Talking to Strangers: Biographies for Teens

My Losing Season by Pat Conroy (Biography – Conroy)
Conroy explores the profound effect of his final year as a point guard for the Citadel's basketball team and his love-hate relationship with the school.

Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer by Lynn Cox (Biography – Cox)
A long-distance swimmer describes her record-setting swims in the icy waters of the Bering Strait and Antarctica. An inspiring story of personal achievement and determination.

Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos (Biography – Gantos)
The author of the Joey Pigza and Rotten Ralph books relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.

Stick Figure: A Diary of my Former Self by Lori Gottlieb (Non-Fiction 616.85262 G)
Growing up in Beverly Hills in the 1970s, Lori Gottlieb learned the lessons her culture had to teach her-like that no one could ever like a girl with thunder thighs. Her world falls slowly apart as she developed a fierce reluctance to eat-winding up hospitalized when her diet took over her life.

Sickened: A Story of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood by Julie Gregory (Non-Fiction 616.858 G)
From early childhood, Julie was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated on in the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother's mind due to a disease where the caretaker-almost always the mother-invents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals.

Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton (Biography at Fairfield Woods)
Bethany, a champion teenage surfer, lost her arm in a shark attack off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. Not even the loss of her arm keeps her from returning to surfing, the sport she loves.

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Ji-Li Jiang (Non-Fiction 951.056 J)
An outstanding student and much-admired leader of her class, Ji-li seemed poised for a shining future. But all that changed in 1966, when Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in China. Ji-li was faced with a dreadful decision: denounce her family or sacrifice her future in her beloved Communist Party.

The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon (Biography – Runyon)
Brent Runyon was fourteen years old when he set himself on fire. In this book he describes that suicide attempt and his recovery over the following year.

Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker (Biography – Walker)
When Walker's white father and black mother divorced, she found herself without an identity: too black for some; not black enough for others. A poignant recollection about racism, growing up, and growing away.

November 21, 2006