April 2010
Memoirs & Autobiographies -
6th Grade English Project
B
ALZADO
Author: Alzado, Lyle, with Paul Zimmerman
Title: Mile High: The Story of Lyle Alzado and the Amazing Denver Broncos
1978
Summary: Lyle Alzado, former star of the Denver Broncos football team, tells of his journey,as a Jewish-Spanish-Italian kid with a quick temper, from the slums of Brooklyn to the Super Bowl. (Illustrated)
230 pages
B
ANDERSON
Author: Anderson, Marian
Title: My Lord, What a Morning: an Autobiography
1956
Summary: This is a condensed version of the legendary black singer’s autobiography.
312 pages
B
ANGELOU
Author: Angelou, Maya
Title: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
1969
Summary: This autobiography covers the childhood of a woman who has been a professional dancer, actress, poet, journalist, and television producer. (and later read one of her poems at President Clinton’s first Inaugural).
246 pages
(YA)
B
ARMSTRONG
Author: Armstrong, Lance
Title: It’s Not About the Bike
2000
Summary: Champion cyclist Lance Armstrong describes his career and his triumph over cancer. (Illustrated)
275 pages
PB
B
BAKER
Author: Baker, Russell
Title: Growing up
1982
Summary: The memoirs of Russell Baker (born 1925), the Pulitzer prizewinning columnist of the New York Times, about growing up in America during the Great Depression, and of overcoming adversity with courage and love. (Illustrated)
348 pages
(YA)
B
BARAKAT
Author: Barakat, Ibtisam
Title: Tasting the Sky: a Palestinian Childhood
2007
Summary: A memoir in which the author describes her childhood as a Palestinian refugee, discussing her family's experiences during and after the Six-Day War, and the freedom she felt at learning to read and write.
176 pages
(YA)
B
BAWDEN
Author: Bawden, Nina
Title: In My Own Time: Almost an Autobiography
1994
Summary: Relates the life story of English fiction author Nina Bawden, including her evacuation to the countryside during World War II, her years at Oxford, and an account of her son Niki, who was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. (Illustrated)
175 pages
(YA)
B
BERG
Author: Berg, Mary
Title: The Diary of Mary Berg
2007
Summary: From her personal diaries, teenager Mary Berg recounts life for her and her family in the Warsaw Ghetto. (Illustrated). (Note: May be too grim for some)
249 pages (plus Bibliography, Chronology of Events).
(YA)
B
BRIDGES
Author: Bridges, Ruby
Title: Through My Eyes
1999
Summary: Ruby Bridges recounts the story of her involvement, as a six-year-old, in the integration of her school in New Orleans in 1960. (Illustrated)
63 pages
B
BROKAW
Author: Brokaw, Tom
Title: A Long Way From Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland
2002
Summary: Television journalist Tom Brokaw tells his life story up to his wedding in 1962, describing his childhood in South Dakota, the wake-up call he received in college regarding his lack of discipline, and how he became a broadcaster. (Illustrated)
233 pages
B
BROWN
Author: Brown, Rachel Manija Brown
Title: All the Fishes Come Home to Roost: An American Misfit in India
2005
Summary:Rachel Manija Brown describes what it was like to grow up in an ashram in India, discussing how her hippie parents uprooted her from her childhood home in California to live in a drought-stricken ashram in India while they devoted themselves to Meher Baba, an Indian guru.
339 pages
B
BUTTERWORTH
Author: Butterworth, Emma Macalik.
Title: As the Waltz was Ending
1982
Summary: An autobiographical account of a young girl whose ballet career with the Vienna State Opera was interrupted by the invasion of the Nazis and who later had to fight for her life during the Russian occupation at the end of World War II.
187 pages
(YA: Gr. 7)
B
BYARS
Author: Byars, Betsy Cromer
Title: The Moon and I
1991
Summary: While describing her humorous adventures with a blacksnake, Betsy Byars recounts childhood anecdotes and explains how she writes a book. (Illustrated)
96 pages
(YA: Gr. 6 – 7)
B
CARY
Author: Cary, Lorene
Title: Black Ice
1991
Summary: An autobiographical narrative of the gifted African-American author's days at St. Pauls, an elite prep school in New Hampshire, and of her adolescent turmoil.
237 pages
(YA)
B
CHAMBERS
Author: Chambers, Veronica
Title: Mama’s Girl
1996
Summary: Memoir of the author's life growing up as an overachiever in an under-privileged family, chronicling the close relationship she forged with her mother after her father deserted the family.
194 pages
(YA)
B
CLEARY
Author: Cleary, Beverly
Title: A Girl from Yamhill: a Memoir
1988
Summary: This memoir follows the popular children's author from her childhood years in Oregon through high school and into young adulthood, highlighting her family life and her growing interest in writing. (Illustrated)
279 pages
YA: (Gr. 5 – 8)
PB
B
CONROY
Author: Conroy, Frank
Title: Stop-time
1967
Summary: Since its publication in 1967, this autobiographical account by Frank Conroy, who died in 2005, has become a classic memoir of adolescence.
283 pages
B
CRUTCHER
Author:Crutcher, Chris
Title: King of the Mild Frontier: An Ill-Advised Autobiography
2003
Summary: Chris Crutcher, author of young adult novels such as "Ironman" and "Whale Talk," as well short stories, tells of growing up in Cascade, Idaho, and becoming a writer.
260 pages (Illustrated)
(YA)
B
CRUZ
Author: Cruz, Celia with Ana Cristina Reymundo; foreword by Maya Angelou; translated from the Spanish by José Lucas Badué
Title: Celia: My Life
2004
Summary: This is the authorized, posthumous autobiography of the Queen of Salsa's extraordinary--and until now, largely private—life, beginning with her childhood in Cuba and ending with her death in 2003.
260 pages (Illustrated)
PB
B
DAHL
Author: Dahl, Roald.
Title: Boy: Tales of Childhood
1986
Summary: This memoir, by the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach and other classics, presents humorous anecdotes from his childhood, including his summer vacations in Norway, where his Norwegian father grew up, and life at an English boarding school. (Illustrated)
176 pages
(YA)
PB
B
DILLARD
Author: Dillard, Annie
Title: An American Childhood
1988
Summary: An autobiography describing the author's childhood and life in Pittsburgh during the mid-twentieth century.
255 pages
(YA)
PB
B
DOUGLASS
Author: Douglass, Fredrick (edited and illustrated by Michael McCurdy; foreword by Coretta Scott King)
Title: Escape from Slavery: the Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words
1994
Summary: A shortened version of Douglass' autobiography, describing the early life of the slave who became a famous 19th century abolitionist, journalist, and statesman. (Illustrated)
63 pages
YA (Gr. 5 – 8)
B
FEELINGS
Author: Feelings, Tom.
Title: Black Pilgrimage.
1972
Summary: A black artist describes his life, from his birthplace in Brooklyn to his adopted home, Ghana, and how various experiences helped him develop new aspects of his talent.
72 pages (Illustrated)
(YA: Gr. 5 – 8)
B
FILIPOVIC
Author: Filipovic, Zlata; translated from the Croat by Christina Pribichevich-Zoric.
Title: Zlata's Diary: a Child's Life in Sarajevo
1994
Summary: Growing up in Sarajevo, the only child of her parents, Zlata's life was like that of any ordinary girl her age. When war broke out on the streets, her world changed from that of an ordinary girl to one trapped in a war torn land. Her diary spans the period 1991 – 1993, from just before her 11th birthday until she was 13. It includes color photographs reproduced from her diary. (Illustrated)
200 pages
YA (Gr. 5 – 8)
B
FLEISCHMAN
Author: Fleischman, Sid
Title: The Abracadabra Kid: a Writer's Life
1996
Summary: The autobiography of the Newbery award-winning children's author, who set out from his childhood during the Great Depression to become a magician, but wound up becoming a writer. (Illustrated)
198 pages
(YA)
B
FOX
Author: Fox, Paula
Title: Borrowed Finery: A Memoir
2001
Summary: A memoir in which Paula Fox recalls her youth, telling of how she was rescued from an orphanage by her Cuban grandmother after being placed there shortly after her birth, discussing her stable early life with a bachelor minister, and tracing the ensuing years moving from home to home at the whim of her unstable, mostly absent parents.
210 pages
B
FULLER
Author: Fuller, Alexandra
Title: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
2001
Summary: Alexandra Fuller chronicles the experiences she has while growing up on several farms in southern and central Africa from 1972 to 1990.
301 pages (Illustrated)
B
GARRETT
Author: Garrett, Ruth Irene with Rick Farrant.
Title: Crossing Over: One Woman's Exodus from Amish life
2001
Summary: Ruth Irene Garrett shares how she reached the decision to leave her traditional Amish community and discusses how she adjusted to her new life in the outside world, where she joined the Lutheran church. (Illustrated)
192 pages
B
GATES
Author: Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.
Title: Colored People: A Memoir
1994
Summary: The author, who was born in 1950, recalls his life in the African-American community of a small West Virginia town in the Allegheny Mountains, where the major social event was the annual mill picnic. Gates grew up at a time when the South was still largely segregated. His preface is to his daughters, who once asked him “just exactly what the civil rights movement had been all about.”
216 pages
B
GIES
Author: Gies, Miep, with Alison Leslie Gold
Title: Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman who Helped to Hide the Frank Family
1988
Summary: An autobiography by the woman who courageously helped hide the Frank family in Amsterdam during World War II, and who recently died at the age of 100. (Illustrated)
252 pages
(YA)
B
HENTOFF
Author: Hentoff, Nat
Title: Boston Boy
1986
Summary: The author recalls his experiences as a Jewish boy growing up in Boston in the 1930s and 1940s, and how he was shaped by life in Roxbury (then a Jewish neighborhood), his education at Boston Latin, and by his passionate love of jazz.
175 pages
(YA)
B
HERRIOT
Author: Herriot, James
Title: All Creatures Great and Small
1972
Summary: An English veterinarian reminisces about the first two years of his career, including his animal patients (cows, horses, sheep, dogs, cats, and pigs) and his eccentric fellow villagers in a small Yorkshire village during the late 1930s.
442 pages
(YA: Gr. 6 – 7).
B
HICKAM
Author: Hickam, Homer
Title: The Coalwood Way
2000
Summary: Homer Hickam chronicles the events that took place during his senior year in his hometown of Coalwood, West Virginia, in 1959. This sequel to Rocket Boys, which was the basis of the film October Sky, follows Homer and the other “Rocket Boys” through their senior year at Big Creek High, launching hand-made rockets.
318 pages
B
HUNT
Author: Hunt, Antonia
Title: Little Resistance: A Teenage English Girl's Adventures in Occupied France
1982
Summary: Not realizing the probable length of World War II, her English parents left Antonia Lyon-Smith behind in Brittany with her cousins in 1939 at age 14. Hunt’s memoir recalls her dangerous war years in France, when she became a prisoner of the Germans and was later implicated in a French Resistance plot. (Illustrated)
149 pages
(YA)
PB
B
HUNTER GAULT
Author: Hunter-Gault, Charlayne
Title: In My Place
1993
Summary: Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s autobiography covers the award-winning journalist’s childhood and as the first African-American woman to attend the University of Georgia. (Illustrated)
257 pages
(YA)
B
JACKSON
Author: Jackson, Livia Bitton
Title: I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing up in the Holocaust
1997
Summary: A memoir of Elli Friedmann (whose name is now Livia Bitton-Jackson) in which she tells about her experiences at Auschwitz concentration camp, where she was taken at the age of thirteen in 1944 when the Nazis invaded her native Hungary. (Glossary of terms)
224 pages
(YA)
B
JOHNSON
Author: Johnson, Earvin “Magic”and Richard Levin.
Title: Magic
1983
Summary: The off-court story of Earvin "Magic" Johnson, a player with the Los Angeles Lakers who was twice named most valuable player (MVP) in the NBA playoffs. (Illustrated)
231 pages
(YA)
PB
B
KELLER
Author: Keller, Helen
Title: The Story of My Life
1965
Summary: An autobiography of Helen Keller, written while she was a young woman, in which she tells of her early life, her relationship with her teacher Anne Sullivan, and her struggles to triumph over blindness and deafness. (Illustrated )
280 pages
(YA)
PB
B
KERR
Author: Kerr, M.E.
Title: Me, Me, Me, Me, Me: Not a Novel
1983
Summary: The author recounts escapades from her own teenage years and reveals how many of those real-life people and events served as springboards for the fictional characters and plots in her nine young adult novels.
220 pages
(YA:Gr. 7 – 8)
B
KOEHN
Author: Koehn, Ilse
Title: Mischling, Second Degree: My Childhood in Nazi Germany
1990
Summary: The memoirs of a German girl who became a leader among the Hitler Youth while her Social Democratic family kept from her the secret of her partial Jewish heritage.
240 pages
(YA – Gr. 6-7)
B
LAZAN
Author: Lazan, Marion Blumenthal
Title: Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story
1996
Summary: The author tells the story of her family's experiences as Jews in Hitler's Germany, tracing their horrifying journey from their home country to Holland and back again, living in refugee, transit, and prison camps, including Bergen-Belsen.
130 pages
(YA: Gr. 6 – 7)
B
LI
Author: Li, Moying
Title: Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China during the Cultural Revolution
2008
Summary: The author reveals the events of her life from age twelve to adulthood, when the cultural revolution of Mao Zedong destroyed family customs and life as she and her family knew it. (Illustrated)
176 pages
(YA)
PB
B
LINDBERGH
Author: Lindbergh, Charles A.
Title: The Spirit of St. Louis
1953
Summary: Charles Lindbergh describes his first nonstop airplane flight from New York to Paris in 1927, an extraordinary feat for the time. He also describes the aviator's life in the first third of the 20th century. (Illustrated)
528 pages
(YA)
B
LOBEL
Author: Lobel, Anita
Title: No Pretty Pictures: a Child of War
1998
Summary: The author, well known as an illustrator of children's books, describes her experiences as a Polish Jew during World War II and for years in Sweden afterwards, before emigrating to New York. (Illustrated)
193 pages
(YA: gr. 5 – 8)
B
LOWRY
Author: Lowry, Lois
Title: Looking back: a Book of Memories
1998
Summary: Using family photographs and quotes from her books, the author provides glimpses into her life. (Illustrated)
181 pages
(YA: Gr. 5 – 6)
B
LUGOVSKAYA
Author: Lugovskaya, Nina
Title: I Want to Live: The Diary of a Young Girl in Stalin’s Russia
2006
Summary: "…[This diary] offers rare insight into the life of a teenage girl in Stalin's Russia, where fear of arrest was a fact of daily life.” It begins in 1932, when Nina was 13, until she was 18, when she was arrested by the KGB and sent to Siberia. Miraculously, she survived, but did not continue her diary. (Illustrated)
280 pages
PB
B
McBRIDE
Author: McBride, James,
Title: The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
1997
Summary: An African-American man tells of his mother, a white woman, who raised 12 children and who refused to admit her true identity until he was an adult.
291 pages
(YA)
PB
B
MOODY
Author: Moody, Anne
Title: Coming of Age in Mississippi
1968
Summary: The personal story of a young black woman growing up in Mississippi in the 1950s and early 1960s, covering the time when Emmet Till was murdered in 1955, and when Medger Evers was murdered in 1964.
384 pages
(YA)
B
MYERS
Author: Myers,
Bad Boy: a Memoir
2001
Summary: Author Walter Dean Myers describes his childhood in Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s, discussing his loving stepmother, his problems in school, his reasons for leaving home, and his beginnings as a writer.
214 pages
(YA)
B
OHNO
Author: Ohno, Apolo Anton, with Nancy Ann Richardson
Title: A Journey: The Autobiography of Apolo Anton Ohno
2002
Summary: Speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, a 2002 (and later, a 2006 and 2010) Olympic gold-medalist, shares the story of his life growing up with his father in Washington State, and discusses the challenges he faced in becoming a world-class athlete. (Illustrated)
153 pages
YA (Gr. 5 – 8)
PB
B
OKUBO
Author: Okubo, Mine
Title: Citizen 13660
1983
Summary: A Japanese artist illustrates and narrates her experiences in the Japanese internment camps where 110,000 people of Japanese descent were held in the U.S. during World War II.
209 pages
(YA)
B
PARKS
Author: Parks, Rosawith James Haskins
Title: Rosa Parks: My Story
1992
Summary: Rosa Park's life story reveals the deliberate choices she made that earned her the title "Mother to a Movement."
192 pages
(YA: Gr. 5 – 8)
B
PAULSEN
Author: Paulsen, Gary
Title: Guts: The True Stories behind Hatchet and The Brian Books
2001
Summary: The author relates incidents in his life and how they inspired parts of his books about the character, Brian Robeson.
148 pages
(YA: Gr: 5 – 8)
B
PAULSEN
Author: Paulsen, Gary
Title: Caught by the Sea: My Life on Boats
2001
Summary: A memoir in which author Gary Paulsen discusses his lifelong love for the sea and shares his adventures exploring the oceans.
103 pages
(YA)
B
PAULSEN
Author: Paulsen, Gary
Title: My Life in Dog Years
1998
Summary: The author describes how dogs have impacted his life from childhood through the present day, recounting the stories of his first dog, Snowball, in the Philippines; Dirk, who protected him from bullies; and Cookie, who saved his life.
137 pages
(YA)
B
PAULSEN
Author: Paulsen, Gary
Title: Winterdance: the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod
1994
Summary: The author's account of his most ambitious quest: to know a world beyond his knowing -- to train for and run the Iditarod.
256 pages