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Showing 101 - 120 of 10560 items
By Julia Alvarez. 1998
Alvarez, the author of "How the Garcia girls lost their accents" and other works, reminisces about her childhood in the…
Dominican Republic and her family's escape to New York City. Also describes how she became an author and how to experience the writing life. 1998.By Karolyn Smardz Frost. 2017
Fifteen-year-old slave Cecelia Reynolds made her dangerous bid for freedom from the United States, across the Niagara River and into…
Canada. Escape meant that she would never see her mother or brother again. She would be cut off from the young mistress with whom she grew up, but who also owned her. Cecelia found a new life in Toronto’s vibrant African American expatriate community. Her rescuer became her husband, a courageous conductor on the Underground Railroad helping other freedom-seekers reach Canada. Widowed, she braved the Fugitive Slave Law to cross back into the United States, where she again found love, and followed her William into the battlefields of the Civil War. Finally, with a wounded husband and young children in tow, she returned to the Kentucky she had known as a child. But her home had changed: hooded Night Riders roamed the countryside with torches and nooses at the ready. When William disappeared, Cecelia relied on the support and affection of her former mistress - the Southern belle who had owned her as a child. Winner of the 2018 Speaker's Book Award. 2017.By Carmen Aguirre. 2011
Covering the decade from 1979 to 1989, Aguirre takes the reader inside war-ridden Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia, post-Malvinas Argentina and Pinochet's…
Chile. She captures her constant struggle to reconcile her commitment to the resistance movement with the desires of her youth and her budding sexuality. Winner of Canada Reads 2012. Some descriptions of sex, explicit descriptions of violence. 2011.By Heather Summerhayes Cariou. 2006
At the age of four, Cariou's sister Pam was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, a terminal disease of the lungs and…
pancreas marked by severe coughing and malnutrition; unable to pronounce her condition, young Pam dubs it instead "Sixtyfive Roses." Written to fulfill a deathbed promise Cariou made to write "our" story, and a promise to her mother to tell the truth, the result is an honest and gritty description of a family dealing with chronic illness. Canada Reads 2012. 2006.By Karen Lavut. 1999
Karen Lavut recounts her friendship with painter Christiane Pflug who killed herself at Easter, 1972. She celebrates the joy and…
memories left by her lost friend, and laments the fact that she chose to leave life so early on. 1999.By Suzanne Fournier, Ernie Crey. 1997
Describes the treatment of aboriginal children in Canada who were taken to live in residential schools. The story is told…
using interviews and anecdotes shared by those who attended the schools. The current state of aboriginal affairs is also discussed. 1997.By Dallas Williams. 1997
By Chris Czajkowski. 2003
The uplifting and often humourous story of one woman's life in the raw wilderness. The author describes her experiences as…
she builds a cabin in the wilderness and relates the complications of the "simple life" - how she breaks trails by snowshoe, encounters grizzly bears, builds a stone oven and learns to bake bread - and spotted dick. 2003.By Laurel Corona, Marlene Wagman-Geller. 2018
Still I Rise takes its title from a work by Maya Angelou, and it resonates with the same spirit of…
an unconquerable soul, a woman who is captain of her fate. This book profiles inspiring women who embody this strength of character. Each chapter outlines the fall and rise of great women heroes who smashed all obstacles, rather than let all obstacles smash them. 2018.At nine years old, Eugenie Clark developed an unexpected passion for sharks after a visit to the Battery Park Aquarium…
in New York City. At the time, sharks were seen as mindless killing machines, but Eugenie knew better and set out to prove it. Despite many obstacles in her path, Eugenie was able to study the creatures she loved so much. From her many discoveries to the shark-related myths she dispelled, Eugenie made wide scientific contributions that led to her being nicknamed Shark Lady. Winner of 2018 Forest of Reading The Blue Spruce Award. Grades K-3. 2017.By Ruth Franklin. 2016
Still known to millions only as the author of the "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) remains curiously absent from the…
American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense, Jackson plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America better than anyone. Biographer Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author behind such classics as 'The Haunting of Hill House' and 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'. Placing Jackson within an American gothic tradition of Hawthorne and Poe, Franklin demonstrates how her unique contribution to this genre came from her focus on "domestic horror" drawn from an era hostile to women. With its exploration of astonishing talent shaped by a damaged childhood and a troubled marriage, this is the definitive biography of a generational avatar and an American literary giant. Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for best critical / biography book. 2016.By Rosemary Sullivan. 2015
Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin.…
Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy--the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father. As she gradually learned about the extent of her father's brutality after his death, in 1967 Svetlana shocked the world by defecting to the United States. But she could not escape her father's legacy; her life in America was fractured; she moved frequently, married disastrously, shunned other Russian exiles, and ultimately died in poverty in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Winner of the 2015 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the 2016 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, and the 2016 RBC Taylor Prize. Bestseller. 2015.By Amy Dickinson. 2017
By peeling back the curtain of her syndicated advice column, Amy Dickinson reveals much of the inspiration and motivation that…
has fueled her calling. Through a series of linked essays, this moving narrative picks up where her earlier memoir left off. Exploring central themes of romance, death, parenting, self-care, and spiritual awakening, this touching and heartfelt homage speaks to all who have faced challenges in the wake of life's twists and turns. From finding love in middle-age to her storied experience with stepparenting to overcoming disordered eating to her final moments spent with her late mother, Dickinson's trademark humorous tone delivers punch and wit that will empower, entertain, and heal. Follow up to "The Mighty Queens of Freeville". 2017.By James Gavin. 2009
Biography of African American singer/actress Lena Horne, born in 1917 Brooklyn, who first performed at Harlem's Cotton Club at age…
sixteen. Interprets Horne's multiracial family background in the pre-civil rights era as the reason for emotional conflicts in both her personal and professional lives. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. c2009.By Eileen Elias. 1979
Growing up in England, Eileen entered her teenage years in the 1920s, an exciting decade which tempted her with short…
skirts, silk stockings, and the Charleston. But her path to maturity was uncertain, as she discovered how world events can influence lives -- even hers. Sequel to "On Sundays we wore white" (DC40182). 1979.By Mary S Lovell. 1987
Biography of Beryl Markham who made the first solo flight west across the Atlantic Ocean. She was raised in Kenya…
alongside the son of Nandi hunters. Strikingly beautiful and uninterested in motherhood, she could take apart an airplane or fly across the Sahara with a stuttering engine. 1987.By Gene Nora Jessen. 2018
The inspiring, true story of the first female pilots taking their rightful place in the exciting world of aviation. In…
1929, nineteen gutsy women blazed out of the darkness by setting out from California in propeller-driven planes, each competing to be the winner of the first female cross-country air race. The hazards were many, from disastrous weather to possible sabotage, but by facing the dangers with skill and determination, the racers thrilled the nation, and pioneered a new future for female pilots and women's rights. 2018.By Caitlin Doughty. 2014
The blogger behind the popular Web series "Ask a Mortician" describes her experiences working at a crematory, including how she…
sometimes got ashes on her clothes and how she cared for bodies of all shapes and sizes. 2014.By Bridget Moran. 1988
Mary John describes her childhood on the Stoney Creek Reservation in British Columbia. She details the rituals of the tribe,…
the poverty of daily reserve life, and the power of the Indian Department. She reveals the horrors she and other students suffered at a residential school as a result of a different culture, language, and religious beliefs. 1988.