Childhood Biography

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history. Contents: Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote the Brandenburg Concertos; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the child genius; Giuseppe Verdi, who wrote the operas Aida and La Traviata; Johann Strauss, 'The Waltz King'; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who wrote the ballet Swan Lake; Irving Berlin, who wrote There's No Business Like Show Business.

The driving force to tell my story came to me as my counselor proclaimed, beaming from ear to ear like a proud parent, that I had “done it!” Instead of feeling pleased about my accomplishment, I was angry. For 24 years, I had been deceived; I had bought into the lie that I could not face the past. But as I stood on the other side looking back on what seemed like the Valley of Death, I saw nothing but a smokescreen and a heroic image of myself. For me, the journey took years, and the sorrow melted away slowly.

For Kim Woodburn, finding fame in her 60s in the smash-hit television series How Clean is Your House? with fellow dust-buster Aggie Mackenzie is like living a fairytale. Often, however, she has simply wished that she had never been born, for Kim has overcome horrific emotional and physical abuse, both at the hands of her alcoholic mother and her philandering, abusive father.

One of the best-loved men in Britain, Alan Titchmarsh brilliantly recalls his childhood in 1950s Yorkshire. Alan Titchmarsh grew up and developed his passion for nature in the wild and beautiful landscape of Yorkshire. A real treat for his millions of fans, the ever-popular presenter vividly depicts a childhood of simple pleasures like climbing trees and fishing in streams in a time of post-war austerity.

Among Schoolchildren illuminates a year in the life of a fifth-grade teacher struggling to make a positive difference in the lives of her students. In Holyoke, Massachuetts, Christine Zajac toils far from the limelight. Her story, and that of her students is heart-warming and inspiring as she helps them to become full-scale human beings. We find that some are brilliant, that others are troubled, and that Ms. Zajac never gives up.

Boy es una compilación de relatos de la infancia del propio Roald Dahl, el gran autor de literatura infantil. En este libro, momentos familiares maravillosos de la infancia de Roald Dahl se mezclan con otros más amargos, y aventuras llenas de peligro siguen a otras desternillantes. La pérdida de su padre y su hermana, el gran complot de los ratones, las vacaciones en una remota isla, los castigos en el colegio y el paseo que casi le cuesta la nariz..., son solo algunos ejemplos de los inolvidables episodios que contiene este libro lleno de aventuras.

Adopted at six months old by Dubliners Sean and Helen Gallagher, PJ spent much of his childhood knocking back Lucozade with the local alcoholics in his parents' northside pub. But the chaos that reigned for his first ten years was nothing compared to what happened when - having lost the pub - Helen took in psychiatric patients from the local hospital to give them 'care in the community'. Now it was a household of ten - PJ, his sister, his parents and six lost souls. Worst. Idea. Ever. Madhouse is PJ's riotous life story.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history. Contents: Galileo who wanted to show that the earth went around the sun; René Descartes, the Frenchman who famously said 'I think, therefore I am.' ; Sir Isaac Newton who proved how gravity works; Carl Friedrich Gauss, 'the Prince of Mathematicians'; Charles Babbage who invented computers; Ada Lovelace who wrote the first computer program.

This is no ordinary celebrity biography pieced together by an outsider. Steve Martin and author Morris Walker had a close relationship growing up. They were class clowns together, charming the girls and the teachers with their wit, and eventually going on the road as comedians. This personal account will introduce you to the Steve Martin you've never seen before.

Of Kenya's largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu, Ngugi wa Thiongo was born in 1938 in the backlands of his country (Kiambu district) to a father whose four wives bore him two dozen or so children. Ngugi was the fifth child of the third wife. His father was a peasant farmer forced to become a squatter after the British Imperial Act of 1915. Before going off to school, he had what was then considered a bizarre and inexplicable thirst for learning....

I think there is real hope to be found, in the middle of our deepest traumas, in the good news about Jesus Christ. I also think that there is a place for us to find hope and community within the church. Because of these two beliefs, I truly think, distant though it may be, that we may even get to a place of peace within our souls and a place of forgiveness for those who hurt us so much.

Celebrated journalist Lauren St. John "bears witness to a remarkable story" ( Publishers Weekly) in this striking memoir of her African childhood. In the 1970s St. John lived on a Rhodesian farm that should have been paradise. But the specter of war hung over the land, filling every day with peril and uncertainty.

Tendöl Namling turned 60 in March 2019. She was born at the time when the Dalai Lama fled from Lhasa and the uprising of his people by the Chinese People's Army was brutally suppressed. She has lived for 22 years under Chinese rule. As the daughter of a high government official, she underwent the ordeal of "re-education" with full force. All she has kept from these years are painful memories and some crumpled photographs. They show her with her friends and cousins in Lhasa, smiling as if nothing had happened.

Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

My story starts the day that my parents told me we must leave our adopted home forever. Because of the soldiers and the drought we barely had enough to eat and we could no longer stay to help the people in our village.

Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of Les Misérables? To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows such as Rent and Spring Awakening before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders.

In 1975, seven-year-old Doina Cornell left England with her father Jimmy Cornell, mother and brother to spend the next six years sailing around the world on a small yacht. The author has drawn on her memories, diaries and stories, to re-create the perfect life led by a sailing child: swimming, diving and playing the days away in deserted anchorages; visiting some of the most beautiful islands in the world; falling in love with the sea in all its ever-changing moods, from balmy trade wind ocean passages to the treacherous breakers that crash onto tropical reefs.

A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard’s poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s.

Michaela DePrince was born in Sierra Leone and grew up in the United States. She rose to fame as a ballet dancer in the late 2000s. Learn more about DePrince's life as a famous ballerina!

When Jill Sitnick sat on her therapist’s couch trying to stop the panic attack that had lasted for months, she didn’t know she would eventually heal her deeply embedded childhood trauma with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. In Rescuing Jill, Jill shows you why it took a year, and multiple journeys, to fully heal. By describing how MDMA let her view her father’s beatings and mother’s suicide attempts from her adult perspective, she gives you a front-row seat into how psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy healed her trauma and transformed her life.