Biography For Boys

Reuben woke up with a start. His sleepy eyes probed the quiet, dark bedroom; then he heard the eerie noise again. Though he had no idea what it could be, he did know one thing for sure: He NEVER wanted to meet whatever could make that chilling sound. Mystery and adventure abound on this Amish Holmes County, Ohio farm. Join young Reuben as he discovers the source of the noise in the night, tries to track down the phantom of the forest, and goes on his first deer hunt.

Not the Boy for You is the story of a life deferred but not denied. In this deeply personal literary memoir, Angelo Robinson chronicles his journey to wholeness as a young Black gay man in America. Not the Boy for You is a voyage through imagination and secrecy to create a world free to accept, embrace, and love all of oneself, freed from the face of familial loyalty, societal mandates, gendered constructions, sexual boundaries, and Christian taboos.

The future leader of Singapore spent his growing up years doing what other children did in the 1920s. Harry liked to play with spinning tops, marbles, kites—and even fighting fish! While he was a little mischievous as a child, Harry worked hard in school to achieve academic success, eventually winning scholarships to attend the prestigious Raffles College.

When they fell in love in 1928, Rika and Waldemar could have not been more different. She was a thirty-seven-year-old Dutch-born mother, estranged from her husband. He was her immigrant boarder, not yet twenty, and a wealthy Surinamese descendant of slaves. The child they have together, brown skinned and blue eyed, brings the couple great joy yet raises some eyebrows. Until the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands explodes their promising life. What unfolds is more than the astonishing story of a love that prevailed over convention. It’s also the quest of a young boy.

This fast-paced, high-energy collection of short works features today's most popular writers and illustrators on what it means to be a guy. Contributors include Chris Crutcher, Stephen King, Matt Groening, Daniel Pinkwater, Neil Gaiman, and many more.

The author's young adulthood basically amounts to a how-to primer for addiction. Paranoia and impulsiveness, obsession, and manipulation. Throw in compulsion, false pride, fear and dishonesty, all driven by self-centered thinking. The gateway behavior for all the others. Blessed with a good memory, almost granular for certain events and circumstances, Mike Matson turns his journalist's eye on his own past and the result is an honest, unflinching look at his decades-long struggle with addiction.

Born into the slums of Glasgow in the late '70s, a 4-year-old John's life is filled with the debris of alcoholism and poverty. Soon after witnessing a drowning, his mother's addictions take over their lives, leaving him starving in their flat, awaiting her return. A concerned neighbor reports her, and he is forcibly taken away from his mother and placed into the care system. There, he dreams of being reunited with her.

Set against the backdrop of life-changing events such as the Calgary Winter Olympics and the heartbreaking loss of a close friend, the author's story dives deep into the moments that forever changed his thinking and reshaped his life. Witness the evolution of a unique soul, as Ringness navigates his way through adolescence, same-sex relationships, and the complexities of newfound faith. With heartwarming anecdotes and astonishing honesty, this authentic story will both intrigue and inspire listeners to consider a life untethered from societal expectations.

‘Annie’s Boy’ is a coming-of-age story as seen through the eyes of a boy and his mum living in Scotland in the 1970’s and 80’s where fear, violence and struggle was an everyday part of life. It is a story of hope and quiet courage and perseverance that will take you on an emotional roller coaster that spans over fifteen years of their lives and what they did to survive.

Diamond Dust is the memoir of how a young person’s talent ran away with itself, careening off into one unexpected adventure after another. With humor and introspection, it is a story of hubris and redemption, of talent and conscience, of art and absolution—and how life can lead us to second chances—at finding our better selves.

It s Belfast, 1977. The King is dead and a 14-year-old boy wearing Denim aftershave has just been appointed breadboy in the last Ormo Mini-Shop in the world, delivering bread to the residents of the Upper Shankill on Saturday mornings. He s all grown up now, so he is, and nearly shaving. The Bee Gees fill the airwaves, everyone is in love with Princess Leia, and Breadboy s love of peace and pets is soon rivalled by his interest in parallel universes and punk...and girls, especially Judy Carlton who sits opposite him in chemistry.

In his first book, David Jason told us about himself from his early years training as an electrician through to making it as one of Britain's actors. This autumn, in a follow-up autobiography, he tells us about the many other lives he has lived - his characters. From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost, he takes us behind the scenes and under the skins of some of the best loved acts of his career. And in the process he reflects on how those characters changed his life, too.

As if juggling a life with half-a-dozen kids, including triplets, isn’t enough, Steve Tate receives the life-altering news that one of his triplets, Hayes, has been diagnosed with brain cancer. The once-star collegiate football player finds himself fighting for his son’s life. This memoir takes you through the various challenges he faced raising a family of six kids and balancing a career, all while his son battled the odds. Both Steve and his high-school sweetheart, Savanna, found hope and happiness through the example of their 20-month-old son Hayes.

On Valentine’s Day 1988, twenty-year-old Lynette White was brutally murdered in a dark corner of Cardiff’s world-famous, and infamous, Tiger Bay. Stigmatised by a bad reputation, the area was on the brink of major redevelopment which would change the historic community forever. South Wales Police launched its biggest murder hunt to date, and within weeks detectives released a photofit of a prime suspect seen outside the murder scene, his hands covered in blood. A white man. But as the months passed by and no arrest was made, the police came under inevitable pressure.

Those Boys on the Hill is a biographical coming-of-age story about three inner-city, African American brothers growing up in a group home in a farming community in Pennsylvania. Elliott Glover uses a mix of humor, sadness, and raw situational honesty to share the harrowing experiences that shaped the men he and his brothers Jacque and Iszel have become.

In his unflinchingly honest memoir, Mitchell Raff candidly recounts his journey to overcome generational trauma and break free from decades of addiction. With raw vulnerability, he lays bare his destructive coping mechanisms and the far-reaching consequences they wrought on his life and on those around him.

God is good, all the time. Jim Wilson was born in 1927 and raised in a Depression-era farming family. At the age of 16, at the height of World War II, he became the primary breadwinner for his parents and four younger siblings. At age 17, eager to fight for his country, he enlisted in the Navy. Germany surrendered while he was in the recruiting office, and the war was over by the time he entered boot camp. But God had a plan for Jim Wilson in the US Navy.

D Esperanza was just thirteen years old when he lost his caregivers, his beloved grandmother and uncle. Since both of his parents were working and living in the United States, D was left on his own in a small town in Honduras. He quickly realized he simply could not make enough money to survive so he made the difficult decision to head north with his cousins and hopefully reunite with his parents in el norte. Together, the boys struggled to survive a long and treacherous journey through Central America and Mexico.

Jared Kindred left his home and family at the age of eighteen, choosing to wander across America on freight train cars and live on the street. Addicted to alcohol most of his short life, and withholding the truth from many who loved him, he never found a way to survive. Through this ordeal, Dave Kindred's love for his grandson has never wavered.

Country Editor's Boy picks up where Hal Borland's classic memoir High, Wide and Lonesome left off: with Borland, on the cusp of adulthood in the early twentieth century, making his way in an eastern Colorado town that still retained all the flavors of the Old West. Borland's father, the editor of a local weekly newspaper, was working to help his publication transition along with the town around him. At the same time, young Hal was experiencing dramatic social and economic change in his own way.