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Best Children's United States Biographies

The Bell Jar (FF Classics)
I was supposed to be having the time of my life. The Bell Jar tells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in the early 1950s.
Reviews
"Was an enlightening read with interesting insight into mental illness and depression."
"An amazing book."
"Can be a tough read to keep up with the transitions from memory to memory but absolutely worth it!"
"Was a good book."
"Every girl and woman should read this book after they turn 15 or so... obviously it's a classic."
"It makes sense that Sylvia Plath's writing is so beautiful, given that she's a poet."
"Very good to see a young adult in the grips of mental health issues."
"I would recommend this book."
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A Christmas Memory
The classic story of Truman Capote's childhood Christmas ritual is more endearing than ever in this newly redesigned package. Gathering the pecans from those left behind in the harvest, buying illegally made whiskey for soaking the cakes, getting a little tipsy on the leftovers, cutting their own tree, and decorating it with homemade ornaments are some of the adventures the two share. Her use of lighter shades, tawny colors, and fine lines plus a background wash which suggests rather than delineates detail is perfect for this holiday memory of Christmas celebrated in rural Alabama in the early 1930s.
Reviews
"It is based partly on a true story about a sweet woman who had no children of her own, but loved a child like he was her own and a sweet child who loved this woman like a mom because his real mom was not around."
"An excellent story by Capote."
"my mother;s favorite story."
"When our book club suggested this for our December book, I wasn't sure what to expect."
"It evokes the unique perspective of childhood on a time you didn’t know was going to end so unceremoniously."
"A Christmas Memory is my favorite Christmas story, and I like to give it as a present to at least one person every Christmas."
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All-of-a-Kind Family
Together they share adventures that find them searching for hidden buttons while dusting Mama's front parlor and visiting with the peddlers in Papa's shop on rainy days. There's something to be said for a book that makes you wish you'd been part of a poor immigrant family living in New York's upper east side on the eve of World War I. Sydney Taylor's time-honored classic does just that. (Ages 9 to 12) Gr 3-6-Five young sisters experience life in New York's Lower East Side at the beginning of the 20th century in this reading of Sydney Taylor's story (Follett, 1951). This excellent audiobook will find an eager audience in schools and public libraries which need materials reflecting the Jewish culture or serve children who enjoy family stories such as Little Women and Little House on the Prairie.-Paula L. Setser, Deep Springs Elementary School, Lexington, KY.
Reviews
"I always remembered the stories, about a warm loving Jewish family, old ways, simplicity."
"I loved these as a child and am now having my son read them aloud to me."
"This story is wonderful!"
"My thoughts on this book are that they are very adventurous, and the whole family tries to make the best of everything."
"I bought it for my granddaughter, It is one of those books I loved as a child and I was happy to see it is still around for me to share with my grandaughter."
"As an adult, I can still see the fascination I had then - a big family of very moderate means who makes it through tough times by relying on their love."
"I loved this book as a kid, and have also enjoyed it several times as an adult."
"My 8yr old daughter and I are reading this series because she wanted a book that shared our values."
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Best Children's Fictional Biographies

Yellow Star
Of those who survived, only twelve were children. This is the true story of Syvia Perlmutter—a story of courage, heartbreak, and finally survival despite the terrible circumstances in which she grew up. Grade 5-9–In thoughtful, vividly descriptive, almost poetic prose, Roy retells the true story of her Aunt Syvia's experiences in the Lodz Ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland. The slightly fictionalized story, re-created from her aunt's taped narrative, is related by Syvia herself as a series of titled vignettes that cover the period from fall, 1939, when she is four years old, until January 1945–each one recounting a particular detail-filled memory in the child's life (a happy-colored yellow star sewn on her favorite orange coat; a hole in the cemetery where she hides overnight with her Papa). This gripping and very readable narrative, filled with the astute observations of a young child, brings to life the Jewish ghetto experience in a unique and memorable way. She was afraid of it; when she was growing up, there was no Holocaust curriculum, no discussion-just those images of atrocity, piles of bones, and skeletal survivors being liberated. Syvia remembers daily life: yellow stars, illness, starvation, freezing cold, and brutal abuse, with puddles of red blood everywhere, and the terrifying arbitrariness of events ("like the story of a boy / who went out for bread / and was shot by a guard / who didn't like the way the boy / looked at him"). In 1944 the ghetto is emptied, except for a few Jews kept back to clean up, including Syvia's father, who keeps his family with him through courage, cunning, and luck.
Reviews
"i feel the author made a good decision by telling the story in first person."
"This account of life in the Lodz Ghetto so poignantly brings into focus the fears, doubts, hunger and sheer boredom of these years in the vivid voice of a child."
"It's the story of a child who was enclosed in the Lodz ghetto at age four and survives to be one of twelve children to survive when relief finally comes."
"First person true story of one young girls memories, and life during WW2, as a Jewish child."
"It can be read by an 8 year old or an 80 year old and I think will produce in either an understanding of the power of "need" in an incomprehensible situation."
"A touching recount of Hitlers evil reign."
"To think that only 12 children from the Lodz Ghetto survived the war speaks volumes as to the cruelty of the Nazi's and the determination of the families and other survivors to keep them alive."
"Loved the way it is written, sent to another friend to read."
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Best Teen & Young Adult United States Biographical Fiction

A Lantern in Her Hand (Puffin Classics)
The classic story of Abbie and Will Deal—pioneers who left everything behind for a new life on America’s frontier. Aldrich’s pioneer woman was based on her mother, and the integrity of her depiction of life in a sod house in the late nineteeth-century Nebraska speaks to her readers. In her own introduction Aldrich writes of wanting to tell her mother’s story after her mother’s death: ‘Other writers had depicted the Midwest’s early days, but so often they had pictured their women as gaunt, browbeaten creatures, despairing women whom life seemed to defeat.
Reviews
"You that are not familiar with the Pioneers that came to Nebraska early on will enjoy and be amazed at all they went through during those early years."
"Told by a woman who was willing to follow her husband from the comfort of civilization to the unknown and isolated life in the Great Plains of Nebraska in the 1800s."
"Unfortunately, the formatting puts only a few words on each line which makes it hard to read smoothly and leads to a lot of page turning!"
"I wanted to read it again as part of a reading challenge."
"I first read this book in High School and loved it...I also read other books by this Author because I enjoyed the simplicity with which she wrote."
"A story that any woman who has gone through some "life" will relate in many ways."
"This lovely story is like an operetta defining life on an unsettled prairie."
"A nice story about a pioneer family and the beginnings of Nebraska as a state and the perils that they all endured."
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Best Children's European Biographies

The Boy Who Dared
A Newbery Honor Book author has written a powerful and gripping novel about a youth in Nazi Germany who tells the truth about Hitler. Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newbery Honor Book, HITLER YOUTH, and fleshed it out into thought-provoking novel. Grade 6–9—In the newly formed Third Reich, Hitler's initial political doctrine is filled with hopeful solutions for a country plagued with unemployment, poverty, and a post-World War I feeling of defeat. Beaten and tortured to name his friends, he remembers how he started off an ardent Nazi follower and then began to question his patriotism, secretly listened to BBC radio broadcasts, and finally dared to write and distribute pamphlets calling for resistance. The teen’s perspective makes this a particularly gripping way to personalize the history, and even those unfamiliar with the background Bartoletti weaves in–the German bitterness after World War I, the burning of the books, the raging anti-Semitism––will be enthralled by the story of one boy’s heroic resistance in the worst of times. A lengthy author’s note distinguishes fact from fiction, and Bartoletti provides a detailed chronology, a bibliography, and many black-and-white photos of Helmuth with friends, family, and members of his Mormon church.
Reviews
"My son used it for a book report and it kept him interested."
"This book was requested by my son's teacher for a group reading and discussion."
"Based on real events, this was a very good story based during the world war times."
"We knew one of the guys involved personally; he just died a few years ago, so got this book."
"My daughter said it started out slow but after the first chapter she got really into it."
"Bought the book as required reading for my son, but I ended up reading it myself."
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