Showing 1–50 of 56 books
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All Over but the Shoutin'
Bragg, a Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent, didn't start out to be a writer. In fact, he sort of fell into it. He recalls this personal journey in a rags-to-riches memoir, which begins in 1959 in Alabama, where white people had it hard and black people had it harder than that, because what are the table scraps of nothing? In vivid prose, by turns comic and affecting, he recalls growing up white and poor in the South, his difficult relationship with his abusive, alcoholic father, and his love for his courageous mother, who raised him and taught him what really mattered.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1998
- ISBN: 9780679774020
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Almost a Woman
The author of When I Was Puerto Rican (1993) continues to limn her past, this time focusing on her adolescence and young womanhood. In a patchwork of memories, she recalls her guilty longing to escape the Brooklyn barrio, where she lived with her mother and large, extended family, and what she finds (including an affair with an older man) when she leaves. The mixture of regret, joy, and confusion is unmistakable in this portrait of a daughter growing up in two cultures. A Vintage paperback will be available in October.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1999
- ISBN: 9780606196789
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American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New
Growing up a ninety-pound weakling tormented by bullies, Matthew Polly dreamed of one day journeying to the Shaolin Temple in China to become a fighter like in his favorite 1970s TV series, Kung Fu- Nonfiction
- Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners 2009, Alex Awards 2008
- ISBN: 9781592402625
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Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child
"My whole childhood, I never had a bed," begins Hart's bittersweet recollections about growing up one of six children in a migrant family that made the circuit from Texas to Minnesota each year. Her stories about her family, especially her stern but caring father, and about breaking away only to return home, show the moving struggle of an immigrant population, but also the universal personal struggle of finding, then acknowledging, oneself.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2000
- ISBN: 9780927534819
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Between the World and Me
Coates writes to his 15-year-old son about the inborn hazards of being black in America and his own intellectual, political and emotional confrontation with the need to live fully, even in the face of racialist culture.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2016
- ISBN: 9780812993547
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Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self
Born in 1969 to civil rights activists who defied convention, Walker was a movement child. But when the movement changed course, and her white father and black mother divorced, Walker found herself without an identity--a misfit: too black for some; not black enough for others. A poignant, sometimes angry recollection about racism, growing up, growing away, and finding oneself.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2002
- ISBN: 9781573221696
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The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
A dying woman's wish leads an abused 15-year-old from the streets of Memphis to a loving family, an education, and a professional football career.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2007
- ISBN: 9780393330472
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Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard
The memoir of a young woman who at age 15 was living on the streets but survived to make it to Harvard. Murray's story was featured in the Lifetime Original Movie "Homeless to Harvard."- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2011
- ISBN: 9780786868919
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Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded
Candid and thoughtful, Hart's memoir details her difficult childhood and rise to internet fame.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2017
- ISBN: 9780062457516
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Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America
Almond's obsession with candy blends family memoir, reporting, and travelogue in a hilarious, unflinching examination of the world of sweets.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2005
- ISBN: 9780156032933
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Chang and Eng
Conjoined brothers, Chang and Eng, were sideshow celebrities. Eng tells the stories of their lives, both as individuals and as one entity. The emotional as well as the physical effects on the brothers is fascinating.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2001
- ISBN: 9780525945123
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Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn
One player stands out on the Hardin High School's girls' basketball team. Her name is Sharon La Forge, a talented but troubled teenager. During a 15-month stay on the Crow Reservation where the high school is located, the author, a professional baseball player turned journalist, begins to understand how the conditions of life on the reservation affect the lives of teens like Sharon.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2001
- ISBN: 9780446526838
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Die Young with Me: A Memoir
A story of punk rock, first love, cancer and the incredible power of music to get us through the hardest times in our lives. Rufus details his brave fight for his life in this tender and contemplative memoir.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2017
- ISBN: 9781501142611
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Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska
Follows the Fort Yukon Eagles, winners of six regional championships in a row, through the course of an entire 28game season, from their first day of practice in late November to the Alaska State Championship- Nonfiction
- Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners 2009, Alex Awards 2007
- ISBN: 9781582346236
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Educated: A Memoir
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2019
- ISBN: 9780399590504
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Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year
This is a story about frustrations in the workplace, about refusing to conform, about taking a stand against mediocrity. The journal of a first-time teacher, her year with her fifth grade class, & her success teaching them reading & creative writing.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2000
- ISBN: 9781565122253
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The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
The photos will grab teens first: a three-masted wooden vessel broken and splintered; rugged ice-encrusted faces of the ship's crew; fields of ice stretching into infinity. The Imperial Transatlantic Expedition, Sir Ernest Shackleton's daring but ill-fated attempt to cross the South Pole, comes to life in pictures taken by one of the crew and in the words of the men who lived the extraordinary Antarctic adventure. It's an exhilarating account of one of the greatest episodes in the history of polar exploration and one of history's all-time great survival stories.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1999
- ISBN: 9780375404030
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Flags of Our Fathers
James Bradley's father was one of the six men who raised the famous flag on Iwo Jima during World War II. Bradley investigated to learn more about the men and the event.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2001
- ISBN: 9780553111330
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The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After
Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety—perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2019
- ISBN: 9780451495327
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The Glass Castle: A Memoir
This empowering memoir recounts the strength and creativity of the Walls children as they overcome the poverty and social challenges their parents brought upon them.
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High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places.
Admittedly stubborn and driven, Breashears recounts his life story-recollections of his abusive father and tumultuous childhood; his discovery and dedication to mountain climbing, which he has always equated with humankind's belief in hope; and his entry into filmmaking. His account of his 1996 Everest IMAX Filming Expedition, during which he and his crew sought to rescue survivors and reclaim the bodies of the people caught in the well-publicized Everest calamity, is a natural link to Jon Krakauer's 1998 Alex winner, Into Thin Air. The danger, the audacity, the adventure will keep teens enthralled, and send them to the shelves to find similar titles.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2000
- ISBN: 9780684853611
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High School
Critically acclaimed indie rock duo Tegan and Sara Quin lay bare their teenage experiences, the oscillating euphoria and scintillation of first love, the jarring process of finding one's identity, and early forays into making music in this gorgeous dual memoir.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2020
- ISBN: 9780374169947
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A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival
Emotionally riveting and eye-opening, A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea is the incredible story of a young woman, an international crisis, and the triumph of the human spirit. Melissa Fleming shares the harrowing journey of Doaa Al Zamel, a young Syrian refugee in search of a better life. Doaa and her family leave war-torn Syria for Egypt where the climate is becoming politically unstable and increasingly dangerous. She meets and falls in love with Bassem, a former Free Syrian Army fighter and together they decide to leave behind the hardship and harassment they face in Egypt to flee for Europe, joining the ranks of the thousands of refugees who make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean on overcrowded and run-down ships to seek asylum overseas and begin a new life. After four days at sea, their boat is sunk by another boat filled with angry men shouting threats and insults. With no land in sight and surrounded by bloated, floating corpses, Doaa is adrift with a child's inflatable water ring around her waist, while two little girls cling to her neck. Doaa must stay alive for them. She must not lose strength. She must not lose hope.- Nonfiction, Memoir
- Alex Awards 2018, Amelia Bloomer List - Young Adult Nonfiction 2018
- ISBN: 9781250105998
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Humans of New York: Stories
In pictures and interviews that captivate, puzzle and reveal, photojournalist Brandon Stanton collects an immeasurable range of human emotions and perspectives. The photos draw us in and their subjects' words leave us wondering and cheering at the variety of humanity.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2016
- ISBN: 9781250058904
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The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey
Greenlaw, the captain of the Hanna Boden, sister ship to the Andrea Gail, whose loss was portrayed in 1998 Alex winner The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger, tells a different but equally fascinating story of life at sea. Hers is a record of a typical month-long swordfishing trip--the backbreaking work, the danger, the uncertainty of the weather, and the thrill of a gritty job that makes the sea a home. Writing has proven to be hard work, often painful, she says. I can honestly say I'd rather be fishing.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2000
- ISBN: 9780786864515
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In the Country We Love: My Family Divided
After Diane Guerrero returned home from school one day to find her family deported, the 14-year-old went on to combat self-injury and suicidal thoughts, finish her education, and to become a successful actress and citizenship activist.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2017
- ISBN: 9781627795272
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In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.
The tragedy of the whaling ship Essex influenced Herman Melville when he wrote Moby Dick. Philbrick takes a close look at the whaling industry, whales and the men who hunted them.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2001
- ISBN: 9781439566718
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Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
Only a handful of people have stood atop Everest. Krakauer is one of them, but the story he tells here is not of glorious triumph. Rather, it is a true account of survival and death that will grab YA readers from the very first page. Krakauer had a front-row seat to the headline-making 1996 climbing disaster that resulted in the deaths of five people, and his account of the unfolding tragedy, filled with keenly observed details, is not only a transfixing drama but also an inquiry into survivor guilt and the outer limits of human strength and responsibility.
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Jesus Land: A Memoir
Scheere's unflinching memoir chronicles life in rural Indiana with her disciplinarian father, fundamentalist mother, and adopted African American brothers. Each child finds a way to survive, with very different endings.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2006
- ISBN: 9781582433387
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Juvenile in Justice
Richard Ross' riveting photographs give voices to incarcerated youth in juvenile detention centers across America.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2013, Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers 2013
- ISBN: 9780985510602
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The Kid's Are All Right: A Memoir
The poignant, harrowing story of four siblings--Amanda, Liz, Dan, and Diana Welch--who despite their wrenching loss and subsequent separation, retained the resilience and humor that both their mother and father endowed them with--growing up as lost souls, taking disastrous turns along the way, but eventually coming out right side up and being together again.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2010
- ISBN: 9780307396044
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Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation
In a cleverly designed interactive book, the creator of the Black Holocaust Exhibit relates the pain of my people. Her simple yet descriptive words tell the story of slavery and the struggle for freedom—from the African villages to the boats, from the plantations to the end of the Civil War and Jubilee, the day of freedom. Letters and newspaper clippings personalize the story, and reproductions of documents, meant to be pulled from envelopes and pouches attached to the pages, bring the past directly into the present.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1998
- ISBN: 9780609600306
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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Beah tells, in his own words, his harrowing experiences as a child soldier in the Sierra Leone civil war.- Nonfiction
- Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners 2009, Alex Awards 2008
- ISBN: 9780374105235
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My Friend Dahmer
A high school friend creates a graphic novel memoir based on his association with the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
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My Losing Season
In this powerful memoir, best-selling novelist Conroy explores the profound effect of his final year as a point guard for the Citadel's basketball team, interweaving stories about the years leading up to college, his abusive father, his love-hate relationship with his school, and his growing fondness for books and writing.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2003
- ISBN: 9780553381900
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Needles: A Memoir Of Growing Up With Diabetes
I know about needles. My sister leaves them everywhere. So begins this absorbing memoir of a growing up marked not by illegal drugs but by diabetes. In graceful yet unsparing prose, Dominick recalls the exacting routines, the doctors, the hospitals, and the struggle for normalcy that shaped her older sister's life and later ruled her own. Although a candid record of the ravages of illness on family and self, Dominick's story is also an inspirational account of hope and courage. A paperback will be available next spring.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1999
- ISBN: 9780684856544
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Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
Can you really survive on minimum wage? To find out, Ehrenreich left her middle-class life for a year to see what life is really like for America's working poor.- Nonfiction
- Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners 2014, Alex Awards 2002
- ISBN: 9780805063899
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One Shot at Forever
This remarkable story follows the Macon Ironmen, a team of misfits with a hippie coach, through a recordsetting baseball season.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2013
- ISBN: 9781401324384
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The Oxford Project
In this riveting sociological study, the residents of Oxford, Iowa were photographed in 1984 and then again in 2005. Their compelling life stories, vividly expressed in brief biographical sketches, show just how much someone can change in 21 years.- Nonfiction
- Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners 2014, Alex Awards 2009
- ISBN: 9781599620480
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The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men against the Sea
In 1991, as Halloween nears, a cold front moves south from Canada, a hurricane swirls over Bermuda, and an intense storm builds over the Great Lakes. These forces converge to create the cruelest holiday trick of all, a 100-year tempest that catches the North Atlantic fishing fleet off guard and unprotected. Readers weigh anchor with sailors struggling against the elements; they follow meteorologists, who watch helplessly as the storm builds; and, by helicopter and boat, they navigate 100-foot seas and 120-mph winds to attempt rescue against harrowing odds.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1998
- ISBN: 9780393337013
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Persepolis
In graphic novel format, the author describes her youth in revolutionary Iran. From the overthrow of the Shah to the establishment of the new regime, she witnesses heartbreak and struggle as life changes in her country.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2004
- ISBN: 9780375422300
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Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
Sullivan spent a year observing the lives and deaths of New York City's rats in this surprising, graphic, and entertaining natural history.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2005
- ISBN: 9781582344775
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Relish: My Life in the Kitchen
Knisley's life has revolved around food in all its manifestations. This graphic memoir is perfect for those who live to eat or those who simply eat to live. -
The Secret Family: Twenty-four Hours inside the Mysterious Worlds of Our Minds and Bodies
With surprises and information on every page, Bodanis' book peels back the layers of our minds and bodies to reveal a churning world of tiny, invisible components, living and inanimate, in ourselves and in our surroundings, that silently and secretly affect us. By following the activities of a family—mom, dad, baby, young son, and teenage daughter—through a typical day, from breakfast to bedtime, Bodanis makes readers active partners in a mysterious and fascinating science adventure. If teens are shocked to discover that there's embalming fluid on postage stamps, just wait till they find out what's floating around the local mall.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1998
- ISBN: 9780684810195
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Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur Astronomers Are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe
Differentiating between the nature of stargazing done by professionals in well-equipped observatories and the work of backyard scientists using homemade telescopes, Ferris invites teens to join the scientific community by tracing contributions of amateur astronomers, ranging from Copernicus to Brian May.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2003
- ISBN: 9780684865805
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Soldier: A Poet's Childhood.
Growing up as an African-American in a white world with a father who is harsh one minute and caring the next, means June Jordan's growing up years are difficult but not impossible. Her father's desire for her success makes her strong and able to achieve that success.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2001
- ISBN: 9780465036813
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Space: A Memoir
In a memoir so beautifully and seamlessly written that teens will think it is fiction, Kercheval tells her own story, beginning when, at age 10, she moved with her family to a home in Cocoa Beach, Florida, in view of Cape Kennedy. Set against the promise implicit in the launching of Apollo, her touching recollection of her youth and teenage years--her strange, unhappy parents, her difficulties fitting into a new school, and her first love--speaks to universal concerns about growing up and resurrects a pivotal episode of American history and culture for a new generation.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1999
- ISBN: 9781565121461
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Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
A look inside the world of forensics examines the use of human cadavers in a wide range of endeavors, including research into new surgical procedures, space exploration, and a Tennessee human decay research facility- Nonfiction
- Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners 2009, Alex Awards 2004
- ISBN: 9780393050936
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Stitches: A Memoir
David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 2010
- ISBN: 9780393068573
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Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America
Carroll captures the voices of the next generation of African American women in this collection of interviews. Teenagers will hear themselves plainly and powerfully echoed in the honest, unfiltered words of fifteen young black women, who range in age from eleven to twenty. From a variety of backgrounds and in very different ways, they speak candidly about their personal lives, their race, their gender, and their future as black women. A paperback format and a winning cover adds to the YA appeal.- Nonfiction
- Alex Awards 1998
- ISBN: 9780517884973