Biography Girls

Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author Malala Yousafzai introduces some of the people behind the statistics and news stories we read or hear every day about the millions of people displaced worldwide.

Growing up Amish and leaving the fold, Emma Gingerich left her Amish community in Eagleville, Missouri, at the age of 18. Her memoir Runaway Amish Girl: The Great Escape captivates even the timid listener. Disagreeing with the beliefs of Amish traditions and upbringing, the pressure became too much for her to bear. Forced to make a personal decision, Emma found the courage to leave the only life she had ever known. She had no idea the emotional turmoil she'd inflict on her family and friends.

A Young Girl's Diary is the real diary of a teenage girl that begins on Anne’s 13th birthday (12 June 1942) when she gets a diary. It tells the story of her family who live in Frankfurt, Germany and suddenly have to go into hiding as a result of Hitler and the Nazi Party’s treatment of Jews in Europe during the second world war. They escape to Amsterdam where they go into hiding with other Jews. The diary ends suddenly on 1 August 1944.

Tiffany Barnes is a young girl who grows up in a small town outside Salt Lake City, where behind closed doors, she lives in an abusive home. After her parents divorce, Tiffany is abused by her stepfather and a family friend. When she speaks up about what happened, she is not validated or supported. A bouncing period begins, and Tiffany moves multiple times, trying to find safety, but is unable to gain consistency. At age 15, she makes the decision to be emancipated, and this begins a new stage in her life where she's forced to make adult decisions in order to survive.

Captured in the 1930s before the words psychopath and pedophile were part of common vernacular, notorious serial killer Arnold Sodeman murdered four young girls with little thought of remorse. Without guilt, the evil serial killer strangled them to death with their own clothing and left their small bodies alone in the Australian brush, earning himself a chilling position in the annals of Australian crime.

In the Shadow of Enlightenment is the gripping story of Carroll’s childhood inside the Osho Rajneesh cult—one of the most controversial spiritual movements of the 20th century. While in the commune, Sarito was submerged in a world where devotion and freedom clashed with manipulation, sexual misconduct, and neglect. This was the life she knew until the movement collapsed amid scandal and criminal charges in 1985, when sixteen-year-old Sarito was thrust into a society she knew little about.

Stacy Pershall grew up as an overly intelligent, depressed, deeply strange girl in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, population 1,000. From her days as a 13-year-old Jesus freak through her eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, this spirited memoir chronicles Pershall's journey through hell and her struggle with the mental health care system.

Three Summers is the story of five young cousins who grow closer than sisters as ethnic tensions escalate over three summers in 1980s Bosnia. They navigate the joys and pitfalls of adolescence on their family’s little island in the middle of the Una River. When finally confronted with the harsh truths of the adult world around them, their bond gives them the resilience to discover and hold fast to their true selves.

Featuring 18 trailblazing Black women in American history, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of breaking boundaries and achieving beyond expectations. Among these biographies, listeners will find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come.

When he turned 13 in 1980, Rob Sheffield had a lot to learn about women, love, music and himself, and in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran we get a glimpse into his transformation from pasty, geeky "hermit boy" into a young man with his first girlfriend, his first apartment, and a sense of the world.

A través de testimonios escalofriantes y conmovedores, las autoras de este libro ofrecen explicaciones contundentes para entender por qué nuestros niños y niñas se vuelven criminales ante la indiferencia social, corrupción policiaca y la intolerancia del gobierno. Más aún se detalla la incompetencia de las autoridades, los vacíos legales y la incapacidad de las instituciones para ofrecer a estos adolescentes opciones para alejarse del delito, la drogadicción, las relaciones violentas o evitar la puerte por defender -o estar en contra- algún cártel.

The story is set in the American West and follows the life of a young Native American girl named Running Eagle. Running Eagle is a fierce and determined warrior who is determined to prove herself to her tribe and become a respected member of her community. She faces many challenges along the way, including the disapproval of her father and the prejudice of those who underestimate her because of her gender. As Running Eagle grows and matures, she becomes a symbol of strength and resilience for her people.

Sexual abuse, human trafficking, drug addiction, rape, prison, and domestic violence - Barbara Amaya experienced it all on first on the streets of Washington D.C., and then New York City, most of it before her 16th birthday. In Nobody's Girl she shares her journey from trafficking victim to human rights advocate, weaving together a story of loss, pain, courage, and transformation.

With Really Bad Girls of the Bible, Liz reveals the power of God's sovereignty in the lives of shady ladies we know by reputation but have rarely studied in depth: Bathsheba, the bathing beauty. Jael, the tent-peg-toting warrior princess. Herodias, the horrible beheader.

Dave Kindred has covered dozens of Super Bowls and written about stars like Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan. But a high-school girls basketball team—the Lady Potters of Morton, Illinois—stands apart from the rest.

When Temple Grandin was born, her parents knew that she was different. It wasn’t until years later that she was diagnosed with autism, a brain disorder that makes communication difficult. Today, Dr. Temple Grandin is a scientist and professor of animal science at Colorado State University. Her career has revolutionized the livestock industry - each year, half the cattle in the United States are handled in cruelty-free facilities she designed. She is also a passionate advocate for autism, using her experience to prove that people with this disorder can have “normal” lives.

The prize-winning memoir of one of the world's great writers, about coming of age and finding her voice amid the hardships of Stalinist Russia. Born across the street from the Kremlin in the opulent Metropol Hotel - the setting of the New York Times best-selling novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles - Ludmilla Petrushevskaya grew up in a family of Bolshevik intellectuals who were reduced in the wake of the Russian Revolution to waiting in bread lines.

From helping others in times of need, to keeping and maintaining friendships, to having a positive attitude, Laura's words of wisdom in Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues are applicable even in today's world. As she shares stories and experiences from her own life, she encourages listeners to live lives of integrity and to realize their dreams.

"Victoria" grew up in Pakistan as a Christian. As a minority in a Muslim country, she was called "paleed", "despicable", by the other children. Twice she almost died for her faith. But this is not a story of anger and hate, but love and forgiveness. How could a person who experienced persecution come to forgive and love her persecutors? God is able to use the most unpretentious, unassuming human being to make his love known. "Victoria" is proof of that. There is a Study Guide for The Despicable Missionary, a six session guide focused on forgiving when forgiveness is hard.

In the waning years of the 19th century, women journalists across the United States risked reputation and their own safety to expose the hazardous conditions under which many Americans lived and worked. Inventive writers whose in-depth narratives made headlines for weeks at a stretch, these “girl stunt reporters” changed laws, helped launch a labor movement, championed women’s rights, and redefined journalism for the modern age.