Nonfiction Biography

Inspired by the number one New York Times best seller She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger comes a chapter book series about women who stood up, spoke up, and rose up against the odds. Listeners can now enjoy the first eight biographies in one audio collection!

Picked by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the unknown wilds of the Louisiana Territory, Meriwether Lewis assembles a rugged team of adventurers, including co-captain William Clark - and a Newfoundland dog named Seaman. As hunter, retriever, and guard, Seaman becomes a trusted member of the Corps of Discovery. While the team tackles raging rivers and muddy shallows, Seaman is there - sharing their hunger and fatigue. Whether Indians threaten or grizzlies roar, he stands his ground. And through mountain peak or valley deep, Seaman remains a watchful friend and determined foe.

On July 28, 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife left their house in Western Massachusetts to visit relatives. Hawthorne and his 5-year-old son Julian stayed behind. How father and son got on together for the next three weeks is the subject of Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny, by Papa, a tender and funny extract from Hawthorne's notebooks, perhaps one of the earliest accounts in literature of a father caring for a young child.

Mamah Borthwick was an energetic, intelligent, and charismatic woman who earned a master's degree at a time when few women even attended college, translated writings by a key figure of the early feminist movement, and taught at one of Germany's best schools for boys. She is best known, however, as the mistress of the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and for her shocking murder at the renowned Wisconsin home he built for her, Taliesin.

In the early 1980s on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury holiday resort opened for business. Catering for divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the holidaymakers know that the staff were undercover spies, working for the Mossad - the Israeli secret service. Providing a front for covert night-time activities, the holiday village allowed the agents to carry out an operation unlike any seen before. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help, turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews....

In Life to the Extreme Ty Pennington shares his remarkable life story. In his characteristic humorous style, he takes you racing through his life with ADHD-infused diversions that will make you laugh out loud. He shares about how he was diagnosed with ADHD in college, and what it has meant to be an advocate for ADHD awareness. He shares about his start as a model and carpenter, and his eventual move to television where he starred in the hit shows Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Trading Spaces.

This young listeners edition of the worldwide best seller Three Cups of Tea has been specially adapted for younger listeners and updated by Greg Mortenson to bring his remarkable story of humanitarianism up to date for the present.

This edition of Che Guevara's diary of the last year of his life describes Che's efforts to launch a guerrilla insurrection against the military government of Bolivia. It was found in his backpack when he was captured by the Bolivian Army in October 1967.

Called the "Great Pathfinder", Daniel Boone is most famous for opening up the West to settlers through Kentucky. A symbol of America's pioneering spirit Boone was a skilled outdoorsman and an avid reader, although he never attended school. Sydelle Kramer skillfully recounts Boone's many adventures, such as the day he rescued his own daughter from kidnappers.

In The Warrior's Heart, an adaptation of his best-selling memoir, The Heart and the Fist, Eric Greitens brings his adventures to life, sharing stories of friendship, struggle, and hard-earned wisdom. This remarkable book will inspire listeners to live every day with compassion and courage.

Explore the lives and achievements of the Wright Brothers.

In Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Life as a Pioneer Woman, Laura tells her listeners what it was like to be a pioneer in the early 1900s. Her stories and insights show us how difficult even the simplest chores or tasks were for the early pioneers, yet through it all she continued to see each situation as an adventure—as if she was truly blazing the trail for future generations.

March 31, 1985. Two white patrol officers in search of a gang member followed a pickup truck carrying seven young Black men up a dirt driveway in the Encanto neighborhood of San Diego. Minutes later, gunshots rang out, and the truck's driver, Sagon Penn, fled the scene in an officer's patrol car. Penn was an idealist who believed in the power of Buddhist chants to bring about the oneness of humanity. The two police officers were rising stars in one of the most progressive police departments in the country, yet one that had suffered more officers killed in the line of duty than any other.

Charlotte Runcie has always felt pulled to the sea, lured by its soothing, calming qualities but also enlivened and inspired by its salty wildness. When she loses her beloved grandmother and becomes pregnant with her first child, she feels its pull even more intensely. In Salt on Your Tongue Charlotte explores what the sea means to us and particularly what it has meant to women through the ages.

The astounding story of one girl's journey from war victim to UNICEF Special Representative. As a child in a small rural village in Sierra Leone, Mariatu Kamara lived peacefully surrounded by family and friends. Rumors of rebel attacks were no more than a distant worry. But when 12-year-old Mariatu set out for a neighboring village, she never arrived. Heavily armed rebel soldiers attacked and tortured Mariatu. During this brutal act of senseless violence they cut off both of her hands.

They came from the tough streets of London's east-end. They Grew up together, they fought together, they ruled vast swathes of the city together, they murdered together, and together everyone considered them unstoppable. Ronnie and Reggie Kray's reputation for violence preceded them wherever they went and was instrumental in propelling them to a notoriety which has never been equalled, before or since, throughout the brutal history of British organised crime. Presented concisely, yet packed with detail, this book concentrates on telling the true story of the Krays, their rise to the top of ...

Meet Renee and Herta, two sisters who faced the unimaginable—together. This is their true story. As Jews living in 1940s Czechoslovakia, Renee, Herta, and their parents were in immediate danger when the Holocaust came to their door. As the only hearing person in her family, Renee had to alert her parents and sister whenever the sound of Nazi boots approached their home so they could hide. But soon their parents were tragically taken away, and the two sisters went on the run, desperate to find a safe place to hide. Eventually they, too, would be taken to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. The Nazis terribly persecuted Jews and other groups of people. They murdered millions of Jews across Europe during World War II. A preteen girl named Anne Frank and her family managed to hide from the Nazis for two years. During this time, Anne wrote about her experiences almost every day in her diary. Discover the courage of Anne and her family during one of the most horrific times in history.

Every activist started out as a kid‚ and in some cases, they were kids when their activism began! But even the world's greatest champions of civil liberties had relatable interests and problems‚ often in the middle of extraordinary circumstances. Martin Luther King, Jr., loved fashion and argued with his dad about whether or not dancing was a sin. Harvey Milk had a passion for listening to opera music in different languages. Dolores Huerta was once wrongly accused of plagiarizing in school.

Paris in the 1940s was a place of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation, and secrets. During the occupation, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked on every corner. While Parisian men were either fighting at the front or captured and forced to work in German factories, the women of Paris were left behind where they would come face to face with the German conquerors on a daily basis, as waitresses, shop assistants, or wives and mothers, increasingly desperate to find food to feed their families as hunger became part of everyday life.