Childhood Biography

Pat James is a self-described "honest-to-goodness old first grade teacher, never gets bored or lonely. She loves to laugh, and she gets excited and scared in all of life's changes. She would love to welcome you to her world of small, honest people who learn quickly and are very funny. Your own Monday mornings will be better by hearing her stories and recalling some of your own experiences in your classroom or in your home.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history, including Alessandro Volta, inventor of the battery; Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor; Marie Curie, famous for her work on radioactivity; Albert Einstein, creator of the theory of relativity; Alexander Fleming, discoverer of the first antibiotic; and Linus Pauling, chemist and peace activist.

Child psychiatrist Dr Mike Shooter sheds light on the painful issues and universal experience of growing up, through the stories of his patients and their families. Growing up isn't easy. We can be at our most vulnerable and confused. And the right help isn't always there when we need it most. For over 40 years, psychiatrist Mike Shooter has listened to children and adolescents in crisis, helping them to find their stories and begin to make sense of their lives.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history. Contents: Gaius Julius Caesar, the powerful Roman leader; Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled England for 45 years; George Washington, the first president of the USA; King Louis XVI, the last king of France; Winston Churchill, who led Britain in the Second World War; Che Guevara, the Argentinian doctor who fought for revolution.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history. Contents: Edward Jenner, the man who fought the terrible disease smallpox; Florence Nightingale, the nurse known as 'the lady with the lamp'; Elizabeth Garrett, England's first female doctor; Carl Jung, the doctor who wanted to understand the human mind; Jonas Salk, who defeated the dangerous illness polio; Christiaan Barnard, the first man to replace a human heart.

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 inspiring stories of six people who changed history, including Voltaire, the French writer who believed in equality for all; Charlotte Brontë, the British novelist who wrote Jane Eyre; Mark Twain, the American who wrote Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer; Jacques Prévert, the writer known in France as 'the People's Poet'; Ayn Rand, whose writing expressed her own philosophical ideas; and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about life in a Soviet Labour Camp.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history, including Pablo Casals, the Catalan cello player; Louis Armstrong, the American trumpet player and singer; Frank Sinatra, the Italian American singer and actor; Édith Piaf, France's famous singing star; Maria Callas, the Greek opera singer; and Elvis Presley, the man who changed pop music.

The inspiring stories of five people who changed history, including Glenn Miller, the leader of the most famous big band in the USA; Pérez Prado, the Cuban musician who was known as the 'King of Mambo'; Ella Fitzgerald, the most popular female jazz singer in the USA; Luciano Pavarotti, one of the world's best opera singers; and John Lennon, member of the famous band The Beatles.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history. Contents: Alfred Nobel, creator of the Nobel Prize; Andrew Carnegie, the businessman who built libraries for poor people; John D. Rockefeller who made money from oil and gave it all away; Thomas Barnardo who created homes for poor children; Henry Wellcome who used his money for medical research; Madam C. J. Walker who gave her money to the African-American community.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history, including Geoffrey Chaucer, writer of the first great works of English literature; William Shakespeare, writer of the greatest plays in history; Charles Dickens, who wanted to make England a better place; Victor Hugo, the French writer who cared about the poor; Leo Tolstoy, the man who wrote War and Peace; and Rudyard Kipling, who wrote The Jungle Book and won a Nobel Prize.

The inspiring stories of five people who changed history, including Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, who helped humans to fly; Louis Blériot, the first person to cross the sea in an aeroplane; Charles Lindbergh, the first person to cross the Atlantic alone; Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic; and Amy Johnson, the British woman who broke flying records This book is level 2 in the Collins ELT Readers series.

Sally grew up in a dilapidated house by the sea where men were forbidden, her childhood world filled with mystery and intrigue. Hippies trailed through the kitchen looking for God - their leader was Aunt Di, who ruled the house with charismatic force. When Sally’s baby brother vanished from his pram, she became suspicious of the activities going on around her. What happened to Baby David and the woman called Poor Sue? And where did all the people singing and wailing prayers in the front room suddenly go?

When Gail Gallant was five months old, she died. A year later, she was reborn. Or so her mother said. The crash occurred on a July night in 1955. The truck hit the Gallant family's car head-on; a few weeks later, newborn baby Gail died from her injuries. Mad with grief, her mother prayed feverishly for Gail's return, convinced that God would bring her child back to her. And when she gave birth within a year to a baby girl who looked identical to her lost child, she believed her prayers had been answered. She named that newborn baby Gail.

Matchbox Mountain is a collection of stories told by the author about one year in her life in 1952 when she was 10 years old. Living in the mountains of western North Carolina in a house with no electricity, no running water, and no close neighbors, the author shares stories of how she and her siblings made their own world with little but creativity.

An extended train journey frames the action - and the author turns not to self-help manuals but to the fictions that have shaped our emotional and romantic landscape. Listeners will find themselves propelled into Anna Karenina’s world of steam, commuting down the Northern Line with the Railway Children and checking out a New York L-train with Anthony Trollope’s forgotten muse, Kate Field.

W. Nikola-Lisa explores new terrain - his childhood experiences growing up in south Texas during the early 1960s. Unlike his previous books, this is not a book for young children as the author explores the darker elements growing up in a harsh environment. Although the work feels like a memoir, it sounds like a novel with the author's spare, unrelenting narrative a perfect accompaniment to the time, place, and underlying familial issues.