Biography

Interest Level: K-3
Reading Level: 2.2
Annette Kellerman grew up in Australia where she learned to swim to make her weak legs stronger. She dreamed of dancing, and found her gracefulness in the water. After winning many races and award in Australia, she began traveling the world. She shocked people in Europe with her grace and talent and then went to America. There she shocked people with her skin. She became an advocate for women swimmers and changed the way women swim today.

Reading level: 9-12
Interest level: Grades 8-12

Hannalore is in the bloom of her life. In school in Berlin, she is enjoying her teen years. Then she receives the devastating news that her father has been killed and cremated in the concentration camps and her mother and brothers are being called up for deportation. Hannalore just knows the right and only thing to do is go home and be deported with what family she has left. Hannalore was one of the Jews on Schindler's list who was saved from the crematoriums at Auschwitz by being relocated to Czechoslovakia. Although she escaped death, Hannalore was subjected to brutal treatment: rape, beatings, and other forms of abuse, not to mention the trauma of witnessing the death of friends she had made in the camp. Hannalore's story has a "storybook" ending when she meets and falls in love with a fellow inmate of the camps, her beloved Dick.
*Language, sex, and violence make this a book for only certain mature readers.

Reading Level:6.5
Interest Level: 5-8
Helen's Eyes is an amazing biography of Helen Keller's good friend and teacher, Annie Sullivan. Most of us know about her life through movies about her time with young Helen. This book shares personal stories, letters, and photographs of Annie's tragic childhood and what lead her to working with Helen. Their friendships with people such and Alexander Graham Bell and Samuel Clemens are shared as well as stories of their time at Radcliffe College and on their lecture circuit in later life.

Reading Level: 2.2
Interest Level: K-3
This great story about First Lady Michelle Obama tells about her upbringing in Chicago and the life she lead before marrying Barack Obama. We also get to peak into her life in the White House and the work she does to make the world a better place.

Reading level:3-6
Interest level: Grades 4-8

Ela and her family live in the Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia) and are terrorized by the destruction of Kristallnacht. Through photographs and text, Ela's story is documented in this well illustrated story of one family's experience in the model concentration camp of Tieresenstadt. Ela was only eight years old at the onset of the Holocaust, so she grows up much too fast, knowing nothing but the horror of the camps. Ela and the other children in the camp find ways to sing, tell stories, and do school work to pass the time. She and her friends formed a tight circle of undying commitment to each other. They even made a flag, featuring hands tightly clasped, that symbolized their friendship. A highlight of Ela's time in the camp was learning to sing. 60 years after liberation, she witnessed the performance of Brundibar, the same opera she had played the part of Cat in, in Los Angeles. Music and performing was such good therapy for Ela and the other children. Through performing, they were able to forget their troubles.

Interest Level: 5-8
Reading Level: 6.8
Prudence Crandall just wanted to educate young women. She ran a successful school for young women until a young black girl requested to join the school. Prudence didn't believe blacks and whites should be treated differently. But the people of her town disagreed. After many of her white girls were pulled from her school, Prudence made the decision to make her school a place to educate young black women. Her community did not support her decision and treated her like an outcast. She was not allowed to shop in the local stores and eggs were thrown at her school. A law was even passed by the Connecticut government making it illegal to have black girls from outside of the state in her school. She continued teaching despite the dire consequences and is famous today for taking on the fight for equality.