Biography & Memoir Audiobooks

Juliette Low: Girl Scout Founder

Share the childhood adventures of the young girl from Savannah, Georgia , who would grow up to found the Girl Scouts®. "Daisy" Gordon would rather climb a tree and ride a horse than learn to dance and sew. "There's not one thing I can't do that boys can," said Daisy, and the organization she created years later proved her words.

Helen Boyd Higgins (Author), Lynn Taccogna (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ballet for Martha

In 1944 the modern American ballet Appalachian Spring premiered at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The collaborators behind the performance anxiously awaited the critical response to their artistic achievement: would the world understand what they had done? In Ballet for Martha, the journey to this stage and the success shared among choreographer Martha Graham, composer Aaron Copland and artist Isamu Noguchi is expressively captured by acclaimed children's book authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. Together they tell the exceptional story of the collaborative efforts behind the creation of Appalachian Spring. Martha Graham, famous American dancer and pioneering choreographer, ignited the process with her innovative dance routines and desire to create a ballet that would represent America. With Martha's spirit and choreography in mind, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Copland built upon the melodies of an old Shaker hymn to create the original score. He titled it simply Ballet for Martha. Upon Martha's request, artist Isamu Noguchi created the stage design for the ballet, using a simple and angular style that reflected the movements of Martha's choreography. This story, first chronicled in the award-winning book, is now brought to life in an original audiobook production by Brilliance Audio. Acclaimed actress Sarah Jessica Parker captures the voices and emotions of Martha Graham, Aaron Copland, and Isamu Noguchi as they work together to produce the dance, score, and set of this beloved American ballet. Accompanying the narration is a full performance by the Seattle Symphony of the very score which fueled and inspired the ballet. Listeners will be delighted by the layered collaborations brought together in this audio production. From the three trail-blazing artists who labored to capture America through lyrical movement, lilting melody, and avant-garde design, to the literary, vocal, and orchestral talents of today, Ballet for Martha is a beautiful, musical journey for listeners of all ages.

Jan Greenberg, Sandra Jordan (Author), Sara Paretsky, Sarah Jessica Parker, Seattle Symphony, The Seattle Symphony Conducted By Gerard Schwarz (Narrator)

Audiobook

Teddy Roosevelt

Before he was president, Teddy Roosevelt was a dynamic child who worked hard to improve his poor health. Growing up in the country, he always loved nature and believed in conserving natural resources. When he was eight years old, Teddy got to enjoy an exciting trip to New York City. There, he witnessed the city's social inequality and was deeply affected by the poor people he saw. He decided that when he grew up he would try to help them. Geared for children ages eight and up, the Childhoods of Young Americans series is an ideal way to sweep today's young reader right into the past. The everyday details of family life, the time period in which they lived, and the challenges they faced in school create a window through which children can access history. The early evidence of character, responsibility, ability and courage are showcased in common situations to which every child can relate.

Edd Winfield Parks (Author), Lloyd James (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Life Of Robert E. Lee

"In preparing the Life of Lee for Children, for use in the Public Schools, I beg leave to place before teachers good reasons for employing it as a supplementary reader. "First, I urge the need of interesting our children in history at an early age. From observation I find that the minds of children who study history early expand more rapidly than those who are restricted to the limits of stories in readers. While teaching pupils to read, why not fix in their minds the names and deeds of our great men, thereby laying the foundation of historical knowledge and instilling true patriotism into their youthful souls? "Secondly, in looking over the lives of our American heroes we find not one which presents such a picture of moral grandeur as that of Lee. Place this picture before the little ones and you cannot fail to make them look upward to noble ideals."-Mary L. Williamson, 1898

Mary L. Williamson (Author), Lloyd James (Narrator)

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The Princess Pocahontas

Every school child knows the story of how Pocahontas saved the life of Captain John Smith, but that's not the whole story. The Native American Princess, Pocahontas was born as the daughter of Powhatan, chief of the Powhatan confederacy. It was Pocahontas, known as Matoaka by her clan, who interceded on behalf of John Smith in 1608 and then persuaded her father to bring food to the starving colonists at Jamestown. She spent the remainder of her life acting as an intermediary between the Native Americans and the English.

Virginia Watson (Author), Vanessa Benjamin (Narrator)

Audiobook

Lew Wallace: Boy Writer

Lew Wallace gained world-wide fame as the author of the best-selling novel, Ben Hur. But did you know that as a boy, he played hooky from school? Governor, foreign minister, Civil War general, inventor, artist, and author, Lew Wallace spent his boyhood in the fields and rivers of his native Midwest.

Martha E. Schaaf (Author), Patrick Lawlor (Narrator)

Audiobook

Mahalia Jackson: Gospel Singer and Civil Rights Champion

"Halie" Jackson grew up in poverty on the levees of New Orleans. But every Sunday young Mahalia sang proudly in the church choir, the youngest member at age five! She left school after eighth grade and worked as a maid to help support her family. However, her passion for singing her special brand of music known as "gospel" never waned.

Montrew Dunham (Author), Pam Ward (Narrator)

Audiobook

Martin Luther

The life of Martin Luther is a stirring tale of God's grace. Few men have influenced the Christian church more than Luther. This readable biography by J.A. Morrison provides an honest account of the accomplishments of this remarkable man of God. J.A. Morrison dedicates this book to "Youth of the Land." It is the inspiring story of a man who was born to poverty in 1483, who was beaten in school on a regular basis, but who rose above circumstances to change the course of history.

J.A. Morrison (Author), Edward Lewis (Narrator)

Audiobook

Patriotic American Stories

These selections will inspire an enthusiastic love of country and will create a pronounced regard for the ideals so sacred to all Americans. They include: "The Man without a Country" by Edward Everett Hale, "Washington" by Nina Moore Tiffany, "David Crockett, Defender of the Alamo" by Charles Fletcher Allen, "Lincoln: The Man of Sorrows" by Major Stephen Brice, "What a Boy Saw of the Civil War with Glimpses of General Lee" by Leighton Parks, "A Message to Garcia" by Elbert Hubbard.

Various Authors (Author), John Lescault, Patrick Cullen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade

"Everyone's a New Yorker on Thanksgiving Day, when young and old rise early to see what giant new balloons will fill the skies for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Who first invented these ""upside-down puppets"? Meet Tony Sarg, puppeteer extraordinaire! In brilliant collage illustrations, the award-winning artist Melissa Sweet tells the story of the puppeteer Tony Sarg, capturing his genius, his dedication, his zest for play, and his long-lasting gift to America--the inspired helium balloons that would become the trademark of Macy's Parade.

Melissa Sweet (Author), John McDonough (Narrator)

Audiobook

Beyond Courage

Under the noses of the German military and French police, Georges Loinger smuggles Jewish children out of occupied France into Switzerland. In Belgium, Youra Livchitz and two other resisters ambush a train destined for a death camp, allowing scores of Jews to flee from the cattle cars. Four brothers lead more than 1,200 ghetto refugees deep into the Byelorussian forest, where they build a partisan fighting force and self-sufficient village. Forced to make detonators for German bombs, Estusia Wajcblum smuggles out gunpowder, grain by grain, to be used to blow up the crematoriums in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Despite debilitating wounds to both his feet, fourteen-year-old Idel Kagan helps dig an escape tunnel out of a forced labor camp in Poland. Sarika Yehoshua forms an all-girl unit of guerrilla fighters in the mountains of Greece, teaching them to shed their traditional ways and become soldiers. And twelve-year-old Motele Shlayan entertains German officers with his violin moments before setting off a bomb. Through meticulously researched and stirring accounts - some well known and some chronicled here in book form for the first time - Doreen Rappaport brings to light the defiance of tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. These resisters answered the genocidal madness and unspeakable depravity that was Hitler's Holocaust with the greatest weapons of all - courage, ingenuity, the will to survive, and the resolve to save others or to die trying.

Doreen Rappaport (Author), Emily Beresford, Jeff Crawford (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sir Charlie: Chaplin, the Funniest Man in the World

See him? That little tramp twitching a postage stamp of a mustache, politely lifting his bowler hat, and leaning on a bamboo cane with the confidence of a gentleman? A slapstick comedian, he blazed forth as the brightest movie star in the Hollywood heavens. Everyone knew Charlie-Charlie Chaplin. Escaping the London slums of his tragic childhood, he took Hollywood like a conquistador with a Cockney accent. With his gift for pantomime in films that had not yet acquired vocal cords, he was soon rubbing elbows with royalty and dining on gold plates in his own Beverly Hills mansion. He was the most famous man on earth-and he was regarded as the funniest. He comes to life in this astonishing rags-to-riches saga of an irrepressible kid whose childhood was dealt from the bottom of the deck.

Sid Fleischman (Author), Fred Sullivan (Narrator)

Audiobook