Within Reach: My Everest Story by Mark Pfetzer The author describes how he spent his teenage years

climbing mountains in the US, South America, Africa,

and Asia, with an emphasis on his two expeditions to

Mount Everest.

Three Little Words: A Memoir

by Ashley Rhodes-Courter The story of how the author survived nine years in

foster care where she endured moving from school to

school, and manipulative, humiliating, and abusive

treatment from one foster family.

The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon Brent Runyon was 14-years-old when he set himself

on fire. This book describes his suicide attempt and

his recovery over the following year.

An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-

Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and

an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny

by Laura Schroff He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But

something made her turn around and go back. They

met nearly every week for years and built an

unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today

spanned almost three decades.

I Can't Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs

by Teens Famous & Obscure

by Larry Smith A collection of six-word memoirs from hundreds of

teenagers, including celebrities, ranging from funny to

inspiring to dramatic,

Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

The memoir of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor

of Hitler’s Europe, and about his son, a cartoonist who

tries to come to terms with his father, his story, and

history.

Tom Sullivan’s Adventures in Darkness

by Tom Sullivan A biography of the singer and TV entertainer who has

been blind from birth.

Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet As an autistic savant, the author tells his life story and

how his mind is able to calculate huge sums in

seconds, learn new languages in a week, and memorize

more than 22,000 digits of pi.

Teen Area – West Des Moines Public Library – 9/2012

BIOGRAPHY IDEAS FOR TEENS

Looking for a biography?

Here is a list of a few books to try!

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man,

and Life's Greatest Lesson

by Mitch Albom Mitch visits his former college professor, Morrie, in

the last months of his life.

Thura’s Diary: My Life in Wartime Iraq

by Thura Al-Windawi An inside look at Iraq during Saddam's reign and the

2003 war, as recorded in the diary of a 19-year-old

Baghdad girl.

She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie

Bernall by Misty Bernall On April 20, 1999, Cassie was a typical teenager

having a typical day. Then a classmate trained a gun

on her and asked if she believed in God.

The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter

Memoir by Cylin Busby Cylin and John Busby share the challenges they faced

after their family was forced into hiding to protect

themselves from a killer.

Double Take by Kevin Michael Connolly This is the story of a man born without legs and his

journey around the world.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

After undergoing extensive surgery at age 9, Lucy

Grealy returned to school with a 1/3 of her jaw

removed, only to receive cruel taunts of classmates. In

this memoir Grealy tells the story of her suffering and

remarkable strength.

Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the

American Heartland by Mark Kreidler Jay Borschel and Dan LeClere aspire to be four-time

high school wrestling champions in Iowa.

The Game of My Life: A True Story of Challenge,

Triumph, and Growing Up Autistic by Jason

McElwain The incredible story of one student’s determination to

triumph against the challenges of autism-and his

opponents on the basketball court.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

by Wes Moore Two kids with the same name lived in the same

decaying city. One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar,

decorated combat Veteran, White House Fellow, and

business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in

prison. This is the story of their journey.

BIOGRAPHY IDEAS FOR TEENS

Looking for a biography? Here’s a list of a few ideas:

ACTORS, ARTISTS, & PERFORMERS

Adele

Johann Sebastian Bach

P.T. Barnum

Ludwig van Beethoven

Johnny Cash

Jackie Chan

Charlie Chaplin

Ray Charles

George Clooney

Tom Cruise

Walt Disney

Bob Dylan

Simon Estes

Tina Fey

Michael J. Fox

Aretha Franklin

Martha Graham

Tom Hanks

Jimi Hendrix

Alfred Hitchcock

Harry Houdini

Michael Jackson

Angelina Jolie

Janis Joplin

Toby Keith

John Lennon

George Lucas

Madonna

Metallica

Marilyn Monroe

Robert Pattinson

Pablo Picasso

Elvis Presley

Rihanna

Julia Roberts

Charles Schulz

Russell Simmons

Taylor Swift

Elizabeth Taylor

Usher

Carrie Underwood

Leonardo Da Vinci

Kanye West

Oprah Winfrey

ATHLETES:

Muhammad Ali

Lance Armstrong

Arthur Ashe

Jeff Gordon

Bethany Hamilton

Mia Hamm

Tony Hawk

Lebron James

Bruce Jenner

Derek Jeter

Shawn Johnson

Michael Jordan

Bruce Lee

Michael Lewis

Babe Ruth

Tim Tebow

Michelle Wie

Tiger Woods

AUTHORS

Douglas Adams

Louisa May Alcott

Maya Angelou

Isaac Asimov

Jane Austen

J.M. Barrie

L. Frank Baum

Judy Blume

Bill Bryson

Lewis Carroll

Samuel Clemens (Mark

Twain)

Chris Crutcher

Roald Dahl

Charles Dickens

Frederick Douglass

Lois Duncan

Sid Fleischman

Jack Gantos

Ezra Jack Keats

Harper Lee

Theo LeSig (Dr. Seuss)

C.S. Lewis

Jack London

Lois Lowry

Herman Melville

L.M. Montgomery

Walter Dean Myers

Gary Paulsen

Richard Peck

Edgar Allan Poe

J.K. Rowling

William Shakespeare

Shel Silverstein

Jerry Spinelli

John Steinbeck

Bram Stoker

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Henry David Thoreau

J.R.R. Tolkien

Elie Wiesel

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Virginia Woolf

CRIMINALS:

Billy the Kid and Jesse

James (Old West

outlaws)

Al Capone (Infamous

Gangster)

Osama bin Laden

(September 11, 2001

U.S. terrorist attacks)

John Wilkes Booth

(Assassinated Abraham

Lincoln)

Lizzie Borden

(Infamous murderer)

Mark David Chapman

(Assassinated John

Lennon)

D.B. Cooper (Hijacker,

unsolved mystery)

John Dillinger (Bank

robber)

Adolf Hitler (Nazi,

WWII, Holocaust)

Lee Harvey Oswald

(Assassinated John F.

Kennedy)

Bonnie Parker & Clyde

Barrow (Infamous

outlaws)

James Earl Ray

(Assassinated Martin

Luther King, Jr.)

MARTYRS, REVOLUTIONARIES, & LEADERS:

Joan of Arc

W.E.B. Du Bois

Claudette Colvin

Dian Fossey (Gorillas)

Anne Frank

Mahatma Gandhi

Che Guevara

Helen Keller

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dalai Lama

Dorothea Lange

Nelson Mandela

Rosa Parks

Eva Peron

Pope John Paul II

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Gloria Steinem

Mother Teresa

Harriet Tubman

Malcolm X

MILITARY & POLITICS:

Tony Blair

George W. Bush

Jimmy Carter

Fidel Castro

Bill Clinton

Hillary Clinton

Mikhail Gorbachev

Ulysses S. Grant

Herbert Hoover

Andrew Jackson

Thomas Jefferson

John F. Kennedy

Henry A. Kissinger

Abraham Lincoln

Joe McCarthy

Golda Meir

Richard Nixon

Barack Obama

Sandra Day O'Connor

Colin Powell

Yitzhak Rabin

Ronald Regan

Condoleezza Rice

Theodore Roosevelt

Margaret Thatcher

Desomond Tutu

George Washington

Woodrow Wilson

SCIENTISTS, INVENTORS, PIONEERS, & THINKERS:

Buzz Aldrin

Aristotle

Alexander Graham Bell

George Washington

Carver

Marie & Pierre Currie

Charles Darwin

Clarence Darrow

Amelia Earhart

Thomas Edison

Albert Einstein

Benjamin Franklin

Sigmund Freud

Bill Gates

John Glenn

Temple Grandin

Johannes Gutenberg

Stephen Hawking

Steve Jobs

Charles Lindberg

Isaac Newton

Friedrich Nietzsche

Alfred Nobel

Louis Pasteur

Plato

Carl Sagan

Alan Shepard

Nikola Tesla

Chuck Yeager

Mark Zuckerberg