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Provoked by the horrors he saw every day, Charles Dickens wrote novels that were originally intended as instruments for social change -- to save his country's children.Charles Dickens is best known for his contributions to the world of literature, but during his young life, Dickens witnessed terrible things that stayed with him: families starving in doorways, babies being "dropped" on streets by mothers too poor to care for them, and a stunning lack of compassion from the upper class. After his...

Teenage girls tell their most urgent stories, punctuated by inspiration and advice from Zadie Smith, Roxane Gay, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, and more of today's great writers.

Gary Paulsen, author of Hatchet and other adventure novels, tells about his lifelong love of sailing, boats he has owned, and the storms, sharks, and peaceful lagoons he has experienced on his voyages.

A free verse biography of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, featuring over 300 pages of black-and-white watercolor illustrations.

Want to write a novel? This book is the motivation you need! Part writing guide and part memoir, this inspiring book from the author of Flipped and The Running Dream is like Bird by Bird for YA readers and writers. Wendelin Van Draanen didn't grow up wanting to be a writer, but thirty books later, she's convinced that writing saved her life. Or, at least, saved her from a life of bitterness and despair. Writing helped her sort out what she thought and felt and wanted. And digging deep into fict...

Named a Best New Children's Book of 2023 by NCompass Live Paterson Prize for Books for Young People Winner 2024 Midwest Book Award Winner for Children's Nonfiction 2024 Nebraska Book Award Winner Semifinalist for 2024 Society of Midland Authors Award Longlist for Reading the West Book Award  Long before Ted Kooser won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, served as the U.S. Poet Laureate, and wrote award-winning books for children, he was an unathletic child growing up in Iowa, yearning to fit in....

A powerful and thought-provoking Civil Rights era memoir from one of America’s most celebrated poets.   Looking back on her childhood in the 1950s, Newbery Honor winner and National Book Award finalist Marilyn Nelson tells the story of her development as an artist and young woman through fifty eye-opening poems. Readers are given an intimate portrait of her growing self-awareness and artistic inspiration along with a larger view of the world around her: racial tensions, the Cold War era, and the...

From the critically acclaimed author Sally Bayley, The Green Lady is a poignant, brilliant exploration of the relationships between children and their teachers. In the style of her memoir Girl with Dove, this book explores a child’s search for artistic education and a sense of self. Lyrical and playful, Sally Bayley’s writing transports the reader into an eccentric world of teachers, guardians and guiding spirits of place. Moved by her female teachers,...

The Beautiful Struggle is an extraordinary memoir from the most important new voice in the US race debate and the author of New York Times bestseller list no. 1 Between the World and Me, hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading." This small and perfectly formed epic follows the lives of boys on the journey to manhood in black America and beyond in 1980s Baltimore, a city on the verge of chaos. These youngsters needed to learn fast, and Ta-Nehisi's father, Paul, was a fine teacher: a Vietnam...

Award-winning author and storyteller Carmen Agra Deedy takes readers through her personal immigration journey from her island roots in Havana, Cuba, to a small-town southern life in Decatur, Georgia. In this collection of twelve stories, Deedy introduces us to the wise and witty Agra family and the hilarious and often poignant collision of cultures they experience when they immigrate to the US. From adventures with a neighborhood friend to her mother standing before a judge, these storie...