Inspiring Biographies

Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard is a memoir that opens with an adolescent, Liz Murray, who is homeless. She describes a picture of her mother (her only surviving photograph), and compares her own physical features with her mother’s,then wonders if they were alike in other ways, seeing as how they were both homeless by the age of sixteen. A story about forgiveness and redemption after addiction and... Read Breaking Night Summary

Breaking Through, an autobiography by Francisco Jimenez, is a work of juvenile literature that was published in 2001. The book records the childhood experiences of the author as he struggles to become familiar with American culture, and has been awarded a number of prizes, including The Americas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature and the Pura Belpre Honor Award.The story commences with a description of the then 4-year-old author, his parents, and his older... Read Breaking Through Summary

Brother I’m Dying is a family memoir by Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat, originally published in the United States in 2007. Alternating between the author’s past in Haiti and present in the US, this memoir combines personal histories with sociopolitical contextualization to pay homage to Danticat’s father and uncle as well as give voice to Haitian people in their struggle for a peaceful life. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was a finalist... Read Brother, I'm Dying Summary

Brown Girl Dreaming (2014) is a memoir in verse by Jacqueline Woodson, a children’s and young adult fiction writer. Published by Nancy Paulsen Books, a division of the Penguin Group, the memoir won the National Book Award, the Newberry Honor Book Award, and the Coretta Scott King Award.Plot SummaryBrown Girl Dreaming covers Woodson’s childhood, detailing her family history and her beginnings as a writer. Woodson was born in Columbus, Ohio, on February 12, 1963, the... Read Brown Girl Dreaming Summary

Bruchko is a 1978 memoir by American author Bruce Olson about his time working as a Christian missionary in Venezuela and Colombia with an Indigenous tribe, the Barí. Olson depicts his missionary work as based on a divine mission that followed a spiritual experience he had as a youth. At 19, he moved from the United States to South America, where he went to the jungles in the Colombian-Venezuelan border to convert the infamously violent... Read Bruchko Summary

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Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work, written by Dave Isay with Maya Millett and published in 2016, is a collection of brief, first-person narratives about the value and meaning of work. These stories were collected through the oral history project of StoryCorps, a nonprofit organization that records, archives, and shares stories of life in America. StoryCorps and its founder and president, Dave Isay, have received many grants and awards for the organization’s work, including... Read Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work Summary

Call Me American is a memoir written by Somali author Abdi Nor Iftin, co-authored with Max Alexander and published in 2018. It documents Iftin’s escape from a war-town Somali, buoyed by his love of American culture.Plot SummaryAbdi Nor Iftin is born in Somalia “probably in 1985” (7). Both of his parents are nomadic farmers who move to the city of Mogadishu during a drought in the 1970s. The residents of Mogadishu look down on the... Read Call Me American Summary

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Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake is a nonfiction book written from the perspective of Frank Abagnale, a famous conartist and check-forger. Though styled as an autobiography, the book was co-written by Abagnale and author Stan Redding. Originally published in 1980, Catch Me If You Can was popularized by a 2002 film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The book also inspired a Broadway musical of the... Read Catch Me If You Can Summary

Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam is a 1999 nonfiction book by Andrew X. Pham. Pham’s other books include The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars and The Theory of Flight. He is a recipient of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Award, the Whiting Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.Plot SummaryPham, an American citizen, decides to take a cycling trip to Vietnam in a search for identity. It... Read Catfish And Mandala Summary

Celia, A Slave is Melton A. McLaurin’s book-length analysis of the trial and execution of Celia, a slave in Callaway County, Missouri who kills her master and burns his body in her fireplace.  McLaurin, a historian, argues that Celia’s case offers us important insights into how together, gender and racial oppression render enslaved women completely powerless to protect themselves from sexual exploitation, and how the moral ambiguity caused by slavery is often reconciled in the... Read Celia, A Slave Summary

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Chasing Lincoln’s Killer is a YA novel adapted from the adult version, Manhunt, both by James L. Swanson. Manhunt is a meticulously researched nonfiction novel describing the hunt for John Wilkes Booth, and includes previously unpopularized transcripts, archives, and interviews. Published by Scholastic in 2009, Chasing Lincoln’s Killer makes these rare historical finds digestible for younger audiences and provides a rapid-fire, abridged version of the narrative of the pursuit of John Wilkes Booth.Those who only... Read Chasing Lincoln's Killer Summary

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Chinese Cinderella: The Secret Story of an Unwanted Daughter (1999) is the autobiography of Adeline Yen Mah and covers her experience growing up in an abusive household during a politically tumultuous era in Chinese history (1937-1952). Yen Mah, who now lives in the United States, made the decision to fulfill her childhood dreams of writing professionally after practicing medicine for several decades according to her father’s wishes. Chinese Cinderella is an abridged version of her... Read Chinese Cinderella Summary

Miné Okubo’s Citizen 13660 is a graphic memoir about the Japanese American author’s experience in Japanese internment camps during World War II. First published in 1946, Citizen 13660 is told from Okubo’s first-person narrator experience, although the author draws herself in third-person in nearly every scene.Plot OverviewAfter Okubo’s mother’s passing, she lived with her brother in Berkeley, California until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. In response, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive... Read Citizen 13660 Summary

Henry David Thoreau’s “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” more commonly known as “Civil Disobedience,” originated as a Concord Lyceum lecture given in January 1848 as the Mexican-American War was winding down. The essay and its central thesis—that following one’s conscience trumps the need to follow the law—have profoundly impacted global history, political philosophy, and American thought, notably influencing both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.The text was originally published in an 1849 essay... Read Civil Disobedience Summary