In this sixth entry in the New York Time Bestselling biography series, humor is the heroic trait, and modern icon Lucille Ball is celebrated. Lucille Ball could make any situation funny. By making people around the world laugh, she proved that humor can take on anything. She never changed how she behaved to seem "proper," even when other people pressured her to. By remaining true to who she was, she made her mark in comedy and television—even becoming the first female CEO of a major Hollywood studio! This friendly, fun biography series inspired the PBS Kids TV show Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum. One great role model at a time, these books encourage kids to dream big. Included in each book are: • A timeline of key events in the hero’s history • Photos that bring the story more fully to life • Comic-book-style illustrations that are irresistibly adorable • Childhood moments that influenced the hero • Facts that make great conversation-starters • A virtue this person embodies: Lucille Ball's humor and how it carried her to success is highlighted here. You’ll want to collect each book in this dynamic, informative series!

"This picture book biography follows Frida Kahlo's start as an artist and how she integrated her unique way of looking at the world into her art"--

Tells the story of Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who documented her life while hiding from the Nazis during World War II. -- adapted from Amazon.com

Do you know how a poor boy from Brazil who loved fútbol more than anything else became the biggest soccer star the world has ever known? Turn the pages of this book to read the true life story of Pelé, King of Soccer, the first man in the history of the sport to score a thousand goals and become a living legend. Rudy Gutiérrez's dynamic illustrations make award-winning author Monica Brown's story of this remarkable sports hero truly come alive! ¿Sabes cómo un niño brasileño pobre que amaba el fútbol más que nada en el mundo se convirtió en la estrella más importante del deporte? Lee este relato y entérate de la historia de Pelé, El rey del fútbol; el primer hombre en la historia del deporte capaz de marcar mil goles y convertirse en una leyenda viva. Las dinámicas ilustraciones de Rudy Gutiérrez destacan vívidamente los momentos recreados por la escritora premiada Mónica Brown en este extraordinario libro.

"This picture book biography follows I. M. Pei's start as an architect and his lasting impact on buildings all around the world"--

In an era when too many heroes have been toppled from too many pedestals, Sandy Koufax stands apart and alone, a legend who declined his own celebrity. As a pitcher, he was sublime, the ace of baseball lore. As a human being, he aspired to be the one thing his talent and his fame wouldn't allow: a regular guy. A Brooklyn kid, he was the product of the sedate and modest fifties who came to define and dominate baseball in the sixties. In Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, former award-winning Washington Post sportswriter Jane Leavy delivers an uncommon baseball book, vividly re-creating the Koufax era, when presidents were believed and pitchers aspired to go the distance. He was only a teenager when Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley proclaimed him "the Great Jewish Hope" of the franchise. But it wasn't until long after the team had abandoned Brooklyn that the man became the myth. Old-fashioned in his willingness to play when he was injured and in his acute sense of responsibility to his team, Koutax answered to an authority higher than manager Walter Alston. When he refused to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, he inadvertently made himself a religious icon and an irrevocably public figure. A year later, he was gone -- done with baseball at age thirty. No other sports hero had retired so young, so well, or so completely. Despite Sandy Koufax's best efforts to protect his privacy, his legend has grown larger ever since. Part biography, part cultural history, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy gets as close to that legend as he will allow. Through meticulous reporting and interviews with five hundred of his friends, teammates, and opponents, Leavy penetrates the mythology to discover a man more than worthy of myth.

In Alice B.Toklas' only account of her life with Gertrude Stein, she portrays a relationship that spanned two world wars and included friendships with some of the most celebrated literary figures of the time.

Everything about Sarah Bernhardt is fascinating, from her obscure birth to her glorious career--redefining the very nature of her art--to her amazing (and highly public) romantic life, to her indomitable spirit. Well into her seventies, after the amputation of her leg, she was performing under bombardment for soldiers during World War I and toured America for the ninth time. Though the Bernhardt literature is vast, this is the first English-language biography to appear in decades, tracking the trajectory through which an illegitimate--and scandalous--daughter of a Jewish courtesan transformed herself into the most famous actress who ever lived, and into a national icon, a symbol of France.--From publisher description.

A tribute to more than two dozen legendary music artists who significantly influenced the landscape of music for generations to come, from Ray Charles and Bob Dylan to Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash.

A biography of the Israeli prime minister and world leader, emphasizing her early childhood and youth in Russia and America.

The Future of science is female, by award-winning journalist Zara Stone, shares the fascinating stories of how diverse and powerful women have (and continue to) shape science and humanity. Filled with real-life inspiration for today's amazing girls, these stories show how women can break gender norms and succeed in the "traditionally masculine" fields of coding, science, robotics, and beyond! Learn about the challenges and adventures everyday heroes face as they race to fix everything the world has messed up.--

From Pulitzer-Prize-nominated author Susan Griffin comes an unprecedented, provocative look at the dazzling world of the West’s first independent women, whose lively liaisons brought them unspoken influence, wealth, and freedom. While they charmed some of Europe’s most illustrious men honing their social skills as well as their sexual ones, the great courtesans gained riches, power, education, and sexual freedom in a time when other women were denied all of these. From Imperia of sixteenth-century Rome, who personified the Renaissance ideal of beauty; Mme. de Pompadour, the arbiter of all things fashionable in eighteenth-century Paris and Versailles; Liane de Pougy, known in France during the Belle Epoque as “Our National Courtesan”; to Sarah Bernhardt, who, following in her mother’s footsteps, supported herself in her early career with a second profession, The Book of the Courtesans tells the life stories and intricacies of the lavish lifestyles of these women. Unlike their geisha counterparts, courtesans neither lived in brothels nor bent their wills to suit their suitors. They were strong- willed, autonomous, and plucky. An open secret, their presence can be felt throughout our culture. The muses who enflamed the hearts and imaginations of our most celebrated artists, they were also artists in their own right. They wrote poetry and novels, invented the cancan at the Moulin Rouge, and presented celebrated acts at the Folies Bergères. They helped to influence and shape the sensibility of modern literature, painting, and fashion. When Greek sculptor Praxiteles wanted to depict Venus he used a famous courtesan as a model, as in later centuries Titian, Veronese, Raphael, Giorgione, and Boucher did when they painted goddesses. When Marcel Proust was a young man it was the courtesan Laure Hayman who took him under her wing, introducing him to the right people, and providing inspiration for one of literature’s greatest masterpieces. And they often had considerable political influence too. When King Louis XV needed advice on foreign affairs or appointments of state he turned to Jeanne du Barry as well as Pompadour. In her witty and insightful prose, as Griffin celebrates these alluring and fascinating women, she restores a lost legacy of women’s history. She gives us the stories of these amazing women who, starting from impoverished or unimpressive beginnings, garnered chateaux, fine coaches, fabulous collections of jewelry, and even aristocratic titles along the way. And through a brilliant exploration of their extraordinary abilities, skills, and talents which Griffin playfully categorizes as their virtues "Timing, Beauty, Cheek, Brilliance, Gaiety, Grace, and Charm" her book explains how, while helping themselves, through their often outrageous, always entertaining examples, the great courtesans not only enriched our cultural heritage but helped to liberate women from the social, sexual, and economic strictures that confined them. Intensively researched and beautifully crafted, The Book of the Courtesans delves into scintillating but often hidden worlds, telling stories gleaned from many sources, including courtesans’ memoirs, presented along with stunning rare photographs to create memorable portraits of some of the most pivotal figures in women’s history.

At the age of 27, alone in Jerusalem in the wake of a painful divorce, Ilana Kurshan joined the world s largest book club, learning daf yomi, Hebrew for daily page" of the Talmud, a book of rabbinic teachings spanning about 600 years and the basis for all codes of Jewish law. A runner, a reader and a romantic, Kurshan adapted to its pace, attuned her ear to its poetry, and discovered her passions in its pages. She brought the Talmud with her wherever she went, studying in airplanes, supermarket lines, and over a plate of pasta at home, careful not to drip tomato sauce upon discussions about the sprinkling of blood on the Temple altar. By the time she completed the Talmud after seven and a half years, Kurshan was remarried with three young children. With each pregnancy, her Talmud sat perched atop her growing belly. This memoir is a tale of heartache and humor, of love and loss, of marriage and motherhood, and of learning to put one foot in front of the other by turning page after page. Kurshan takes us on a deeply accessible and personal guided tour of the Talmud, shedding new light on its stories and offering insights into its arguments both for those already familiar with the text and for those who have never encountered it. For people of the book both Jewish and non-Jewish If All the Seas Were Ink is a celebration of learning through literature how to fall in love once again.

"A middle grade adaptation of Bergreen's adult title of the same name, about Magellan's historic voyage around the globe"--

"As an orphaned survivor and witness to the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) compelled the world to confront the Holocaust with his searing memoir Night. How did this soft-spoken man from a small Carpathian town become such an influential figure on the world stage. Drawing on Wiesel's prodigious literary output and interviews with his family, friends, scholars, and critics, Joseph Berger seeks to answer this question."--

"Edie is a talented dancer and skilled gymnast with hopes of making the Olympics. Between her rigorous training and her struggle to find her place in a family where she's considered the daughter "with brains but no looks," Edie's too busy to dwell on the state of the world. But life in Hungary in 1943 is dangerous for a Jewish girl. Just as Edie falls in love for the first time, Europe collapses into war, and Edie's family is forced onto a train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp. Even in that darkest of moments, Edie's beloved, Eric, kindles hope. "I'll never forget your eyes," he tells her through the slats of the cattle car. Auschwitz is horrifying beyond belief, yet through starvation and unthinkable terrors, dreams of Eric sustain Edie. Against all odds, Edie and her sister Magda survive, thanks to their sisterhood and sheer grit. In this young adult edition of her bestselling, award-winning memoir The Choice, renowned psychologist and Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Eger gives readers a gift of hope and strength"--

"Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth." So begins Sid Fleischman's ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens. Abandoning a career as a young steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, Sam took a bumpy stagecoach to the Far West. In the gold and silver fields, he expected to get rich quick. Instead, he got poor fast, digging in the wrong places. His stint as a sagebrush newspaperman led to a duel with pistols. Had he not survived, the world would never have heard of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn—or red-headed Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens adopted his pen name in a hotel room in San Francisco and promptly made a jumping frog (and himself) famous. His celebrated novels followed at a leisurely pace; his quips at jet speed. "Don't let schooling interfere with your education," he wrote. Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West; an ink-stained rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time. Bountifully illustrated.

"Professor Jay Ladin made headlines around the world when, after years of teaching literature at Yeshiva University, he returned after a year of "involuntary research leave" to the Orthodox Jewish campus as a woman-Joy Ladin."--Dust jacket.

Thomas Jefferson was wild about numbers. He was constantly counting, measuring, and observing things that caught his interest. He loved sharing his discoveries and reading the discoveries of others. But when a famous Frenchman published a book about America, Jefferson was appalled: all the information in the book was wrong. The author insisted that America was a wretched, dismal place, where birds could not sing, dogs could not bark, and everything and everyone was puny and weak. Thomas Jefferson resolved to set the record straight - with numbers - and prove to the world that the new nation was worthy of investment.

Family Sayings is Natalia Ginzburg's masterpiece and a classic of contemporary Italian literature. Although it asks to be read as fiction, the author, one of Italy's finest twentieth-century writers, admits that it is highly autobiographical. The book spans the period from the rise of Fascism through World War II (in which her first husband perished at the hands of the Nazis) and its aftermath. Its subject is the other people in Ginzburg's family. Woven around the inconsequential, revealing remarks that are repeated in a family until they become its affectionate private code, rich in memory and association, this is one of the rare true evocations of a family in modern literature. Family Sayings is at the same time a living history that documents the life of the assimilated Jewish Ginzburg family and the culture to which they belonged. Winner of the Strega Prize-Italy's Pulitzer for literature-this intimate and candid portrait is no less relevant today than when it was first published in 1963. --