf mother and a father who developed a "visible alphabet" of all the possible sounds a human being can make, Alexander Graham Bell spent the greater part of his life trying to improve the way people communicated with one another. It was this desire that led him to create his most famous invention, the telephone, and turned him into one of the most well-known names of all time.

Isabel Allende is an informative introduction to the distinguished author. Isabel Allende, one of the world's most widely read Latin American writers, is a Chilean novelest who, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was strongly influenced by her grandparents. Her vivid fiction, such as The House of the Spirits, blends realism with magical elements and spotlights political and often feminist concerns.

On July 16, 1963, Jane Goodall stepped onto the shores of the Tanganyika in Gombe National Park in Tanzania, Africa, for the very first time. The 23-year-old researcher was about to begin the adventure of a lifetime, studying the wild chimpanzees in their forest home. The discoveries she made there about chimpanzee behavior changed the way people thought about chimpanzees, as well as human beings

Iqbal Masih, ceduto dalla sua famiglia di contadini ridotti in miseria, in cambio del prestito di 26 dollari, costretto a lavorare in una tessitura di tappeti dall'alba al tramonto, incatenato al telaio, in condizioni disumane, come milioni di altri bambini nei paesi più poveri del mondo, troverà la forza di ribellarsi, di far arrestare il suo padrone, di denunciare la "mafia dei tappeti", contribuendo alla liberazione di centinaia di altri piccoli schiavi.

When James Bond was still in diapers, Virginia Hall was behind enemy lines, playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Hitler’s henchmen. Virginia was the baddest broad in any room she walked into. When the State Department proved to be a sexist boys’ club that wouldn’t let her in, she became a spy for the British. This boss lady helped arm and train the French Resistance and organized sabotage missions. There was just one problem: The Butcher of Lyon, a notorious Gestapo commander, was after her. But Virginia’s classmates didn’t call her the Fighting Blade for nothing.

Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the world's most respected Japanese animation filmmakers. He is known for creating compelling characters, engaging stories, and breathtaking animation, all of which have earned him international acclaim while setting box-office records. Miyazaki, who began his career in 1963 as an in-betweener for Toei Doga studio, soon found his true calling as an anime and manga artist, working on classic Japanese features and television series and writing the best-selling manga, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

Exclusive interviews with the top athletes in sports today. Trust the Grind: How World-Class Athletes Got to the Top reveals how these men and women reached the heights of their profession so that you can too. Each chapter tells a different story, as each superstar shares the habit that helped them accomplish their goals and reach the pinnacle of their profession.

Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. In this installment, The New Queer Conscience, Voices4 Founder and LGBTQIA+ activist Adam Eli offers a candid and compassionate introduction to queer responsibility. Eli calls on his Jewish faith to underline how kindness and support within the queer community can lead to a stronger global consciousness. More importantly, he reassures us that we're not alone. In fact, we never were. Because if you mess with one queer, you mess with us all.

What makes a country fall to a dictator? How are authoritarian leaders - strongmen - capable of killing millions acquire their power? How are they able to defeat the ideal of democracy? And what can we do to make sure it doesn't happen again? By profiling five of the most notoriously ruthless dictators in history - Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein - Kenneth C. Davis seeks to answer these questions, examining the forces in these strongmen's personal lives and historical periods that shaped the leaders they'd become.

Janusz Korczak was more than a good doctor. He was a hero. The Dr. Spock of his day, he established orphanages run on his principle of honoring children and shared his ideas with the public in books and on the radio. He famously said that "children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today". Korczak was a man ahead of his time, whose work ultimately became the basis for the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

You may think you know everything about multiplatform entertainer Matthew Espinosa - but he's here to tell you so much more in his debut book. You know Matthew is burning up the Internet with more than 18 million fans across YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You know about his starring role in the hit movie Be Somebody. And you know he makes you laugh every time. More Than Me tells you what you don't know, with Q&As and more that offer an inside look at Matthew's life and a new side of him that's hilarious and heartfelt.

In curiously parallel lives, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were both orphaned at an early age. Both were brilliant students who attended college - one at Princeton, the other at Columbia - and studied law. Both were young staff officers under General George Washington, and both became war heroes. Politics beckoned them, and each served in the newly formed government of the fledgling nation. Why, then, did these two face each other at dawn in a duel that ended with death for one and opprobrium for the other?

A peaceful summer night is shattered by gunfire as an unseen assailant tries to murder police officer John Busby. Though horribly wounded, Busby survives. But the perpetrator remains at large, meaning neither Busby, nor his wife, nor their three children are safe. In separate chapters John and his daughter, Cylin, who was nine at the time, recount the story of that year. John writes graphically, and movingly, of his wounds, his pain, his multiple surgeries, and his rage.

In The Future of Science Is Female, author and award-winning journalist Zara Stone shares the fascinating, complicated stories of how a diverse group of powerful women got started - from the perspective of those still working it out as they go along. Take 22-year-old Dominique Barnes, a female hero of the oceans. She was worried about all the dolphins and whales killed during shrimp farming, so the marine biologist created a tasty, affordable plant-based shrimp alternative. And she's just one of the sheroes you will discover in The Future of Science Is Female.

Raymond Santana’s story is an example to teens of the power of hope and resilience—and the importance of fighting injustice to stand up for what’s right. When Raymond Santana was just 14, he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. The 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park was pinned on Santana and four other young teens, a tragedy that would change their lives forever. In this powerful memoir, Raymond Santana takes readers on a journey from his move to Harlem, to his arrest and trial, and from his time in prison to his ongoing fight for justice.

Welcome to the spooky Berkshires! Stay Alert! Ghosts lurk around every corner. Even the most unexpected places might be haunted by wandering phantoms.