Literary Biography

Comic Lorna Landvik gives Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon a feminine perspective with her story about Patty Jane and Harriet Dobbin, two wacky Minnesota sisters. Before she can say "annulment," Patty Jane's husband has gone and a baby is on the way, leaving Patty to rely on sister Harriet and the House of Curl, a beauty shop which evolves into a support group and community workshop over three tumultuous decades.

Newbery Medalist Paul Fleischman reflects on his childhood with his award-winning father, Sid Fleischman, and details his own path to becoming a writer in this memorable audiobook that is part memoir, part travelogue, and part reflection on craft and creativity. Acclaimed author Paul Fleischman considers how growing up with a father who was an award-winning author helped to shape and inspire his own career. Paul and Sid Fleischman are the only father-son Newbery Medalists in history, and life in the Fleischman home was extraordinary.

With the signature wit and humor that has garnered him legions of fans, Gantos instructs young writers on using their "writing radar" to find story ideas in their own lives. Incorporating his own misadventures as a developing writer, Gantos inspires listeners to build confidence and establish good writing habits as they create and revise their stories. More than just a how-to guide, Writing Radar is a celebration of the power of storytelling and an ode to the characters who - many unwittingly - inspired Gantos' own writing career.

Today, most people remember E. B. White as the beloved children's book author who gave us Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, but did you know that most of his career was spent writing for famous magazines like The New Yorker? His lifelong dream to write a children's book about a mouse would take years to get published before it became the classic book we know and love today. A few years later, White would publish yet another children's book inspired by a pig he had raised and a spider whose webs he loved to admire in his barn.

Acclaimed novelist Ibi Zoboi illuminates the young life of the visionary storyteller Octavia E. Butler in poems and prose. Born into the Space Race, the Red Scare, and the dawning Civil Rights Movement, Butler experienced an American childhood that shaped her into the groundbreaking science-fiction storyteller whose novels continue to challenge and delight audiences 15 years after her death.

Travel back in time to the 1920s and 1930s to the sounds of jazz in nightclubs and the 24-hours-a-day bustle of the famous Black neighborhood of Harlem in uptown Manhattan. It was a dazzling time when there was an outpouring of the arts of African Americans - the poetry of Langston Hughes; the novels of Zora Neale Hurston; the sculptures of Augusta Savage; and that brand-new music called jazz as only Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong could play it.

Mark Twain relates how he broke the news when he was still unknown. He was in Honolulu when the survivors from the harrowing open sea voyage of the clipper-ship Hornet arrive. He stayed up late to get the accounts of the sailors’ trials, writes through the night and relays a detailed account when the other reporters only had an outline report.

Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth. So begins Sid Fleischman's ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens.

Sarah Brenner was always one of a kind, even with four sisters who dressed just like her. Growing up in an immigrant family on New York City’s impoverished Lower East Side, Sarah’s life was full of things that weren’t fair. It wasn’t fair that her parents had to leave Europe because of their religion. It wasn’t fair they worked hard all day and the family barely had enough to eat. It wasn’t fair how girls were treated in her school. When she grew up, Sarah gave herself a modern name, Sydney, just right for a woman who was going to forge her own path and continue to fight for a fairer world.

From imaginative child to visionary storyteller, Toni Morrison was a fiercely inspiring writer that helped change the world. This poetic book is part love letter and part biography, praising the power of this Nobel Prize winner. With its tender refrain, readers will know how much Morrison's stories -- and their own -- mean to the world. She was loved -- and so are they!

مجموعة من قصص الفيديو بجودة عالية وأسلوب ممتع، يتعرف من خلالها الأطفال على شخصية مشهورة تركت أثرها في التاريخ الإنساني، والظروف التي عاشتها وأثرت في نبوغها وعبقريتها، بالإضافة إلى أهم إنجازاتها وابتكاراتها والجوائز العلمية التي حصلت عليها، وأي مجالات أخرى برعت فيها بعيداً عن مجالها الأساسي.

A Father and Son's Journey is about love and understanding, for each other and the people around them. Malhar Ramcharran and Dr. Ram Ramcharran decided to write these short life lessons as a way to help share similar experiences they had while growing up.

Tomie invites listeners to share in his childhood memories as he prays for his brand-new baby sister to get over pneumonia and finally learns to read.

"Over the last few years I've started writing a number of stories that, for various reasons, I never finished writing..." So begins Special Problems, the comic tale of Christie Hodges, a writer who can't seem to finish a story. The problem isn't that Hodges has nothing to write about - there's her recent divorce, her paralyzed foot, trouble with her daughter and job - it's that once she starts writing, she can't stop. One problem leads to another, and another.

Dramatic, lyrical, and beautiful, O Captain, My Captain tells the story of one of America’s greatest poets and how he was inspired by one of America’s greatest presidents.

Walt Whitman was a printer, journalist, editor, and schoolteacher. But today, he's recognized as one of America's founding poets, a man who changed American literature forever. Who Was Walt Whitman? follows his remarkable journey from a young New York printer to one of America's most beloved literary figures.

Comment Jean-Baptiste Poquelin est-il devenu le grand Molière ? Passionné depuis son plus jeune âge par le théâtre, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin abandonne les perspectives d'une vie confortable pour devenir acteur et fonder sa troupe de théâtre. Comédien unique, auteur satirique, Molière critique de manière féroce la société de son époque, s'attirant la haine et la jalousie de nombreuses personnes. Ses pièces aujourd'hui ne cessent de faire rire et d'éblouir le public.

All his life, William Stanley searched for a wild place of his own. Growing up in the straightened-out city blocks of his childhood and finding some respite in summer trips to a cabin in the woods, he yearned for space, fragrant soil, tall trees, and the silence that surrounds them. In Hawaii, he learned of acres of land depleted from toxic agricultural practices, and he became determined to restore that land and create one of the most comprehensive palm gardens in the world.

En una hacienda a la falda de los volcanes, Juana Inés vive con su entrañable abuelo, su madre y su querida hermana Josefa, rodeada de libros y siempre acompañada por su perro xoloitzcuintle. Pronto Juana Inés se enamora del maravilloso mundo que se esconde detrás de las letras y, al pie de la pintura de la virreina, escribe los más hermosos poemas. Descubre cómo fue la niñez de sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, ¡la poeta más destacada que dejó Nueva España!

Charles was stuck putting labels on bottles! He kept dreaming of going back to school. Everyone told him to forget his dreams. But instead of letting go of his dreams, Charles held on to them and turned his dreams into something that changed the world.