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Showing 1 - 20 of 139 items
A spotlight for Harry (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
By Eric A. Kimmel, Jim Madsen. 2009
Story based on childhood events of Harry Houdini (1874-1926), who became a famous magician and escape artist. Describes Harry and…
his brother Dash learning to walk a tightrope after going to the circus with their family for the first time. For grades 2-4. 2009Jazz Age Josephine: Dancer, singer--who's that, who? Why, that's MISS Josephine Baker, to you!
By Marjorie Priceman, Jonah Winter. 2012
A tribute to the life of the iconic jazz entertainer depicts her disadvantaged youth in a segregated America, her unique…
performance talents, and the irrepressible sense of style that helped her overcome racial barriers. For grades K-3The fabulous feud of Gilbert & Sullivan
By Jonah Winter, Richard Egielski. 2009
In the late nineteenth century, Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan, who write operas together for a theater called Topsy-Turvydom, have…
a falling-out when Mr. Sullivan refuses to write music for another ridiculous story that is like all the others. Caldecott Medalist Richard Egielski teams up with Jonah Winter for a story about how fights sometime make a stronger friendship (and beautiful music to boot!). For grades K-3. 2009Between each line of pain and glory: my life story
By Gladys Knight. 1997
Knight recalls the ups and downs of her life. She describes her struggle to become well known, first along with…
the Pips and later as a solo performer, and discusses her family, her various addictions, her failed marriages, and her feelings of isolation within the world of show businessGrace
By Robert Lacey. 1994
The author examines the image of a beautiful fairy-tale princess who did not live happily ever after. Lacey chronicles the…
story of Grace Kelly's abbreviated life through her American phase, depicting the actress with a cool, classy facade and a tawdry private life. When the Hollywood star married her European prince, the location of her fantasy life changed, but reality began to destroy the portrait. BestsellerAnn-Margret: my story
By Todd Gold, T. Gold, Ann-Margret. 1994
Nominated twice for an Academy Award, Ann-Margret has sung, danced, and acted in movies, on television, and on stage including…
(at the age of fifty) a performance with the Rockettes. After a brief romance with Elvis Presley, Ann-Margret married actor Roger Smith. She discusses how they remained together despite her battle with alcohol, a serious accident, and negative press about their relationship. BestsellerDear Dad: letters from an adult child
By Louie Anderson. 1989
Stand-up comic Louie Anderson's letters to his deceased father are an effort to exorcize the demons of a childhood spent…
with an alcoholic father. For Anderson, a member of Adult Children of Alcoholics, his letters were a journey of self-discovery in which he came to understand that his own addiction to food stemmed from his father's addiction to alcohol. Some strong languageIf this was happiness: a biography of Rita Hayworth
By Barbara Leaming. 1989
Leaming shows Hayworth as a constant victim. She focuses on the sexual abuse Hayworth suffered as a child at the…
hands of her father, who used her as a replacement for her alcoholic mother, and Hayworth's attempts to make herself into the person her husbands and lovers expected. Hayworth had several destructive marriages and spent her last years as an Alzheimer's patientDon't shoot, it's only me: Bob Hope's comedy history of the United States
By Bob Hope, B. Hope, Shavelson, Melville Shavelson. 1990
For almost half a century, Bob Hope has been entertaining American troops--from World War II Europe to the Persian Gulf.…
This is his story of the fun, the laughs, the heartaches, and the dangers of entertaining the troops in Europe, Japan, Korea, Moscow, Vietnam, the Middle East, and elsewhereHedy & her amazing invention (Amazing Women)
By Jan Wahl, Morgana Wallace. 2019
Covers the pioneering scientific work and inspiring courage of Hedy Lamarr, the famous Hollywood actress who fought against old-fashioned parents,…
a domineering husband, prejudice, and stereotypes to become an accomplished inventor whose work helped pave the way for many of the communications technologies we enjoy today. For grades 2-4. 2019My mama's waltz: a book for daughters of alcoholic mothers
By Eleanor Agnew. 1999
The authors share their personal accounts along with the memories and experiences of hundreds of women who are the daughters…
of alcoholic mothers. Co-author is Sharon Robideaux, foreword by Dr. Robert J. Ackerman. 1999Dope sick
By Walter Dean Myers. 2009
Seventeen-year-old Lil J, a suspect in the shooting of an undercover cop, hides in an abandoned crack house. He encounters…
Kelly, a man who is watching clips of Lil J's life on television. Kelly urges Lil J to examine choices he's made. Some strong language. For senior high readers. 2009Let the lion eat straw
By Ebele Oseye, Ellease Southerland. 2004
Young African American Abeba Williams moves from rural North Carolina to Brooklyn to live with her mother, who dreams of…
a better life. Abeba begins to develop a promising musical talent but soon becomes distracted by marriage and children. Despite economic and social hardships, Abeba perseveres with dignity. 1979Hopeless in Hope
By Wanda John-Kehewin. 2023
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s life is like her shoes: rapidly falling apart. With Nohkum in the hospital, Eva’s mother struggles to keep…
things together and loses custody of Eva and her little brother. As Eva tries to adjust to living in a group home, can she find forgiveness for her mother within the pages of an old diary?The Uncannily Strange and Brief Life of Amedeo Modigliani
By Celia Hawkesworth, Velibor Colic. 1997
The life of the painter Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) was chaotic and tragically brief. Consisting of a series of vignettes, mostly…
set in the painter's studio and peopled by his lover Jeanne Hébuterne (who ended her own life the day after Modigliani's death), the prostitutes who were his occasional models and several Bohemian visitors, the novel spans the last months of Modigliani's life, evoking the strange workings of the painter's troubled and often drug-fuelled mind and its expression in his paintings, ultimately succeeding in conveying something of the intense artistic life of Paris in the first decades of the twentieth century.Lies, First Person
By Dalya Bilu, Gail Hareven. 2008
From the 2010 winner of the Best Translated Book Award comes a harrowing, controversial novel about a woman's revenge, Jewish…
identity, and how to talk about Adolf Hitler in today's world.Elinor's comfortable life--popular newspaper column, stable marriage, well-adjusted kids--is totally upended when she finds out that her estranged uncle is coming to Jerusalem to give a speech asking forgiveness for his decades-old book, Hitler, First Person.A shocking novel that galvanized the Jewish diaspora, Hitler, First Person was Aaron Gotthilf's attempt to understand--and explain--what it would have been like to be Hitler. As if that wasn't disturbing enough, while writing this controversial novel, Gotthilf stayed in Elinor's parent's house and sexually assaulted her "slow" sister.In the time leading up to Gotthilf's visit, Elinor will relive the reprehensible events of that time so long ago, over and over, compulsively, while building up the courage--and plan--to avenge her sister in the most conclusive way possible: by murdering Gotthilf, her own personal Hilter.Along the way to the inevitable confrontation, Gail Hareven uses an obsessive, circular writing style to raise questions about Elinor's mental state, which in turn makes the reader question the veracity of the supposed memoir that they're reading. Is it possible that Elinor is following in her uncle's writerly footpaths, using a first-person narrative to manipulate the reader into forgiving a horrific crime?Gail Hareven is the author of eleven novels, including The Confessions of Noa Weber, which won both the Sapir Prize for Literature and the Best Translated Book Award.Dalya Bilu is the translator of A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, and many others.Living Doll
By Jane Bradley. 1995
Little Shirley lives in a bewildering home inhabited by her mother, her sister, a younger brother, relatives, a number of…
"Daddies" and an assortment of people who pass through her house. Retreating from this world of exploitation and pain, she pretends that she is a living doll, a perfect Shirley Temple. She carefully constructs an inner life of Barbie dolls, pet cemeteries, and a constant winning smile. But as the years progress, Shirley yearns for a better and different world, and with courage and determination begins to take the first unsettling and painful steps that lead to a re-invention of herself.Becoming Unbecoming
By Una. 2016
This extraordinary graphic novel is a powerful denunciation of sexual violence against women. As seen through the eyes of a…
twelve-year-old girl named Una, it takes place in northern England in 1977, as the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer of prostitutes, is on the loose and creating panic among the townspeople. As the police struggle in their clumsy attempts to find the killer, and the headlines in the local paper become more urgent, a once self-confident Una teaches herself to "lower her gaze" in order to deflect attention from boys.After she is "slut-shamed" at school for having birth control pills, Una herself is the subject of violent acts for which she comes to blame herself. But as the police finally catch up and identify the killer, Una grapples with the patterns of behavior that led her to believe she was to blame.Becoming Unbecoming combines various styles, press clippings, photo-based illustrations, and splashes of color to convey Una's sense of confusion and rage, as well as sobering statistics on sexual violence against women. The book is a no-holds-barred indictment of sexual violence against women and the shame and blame of its victims that also celebrates the empowerment of those able to gain control over their selves and their bodies.Una (a pseudonym) is an artist, academic, and comics creator. Becoming Unbecoming, which took seven years to create, is her first book. She lives in the United Kingdom. Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.The Language of Silence
By Peggy Webb. 2014
Following in the footsteps of her tiger-taming grandmother, a woman flees her abusive husband to join the circus in this…
masterful, heartfelt work of women's fiction.Peggy Webb won raves for her debut novel, The Tender Mercy of Roses*, with novelist Pat Conroy calling her "a truly gifted writer." Now Webb has crafted a poignant portrayal of a woman on the edge seeking solace in the past.Nobody in the family talks about Ellen's grandmother Lola, who was swallowed up by the circus and emerged as a woman who tamed tigers and got away scot-free for killing her husband. When Ellen's husband, Wayne, beats her nearly to death, she runs to the only place she knows where a woman can completely disappear--the same Big Top that once sheltered her grandmother. Though the circus moves from one town to the next, Wayne tracks it, and Ellen, relentlessly. At the same time, Ellen learns more about her feisty, fiery relative, and the heritage that is hers for the taking--if she dares. With her violent husband hot on her trail, Ellen must learn to stand up and fight for herself, to break the cycle of abuse, and pass down a story of love and redemption to her children.*writing as Anna MichaelsAmazing Escapees - A Short eBook
By Charles Margerison. 2011
There are many forms of escape, and many reasons for needing to do it. In psychological terms, it's the 'fight…
or flight' response. Some, like Harry Houdini, turned escape into a death defying form of entertainment, but for others, escape was the only way of fleeing a miscarriage of justice or the brutality of a concentration camp. Henri Charrière attempted to escape from a penal colony in French Guiana nine times and was finally successful in 1941. Find out what happened! Mary Bryant was one of the first successful escapees from the fledgling Australian penal colony. Discover her amazing story. Hear about Rudolph Vrba's incredible escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp and his subsequent attempts to alert authorities about the atrocities there. Who can forget Bram van der Stok, the most decorated aviator in Dutch history, and one of only three men to escape from the German POW camp Stalag Luft III in "the Great Escape" of 1943. Discover more about the lives of these and others in this unique collection of eStories from the Amazing People Club. Each story comes to life through BioViews® which are short biographical narratives, similar to interviews. These inspirational stories provide a new way of learning about amazing people who made major contributions and changed our world.