biography

Philip Gulley reminisces about his childhood in Danville, Indiana, discussing his family, friends, concerns, school, and the citizens of the small town.

Laura Kasinof studied Arabic in college and moved to Yemen a few years later to work as a freelance journalist. When she first moved to Sanaa in 2009, she was the only American reporter based there. When antigovernment protests broke out in Yemen, part of the revolts sweeping the Arab world at the time, she contacted the New York Times to see if she could cover the rapidly unfolding events for the newspaper. Laura never planned to be a war correspondent, but found herself in the middle of brutal government attacks on peaceful protesters. As foreign reporters were rounded up and shipped out of the country, Laura managed to elude the authorities but found herself increasingly isolated--and even more determined to report on what she saw.

A comprehensive history of the women who ruled the Mongol empire during the thirteenth century, focusing on Queen Manduhai, the daughter of Genghis Khan, who restored the Mongol Empire and spent her life fighting both the Ming Dynasty of China and Muslim warlords.

Yeonmi Park's family was loving and close-knit, but life in North Korea was brutal and practically medieval. Regularly without food, Park was led to believe that Kim Jong II, the country's dictator, could read her mind. After her father was imprisoned and tortured by the regime for trading on the black market, a risk he took in order to provide for his wife and two young daughters, the family was branded as criminals and forced to the cruel margins of society. Park and her mother were smuggled across the border into China after she suffered a botched appendectomy. By the time she and her mother made their way into South Korea two years later, Park had lost her childhood and nearly lost her life. Her father was dead and her sister was missing. Before this book, only her mother knew what really happened between the time they crossed the Yalu River into China and when they followed the stars through the frigid Gobi Desert to freedom. Park says "I convinced myself that a lot of what I had experienced never happened. I taught myself to forget the rest.".

Leon Leyson describes growing up in Poland, being forced from home to the ghetto and then to concentration camps by the Nazis, and being saved by Oskar Schindler.

Reyna Grande chronicles her life as an undocumented immigrant, from her border crossing at age nine, discussing her difficult relationship with her father, and other complications with her family during childhood.

Emmanuel, a young man born in Ghana with a deformed leg, refused to beg to survive and instead persevered until he was able to get a job and raise money to achieve his dream, riding a bicycle 400 miles across Ghana to bring attention to the plight of disabled people. As a result of his efforts, the Parliament passed a Persons with Disabilities act and Emmanuel opened a school for students with disabilities.

"A regiment of African-American soldiers from Harlem journeys across the Atlantic to fight alongside the French in World War I, inspiring a continent with their brand of jazz music"--Provided by publisher.

"Simon Schwartz was born in 1982 in the GDR (East Germany). One and a half years later, he left the country with his parents, and the family resettled in West Berlin. As political dissidents, his parents experienced harassment by the Stasi and a lack of understanding from members of their own family. This graphic novel memoir chronicles the family's difficult journey to get to the other side of the Berlin Wall"--Provided by publisher.

Packed with dramatic photos, posters, and maps, this compelling book captures the fascinating story of photojournalism in modern times.