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Seized by the Sun: The Life and Disappearance of World War II Pilot Gertrude Tompkins
By James W. Ure. 2017
Of the 38 Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) confirmed or presumed dead in World War II, only one—Gertrude "Tommy" Tompkins—is…
still missing. On October 26, 1944, the 32-year-old fighter plane pilot lifted off from Mines Field in Los Angeles. She was never seen again.Seized by the Sun is the story of a remarkable woman who overcame a troubled childhood and the societal constraints of her time to find her calling flying the fastest and most powerful airplane of World War II. It is also a compelling unsolved mystery.Born in 1912 to a wealthy New Jersey family, Gertrude's childhood was marked by her mother's bouts with depression and her father's relentless search for a cure for the debilitating stutter that afflicted Gertrude throughout her life. Teased and struggling in school, young Gertrude retreated to a solitary existence. As a young woman she dabbled in raising goats and aimlessly crisscrossed the globe in an attempt to discover her purpose.As war loomed in Europe, Gertrude met the love of her life, a Royal Air Force pilot who was killed flying over Holland. Telling her sister that she "couldn't stop crying, so she focused on learning to fly," Gertrude applied to join the newly formed Women's Air Force Service Pilots. She went on to become such a superior pilot that she was one of only 126 WASPs selected to fly fighter planes. After her first flight in the powerful P-51 Mustang, her stutter left her for good.Gertrude's sudden disappearance remains a mystery to this day. Award-winning author Jim Ure leads readers through Gertrude's fascinating life; provides a detailed account of the WASPs' daily routines, training, and challenges; and describes the ongoing search for Gertrude's wreck and remains. The result of years of research and interviews with Gertrude's family, friends, and fellow WASPs, Seized by the Sun is an invaluable addition to any student's or history buff's bookshelf.Meet 21 determined women who have dedicated their lives to healing others. In the 19th century, Florence Nightingale and Clara…
Barton—the "Lady with the Lamp" and the "Angel of the Battlefield"—earned their nicknames by daring to enter battlefields to aid wounded soldiers, forever changing the standards of medicine. Modern-day medical heroines such as Bonnie Simpson Mason, who harnessed the challenges of her chronic illness and founded an organization to introduce women and minorities to orthopedic surgery, and Kathy Magliato, who jumped the hurdles to become a talented surgeon in the male-dominated arena of heart transplants, will inspire any young reader interested in the art, science, and lifechanging applications of medicine. Lovers of adventure will follow Mary Carson Breckinridge, the "nurse on horseback" who delivered babies in the Appalachian Mountains and believed that everyone, including our poorest and most vulnerable citizens, deserve good health care, and Jerri Nielsen, the doctor stationed in Antarctica who, cut off from help, had to bravely treat her own breast cancer. These and 15 other daring women inspire with their courage, persistence, and belief in the power of both science and compassion.Packed with photos and informative sidebars and including source notes and a bibliography, Bold Women of Medicine is an invaluable addition to any student's or aspiring doctor or nurse's bookshelf.Marooned in the Arctic: The True Story of Ada Blackjack, the "Female Robinson Crusoe"
By Peggy Caravantes. 2016
The first and only young adult book about Ada Blackjack and her remarkable, true-life survival story In 1921, four men…
ventured into the Arctic for a top-secret expedition--an attempt to claim the remote, uninhabited Wrangel Island in northern Siberia for Canada. With the men was a 23-year-old Inuit woman named Ada Blackjack, who had signed on as a cook and seamstress to earn money to care for her sick son, left at home. Conditions soon turned dire for the team when, after rations ran out, they were unable to kill enough game to survive. Three of the men tried to cross the frozen Chukchi Sea for help but were never seen again, leaving Ada with one remaining, ill team member whom she cared for but who soon died of scurvy. Determined to be reunited with her son, Ada learned to survive alone in the icy world by trapping foxes, catching seals, and avoiding polar bears. She taught herself to shoot a shotgun and a rifle. After Ada was finally rescued in August 1923, after two years total on the island, she became an instant celebrity, with newspapers calling her a real "female Robinson Crusoe." The first and only young adult book about Ada Blackjack and her remarkable story, Marooned in the Arctic includes sidebars on relevant topics of interest to teens, such as the uses of cats on sailing ships, the phenomenon known as Arctic hysteria, and various aspects of Inuit culture and beliefs.The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy
By Peggy Caravantes. 2015
A complete biographical look at the complex life of a world-famous entertainer With determination and audacity, Josephine Baker turned her…
comic and musical abilities into becoming a worldwide icon of the Jazz Age. The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy provides the first in-depth portrait of this remarkable woman for young adults. Author Peggy Caravantes follows Baker's life from her childhood in the depths of poverty to her comedic rise in vaudeville and fame in Europe. This lively biography covers her outspoken participation in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, espionage work for the French Resistance during World War II, and adoption of 12 children--her "rainbow tribe." Also included are informative sidebars on relevant topics such as the 1917 East St. Louis riot, Pullman railway porters, the Charleston, and more. The lush photographs, appendix updating readers on the lives of the rainbow tribe, source notes, and bibliography make this is a must-have resource for any student, Baker fan, or history buff.Running like China: A memoir of a life interrupted by madness
By Sophie Hardcastle. 2015
From a talented emerging Australian writer, a brave, honest, unforgettable memoir about mental illness that breaks the silence and shatters…
the taboos to give hope to all those struggling to find their way through.'When I was eleven years old Mum told me, "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name." Even before I heard these words I was always a child who crammed intense joy into tiny pockets of time.'One day Sophie Hardcastle realised the joy she'd always known had disappeared. She was constantly tired, with no energy, no motivation and no sense of enjoyment for surfing, friends, conversations, movies, parties, family - for anything. Her hours became empty. And then, the month before she turned seventeen, that emptiness filled with an intense, unbearable sadness that made her scream and tear at her skin. Misdiagnosed with chronic fatigue, then major depression, then temporal lobe epilepsy, she was finally told - three years, two suicide attempts and five hospital admissions later - that she had Bipolar 1 Disorder.In this honest and beautifully told memoir, Sophie lays bare her story of mental illness - of a teenage girl using drugs, alcohol and sex in an attempt to fix herself; of her family's anguish and her loss of self. It is a brave and hopeful story of adaptation, learning to accept and of ultimately realising that no matter how deep you have sunk, the surface is always within reach. Running Like China shatters the silence and smashes the taboos around mental illness. It is an unforgettable story.Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage
By Dina Matos McGreevey. 2007
The truth behind the lies.It was an unforgettable scene. Dina Matos McGreevey, an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, wife, mother,…
and First Lady of the state of New Jersey, watched silently as her husband, then New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, resigned his office with the revelation that he was a "gay American." The picture of grace and loyalty, perfectly composed in her pale blue suit, Dina Matos McGreevey gave no sign of the tangled mixture of fear, sorrow, and anger she felt that day, no hint of the devastation that was to come. Since then she has been asked repeatedly about the nature of her marriage, about what she knew and when she knew it. Since then, she has remained silent. Until now.Speaking up at last, Dina Matos McGreevey here recounts the details of her marriage to Jim McGreevey. What emerges is a tale of love and betrayal, of heartbreak and scandal . . . and, ultimately, hope.It all began with so much promise. Dina Matos was a responsible and civic-minded young woman who fell in love with the passion of political action. When Jim McGreevey walked into her life, he appeared to be a kind and loving man, someone with whom she could build a life based on shared ideals, a strong spiritual commitment, and a desire to make a difference in the world. Beyond their initial chemistry, Dina Matos was attracted by Jim McGreevey's principles and his unwavering devotion to his work. She didn't know that his life, and thus their marriage, were built on a foundation of lies; that his past was littered with casual sexual encounters in seedy bookstores and public parks; or that, by his own admission, he began an adulterous affair with another man while she was in the hospital awaiting the birth of their child. "Could I have known," she asks. "How could I have known?"With scalding honesty, she tells of her life with the former governor, of the politics and public service that brought them together, and the lies that tore them apart.Here is a story of a marriage that was anything but happily-ever-after, told by a strong and resilient woman who can, and finally will, speak for herself.My Extraordinary Ordinary Life
By Maryanne Vollers, Sissy Spacek. 2012
In her delightful and moving memoir, Sissy Spacek writes about her idyllic, barefoot childhood in a small East Texas town,…
with the clarity and wisdom that comes from never losing sight of her roots. Descended from industrious Czech immigrants and threadbare southern gentility, she grew up a tomboy, tagging along with two older brothers and absorbing grace and grit from her remarkable parents, who taught her that she could do anything. She also learned fearlessness in the wake of a family tragedy, the grief propelling her "like rocket fuel" to follow her dreams of becoming a performer.With a keen sense of humor and a big-hearted voice, she describes how she arrived in New York City one star-struck summer as a seventeen-year-old carrying a suitcase and two guitars; and how she built a career that has spanned four decades with films such as Carrie, Coal Miner's Daughter, 3 Women, and The Help. She details working with some of the great directors of our time, including Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, David Lynch, and Brian De Palma-who thought of her as a no-talent set decorator until he cast her as the lead in Carrie. She also reveals why, at the height of her fame, she and her family moved away from Los Angeles to a farm in rural Virginia. Whether she's describing the terrors and joys of raising two talented, independent daughters, taking readers behind the scenes on Oscar night, or meditating on the thrill of watching a pair of otters frolicking in her pond, Sissy Spacek's memoir is poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, plainspoken and utterly honest. My Extraordinary Ordinary Life is about what matters most: the exquisite worth of ordinary things, the simple pleasures of home and family, and the honest job of being right with the world. "If I get hit by a truck tomorrow," she writes, "I want to know I've returned my neighbor's cake pan."Keeping Secrets: The Girlhood Diaries of Seven Women Writers
By Mary E. Lyons. 1995
Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Forten, Kate Chopin, Sarah Jane Foster, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Ida B. Wells, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were…
19th century young women who grew up to be novelists, poets, essayists, or journalists. Keeping a private diary helped each girl find her public voice. "A collection of seven literary biographies liberally sprinkled with brief quotations from the subjects' diaries, written when they were young adults." - School Library Journal, starred review "Lyons writes with style and feeling, creating a strong sense of each individual life story, even as she gives us a social history of what it was like to be a woman at that time. ... Any teen who keeps a journal will recognize what the title implies: the private world behind the mask of duty." - BooklistListen to the Squawking Chicken
By Elaine Lui. 2014
Most people think I'm exaggerating at first when I talk about the Chinese Squawking Chicken. But once they actually spend…
some time with her, they understand. They get it. Right away. She's Chinese, she squawks like a chicken, she is totally nuts, and I am totally dependent on her.When Elaine Lui was growing up, her mother told her, "Why do you need to prepare for the good things that happen? They're good. They won't hurt you. My job is to prepare you for the hard times, and teach you how to avoid them, whenever possible." Neither traditionally Eastern nor conventionally Western, the Squawking Chicken raised her daughter drawing on Chinese fortune-telling, feng shui blackmail, good old-fashioned ghost stories, and shame and embarrassment in equal measure. And despite years of chafing against her mother's parenting style, Elaine came to recognize the hidden wisdom--and immeasurable value--in her rather unorthodox upbringing.Listen to the Squawking Chicken lays bare the playbook of unusual advice and warnings used to teach Elaine about hard work ("Miss Hong Kong is a whore"), humility ("I should have given birth to a piece of barbecue pork"), love and friendship, family loyalty ("Where's my money?"), style and deportment ("Don't be low classy"), finding one's own voice ("Walk like an elephant, squawk like a chicken") among other essentials. Along the way, Elaine poignantly reveals how her mother earned the nickname "Tsiahng Gai" or "squawking chicken" growing up in Hong Kong, enduring and rising from the ashes of her own hard times.Listen to the Squawking Chicken is a loving mother-daughter memoir that will have readers laughing out loud, gasping in shock, and reconsidering the honesty and guts it takes to be a parent.Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage
By Dina Matos McGreevey. 2007
The truth behind the lies.It was an unforgettable scene. Dina Matos McGreevey, an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, wife, mother,…
and First Lady of the state of New Jersey, watched silently as her husband, then New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, resigned his office with the revelation that he was a "gay American." The picture of grace and loyalty, perfectly composed in her pale blue suit, Dina Matos McGreevey gave no sign of the tangled mixture of fear, sorrow, and anger she felt that day, no hint of the devastation that was to come. Since then she has been asked repeatedly about the nature of her marriage, about what she knew and when she knew it. Since then, she has remained silent. Until now.Speaking up at last, Dina Matos McGreevey here recounts the details of her marriage to Jim McGreevey. What emerges is a tale of love and betrayal, of heartbreak and scandal . . . and, ultimately, hope.It all began with so much promise. Dina Matos was a responsible and civic-minded young woman who fell in love with the passion of political action. When Jim McGreevey walked into her life, he appeared to be a kind and loving man, someone with whom she could build a life based on shared ideals, a strong spiritual commitment, and a desire to make a difference in the world. Beyond their initial chemistry, Dina Matos was attracted by Jim McGreevey's principles and his unwavering devotion to his work. She didn't know that his life, and thus their marriage, were built on a foundation of lies; that his past was littered with casual sexual encounters in seedy bookstores and public parks; or that, by his own admission, he began an adulterous affair with another man while she was in the hospital awaiting the birth of their child. "Could I have known," she asks. "How could I have known?"With scalding honesty, she tells of her life with the former governor, of the politics and public service that brought them together, and the lies that tore them apart.Here is a story of a marriage that was anything but happily-ever-after, told by a strong and resilient woman who can, and finally will, speak for herself.My Extraordinary Ordinary Life
By Maryanne Vollers, Sissy Spacek. 2012
In her delightful and moving memoir, Sissy Spacek writes about her idyllic, barefoot childhood in a small East Texas town,…
with the clarity and wisdom that comes from never losing sight of her roots. Descended from industrious Czech immigrants and threadbare southern gentility, she grew up a tomboy, tagging along with two older brothers and absorbing grace and grit from her remarkable parents, who taught her that she could do anything. She also learned fearlessness in the wake of a family tragedy, the grief propelling her "like rocket fuel" to follow her dreams of becoming a performer.With a keen sense of humor and a big-hearted voice, she describes how she arrived in New York City one star-struck summer as a seventeen-year-old carrying a suitcase and two guitars; and how she built a career that has spanned four decades with films such as Carrie, Coal Miner's Daughter, 3 Women, and The Help. She details working with some of the great directors of our time, including Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, David Lynch, and Brian De Palma-who thought of her as a no-talent set decorator until he cast her as the lead in Carrie. She also reveals why, at the height of her fame, she and her family moved away from Los Angeles to a farm in rural Virginia. Whether she's describing the terrors and joys of raising two talented, independent daughters, taking readers behind the scenes on Oscar night, or meditating on the thrill of watching a pair of otters frolicking in her pond, Sissy Spacek's memoir is poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, plainspoken and utterly honest. My Extraordinary Ordinary Life is about what matters most: the exquisite worth of ordinary things, the simple pleasures of home and family, and the honest job of being right with the world. "If I get hit by a truck tomorrow," she writes, "I want to know I've returned my neighbor's cake pan."Keeping Secrets: The Girlhood Diaries of Seven Women Writers
By Mary Lyons. 1995
Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Forten, Kate Chopin, Sarah Jane Foster, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Ida B. Wells, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were…
19th century young women who grew up to be novelists, poets, essayists, or journalists. Keeping a private diary helped each girl find her public voice. "A collection of seven literary biographies liberally sprinkled with brief quotations from the subjects' diaries, written when they were young adults." - School Library Journal, starred review "Lyons writes with style and feeling, creating a strong sense of each individual life story, even as she gives us a social history of what it was like to be a woman at that time. ... Any teen who keeps a journal will recognize what the title implies: the private world behind the mask of duty." - BooklistThree Little Words
By Ashley Rhodes-Courter. 2007
"Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's…
not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system. Painful memories of being taken away from her home quickly become consumed by real-life horrors, where Ashley is juggled between caseworkers, shuffled from school to school, and forced to endure manipulative,humiliating treatment from a very abusive foster family. In this inspiring, unforgettable memoir, Ashley finds the courage to succeed - and in doing so, discovers the power of her own voice.Three Little Words: A Memoir
By Ashley Rhodes-Courter. 2007
"Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's…
not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system. Painful memories of being taken away from her home quickly become consumed by real-life horrors, where Ashley is juggled between caseworkers, shuffled from school to school, and forced to endure manipulative,humiliating treatment from a very abusive foster family. In this inspiring, unforgettable memoir, Ashley finds the courage to succeed - and in doing so, discovers the power of her own voice.Girls Who Rocked the World: Heroines from Joan of Arc to Mother Teresa
By Michelle Roehm Mccann, David Hahn, Amelie Welden. 2012
"Young women looking for inspiration will surely find it" (Booklist) in these profiles of forty-six movers and shakers who made…
their mark before they turned twenty.This fun and inspiring collection of influential stories provides forty-six illustrated examples of strong, independent female role models, all of whom first impacted the world as teenagers or younger. Originally published in two volumes over a decade ago, this fully updated and expanded edition of Girls Who Rocked the World spans a variety of achievements, interests, and backgrounds, from Harriet Tubman and Coco Chanel to S.E. Hinton and Maya Lin--each with her own incredible story of how she created life-changing opportunities for herself and the world. Personal aspirations from today's young women are interspersed throughout the book, which also includes profiles of teenagers who are rocking the world right now--girls like Winter Vinecki, the creator of the nonprofit organization Team Winter, and Jazmin Whitley, the youngest designer to show at L.A. Fashion Week. It's never too soon to start making a difference, and these exhilarating examples of girl power in action make for ideal motivation.The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey
By Linda Greenlaw. 1999
The term fisherwoman does not exactly roll trippingly off the tongue, and Linda Greenlaw, the world's only female swordfish boat…
captain, isn't flattered when people insist on calling her one. "I am a woman. I am a fisherman. . . . I am not a fisherwoman, fisherlady, or fishergirl. If anything else, I am a thirty-seven-year-old tomboy. It's a word I have never outgrown."Greenlaw also happens to be one of the most successful fishermen in the Grand Banks commercial fleet, though until the publication of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, "nobody cared." Greenlaw's boat, the Hannah Boden, was the sister ship to the doomed Andrea Gail, which disappeared in the mother of all storms in 1991 and became the focus of Junger's book.The Hungry Ocean, Greenlaw's account of a monthlong swordfishing trip over 1,000 nautical miles out to sea, tells the story of what happens when things go right--proving, in the process, that every successful voyage is a study in narrowly averted disaster. There is the weather, the constant danger of mechanical failure, the perils of controlling five sleep-, women-, and booze-deprived young fishermen in close quarters, not to mention the threat of a bad fishing run: "If we don't catch fish, we don't get paid, period. In short, there is no labor union."Greenlaw's straightforward, uncluttered prose underscores the qualities that make her a good captain, regardless of gender: fairness, physical and mental endurance, obsessive attention to detail. But, ultimately, Greenlaw proves that the love of fishing--in all of its grueling, isolating, suspenseful glory--is a matter of the heart and blood, not the mind. "I knew that the ocean had stories to tell me, all I needed to do was listen." --Svenja SoldovieriSeparated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited
By Samantha Futerman, Anais Bordier. 2014
Imagine one day opening Facebook and reading a message from a stranger that says, "I think we might be twins...don't…
freak out..."It all began when design student Anaïs Bordier viewed a YouTube video and saw her own face staring back. After some research, Anaïs found that the Los Angeles actress Samantha Futerman was born in a South Korean port city called Busan on November 19, 1987--the exact same location and day that Anaïs was born. This propelled her to make contact--via Facebook. One message later, both girls wondered: Could they be twins?Thus begins their remarkable journey to build a relationship as sisters, continents apart. Over Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, they learned that they shared much more than a strikingly similar appearance. Eventually, they traveled to Korea together to discover more about the land of their separation. One of Facebook's Top Ten Stories of 2013, Separated @ Birth is a story that spans the world and peels back some of the complex and emotional layers of foreign adoption.on.A Woman in Arabia: The Writings of the Queen of the Desert
By Gertrude Bell, Georgina Howell. 2006
A portrait in her own words of the female Lawrence of Arabia, the subject of the upcoming major motion picture…
Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, and Robert Pattinson, and directed by Werner HerzogGertrude . Bell was leaning in 100 years before Sheryl Sandberg. One of the great woman adventurers of the twentieth century, she turned her back on Victorian society to study at Oxford and travel the world, and became the chief architect of British policy in the Middle East after World War I. Mountaineer, archaeologist, Arabist, writer, poet, linguist, and spy, she dedicated her life to championing the Arab cause and was instrumental in drawing the borders that define today's Middle East. As she wrote in one of her letters, "It's a bore being a woman when you are in Arabia." Forthright and spirited, opinionated and playful, and deeply instructive about the Arab world, this volume brings together Bell's letters, military dispatches, diary entries, and travel writings to offer an intimate look at a woman who shaped nations.Who Was Jane Austen? (Who was?)
By Jerry Hoare, Sarah Fabiny, Who Hq. 2017
Step into the world of Georgian England and learn more about the genteel life of this beloved author.Although Jane Austen's…
works were first published anonymously and brought her little personal recognition, today they are rarely out of print and have inspired movies, television shows and mini-series, literary anthologies, and many other adaptations all around the world. Her writing—principally her five novels—is a critique of the British landed gentry at the end of the eighteenth century, and often a comment on the pursuit of a "good match" in matters of marriage. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Northhanger Abbey remain her most famous works. Who Was Jane Austen? reveals the life of this most private author.The singular biography of a forgotten abolitionist and educator for young adults Frederick Douglass dismissed Myrtilla's plan to open a…
school for African American girls in the slaveholding South as "reckless, almost to the point of madness." But Myrtilla Miner, the daughter of poor white farmers in Madison County, New York, was relentless. Fueled by an unyielding feminist conviction, and against a tide of hostility, on December 3, 1851, the fiery educator and abolitionist opened the School for Colored Girls—the only school in Washington, DC, dedicated to training African American students to be teachers. Although often in poor health, Myrtilla was a fierce advocate for her school, fending off numerous attacks including stonings, arson, and physical threats, and discouraging local "rowdies" by brandishing her revolver with open displays of target practice. The school would gradually gain national fame and stimulate a nationwide debate on the education of black people. Myrtilla's School for Colored Girls would slowly flourish through the years and exists even today as part of the University of the District of Columbia. The first modern biography of Myrtilla Miner for young adults, This Noble Woman, includes historic photos, source notes, a bibliography, and a list of resources for further exploration, making it an invaluable resource for any student's or history buff's bookshelf.