Written at the height of her fame but not published until over a decade after her death, this autobiography of actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) poignantly recounts her childhood as an unwanted orphan, her early adolescence, her rise in the film industry from bit player to celebrity, and her marriage to Joe DiMaggio. In this intimate account of a very public life, she tells of her first (non-consensual) sexual experience, her romance with the Yankee Clipper, and her prescient vision of herself as "the kind of girl they found dead in the hall bedroom with an empty bottle of sleeping pills in her hand." The Marilyn in these pages is a revelation: a gifted, intelligent, vulnerable woman who was far more complex than the unwitting sex siren she portrayed on screen. Lavishly illustrated with photos of Marilyn, this special book celebrates the life and career of an American icon—-from the unique perspective of the icon herself.

How did Elizabeth Smart survive nine months in captivity-and manage to forge a new life for herself? This is her story. On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She was kept chained, dressed in disguise, repeatedly raped, and told she and her family would be killed if she tried to escape. After her rescue on March 12, 2003, she rejoined her family and worked to pick up the pieces of her life. "The inspirational and ultimately redemptive story of a teenage girl's descent into hell... and of the faith that fueled her determination to survive." -Kirkus Reviews In My Story, Smart tells of the constant fear she endured every hour, her courageous determination to maintain hope, and how she convinced her captors to return to Utah, where she was rescued minutes after arriving. Smart explains how her faith helped her stay sane in the midst of a nightmare and how she found the strength to confront her captors at their trial and see that justice was served. "[The book's] power lies in the way Smart presents herself-stronger but somehow still innocent." -The New Yorker

Deborah Ellis, activist and award-winning author of The Breadwinner interviews young people involved in the criminal justice system and lets them tell their own stories. Jamar found refuge in a gang after leaving an abusive home where his mother stole from him. Fred was arrested for assault with a weapon, public intoxication and attacking his mother while on drugs. Jeremy first went to court at age fourteen (“Court gives you the feeling that you can never make up for what you did, that you’re just bad forever”) but now wears a Native Rights hat to remind him of his strong Métis heritage. Kate, charged with petty theft and assault, finally found a counselor who treated her like a person for the first time. Many readers will recognize themselves, or someone they know, somewhere in these stories. Being lucky or unlucky after making a mistake. The encounter with a mean cop or a good one. Couch-surfing, or being shunted from one foster home to another. The kids in this book represent a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, genders, sexual orientations and ethnicities. Every story is different, but there are common threads — loss of parenting, dislocation, poverty, truancy, addiction, discrimination. The book also includes the points of view of family members as well as “voices of experience” — adults looking back at their own experiences as young offenders. Most of all, this book leaves readers asking the most pressing questions of all. Does it make sense to put kids in jail? Can’t we do better? Have we forgotten that we were once teens ourselves, feeling powerless to change our lives, confused about who we were and what we wanted, and quick to make a move without a thought for the consequences? Key Text Features illustrations photographs further reading glossary resources Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.2 Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.6 Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.8 Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not.

First published in Malayalam in 1973, My Story, Kamala Das' sensational autobiography, shocked readers with its total disregard for mindless conventions and its fearless articulation of a subject still considered taboo. Depicting the author's intensely personal experiences in her passage to womanhood and shedding light on the hypocrisies that informed traditional society, this memoir was far ahead of its time and is now acknowledged as a bona fide masterpiece.

Just what exactly is social studies, you may ask? Well, it includes the study of all kinds of people and places, some far away and some next door. In this book we talk about families, like your family in your house, and also lots of people close by, which we call a town or city, and finally about even more people in cities or outside of cities, all living in big places called countries. My Story and the World Around Me is a course for lower elementary students. It includes basic introductions to history, politics, sociology, economics, and geography, and provides a fuller understanding of God’s world and the cultures of the countries. This is a daily adventure-based curriculum series that encourages families to explore the world together through four nine-week quests and to understand it better from God’s perspective. It is designed with elements that make weekly learning fun and interactive, including: Activity timeWord find timeReview timeMy story journal Learn all about the world while you discover more about your own. And make sure you pull out your Quest Collector Cards at the beginning of each quest. Your world map on the other side shows where you are in each lesson!

One of the greatest sports figures of all time at last breaks his silence in a memoir as unique as the man himself. Number 4. It is just about the most common number in hockey, but invoke that number and you can only be talking about one player -- the man often referred to as the greatest ever to play the game: Bobby Orr. From 1966 through the mid-70s he could change a game just by stepping on the ice. Orr could do things that others simply couldn’t, and while teammates and opponents alike scrambled to keep up, at times they could do little more than stop and watch. Many of his records still stand today and he remains the gold standard by which all other players are judged. Mention his name to any hockey fan – or to anyone in New England – and a look of awe will appear.

Born in 1883 in the Dakota Territories, Gemma LaGuardia Gluck was the daughter of an American bandleader and European mother of aristocratic Italian Jewish lineage. She was the sister of beloved New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Gemma and her Hungarian Jewish husband were living in Budapest in 1944 when Nazi troops stormed the city. The Gestapo arrested her as a political prisoner because she was LaGuardia's sister. In her own words she recounts the plight of Budapest's Jews, deportation to Mauthausen with her husband, and enslavement at Ravensbruck, a notorious concentration camp for women. With painful sensitivity she chronicles unspeakable evil, kindness at great risk, and courage among women in a prefeminist world. Most of Gemma's story tells of the ordeal she and her family endured during the Holocaust and after in displaced persons camps. But she also recalls girlhood in the Old West, Native Americans befriended by her mother, international travel with her father, and her brother's ambitions and rise to success. She remembers fondly balmy days in prewar Budapest, and her return to postwar New York City where she lived until her death in 1962.

THE STORY OF THE GOEBEL FAMILY IS PROBABLY NOT AN EXCEPTIONAL TALE. EVEN THOUGH, I DO NOT CONSIDER MYSELF A STORY TELLER I WILL TRY TO TELL IT. I WILL START WITH MY GRANDPARENTS. I NEVER KNEW MY MOTHER'S FATHER (MY GRANDFATHER) BECAUSE HE DIED BEFORE I WAS BORN. HE APPARENTLY WAS AN INTERESTING MAN. THE INFORMATION I HAVE ABOUT MY GRAND FATHER, I RECEIVED FROM MY GRAND MOTHER, MY MOTHER, AND MY SISTER, THEY TOLD ME MANY STORIES ABOUT HIM AFTER MY MOTHER DIED MY SISTER SENT ME NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS, WRITTEN NOTES, PICTURES, BOOKS, BIRTH RECORDS, ETC, THAT SHE FOUND, WITH MY MOTHER'S THINGS. THIS STORY CONTAINS THE INFORMATION THAT CAME FROM THE OLD NEWSPAPERS, SOME FROM THE RECORDS AND SOME ARE THE THINGS I REMEMBER MY MOTHER TELLING ME ABOUT HIM, MY GRANDFATHER'S NAME WAS AUGUST JOHANN ANDORAS PULS VON ROHR. AS HIS NAME INDICATES, HIS FAMILY WAS OF THE PRUSSIAN NOBILITY.

This book describes my life as a Christian. I became a Christian at the age of 9 in the First Baptist Church of Guymon, Oklahoma. I was called into special service at the age of 15 while living in Borger, Texas. I was chosen to lead the singing in the Calvary Baptist Church, Borger, at the age of 17. I was fortunate enough to spend a weekend at the Glorieta, New Mexico church encampment before the church chose me to lead their Sunday morning music. I also was fortunate enough to go to youth camp in the Oklahoma panhandle as a young convert. This is where I learned to study and appreciate reading the Holy Bible. My life has taken many twists and turns along the way. I did not have a career in business. My time was spent as a missionary wherever I was sent. I did not stay too long in one place. I am now 64 years old and I am a member of Second Baptist Church, of Houston. I have attended Second for over 10 years. In the summer months, between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I sold Bible Encyclopedias door-to-door in the Spartanburg, South Carolina area.

*#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER *Winner, Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Nonfiction *Winner, Indigenous Voices Awards *Winner, High Plains Book Awards *Finalist, CBC Canada Reads *A Globe and Mail Book of the Year *An Indigo Book of the Year *A CBC Best Canadian Nonfiction Book of the Year In this extraordinary and inspiring debut memoir, Jesse Thistle, once a high school dropout and now a rising Indigenous scholar, chronicles his life on the streets and how he overcame trauma and addiction to discover the truth about who he is. If I can just make it to the next minute...then I might have a chance to live; I might have a chance to be something more than just a struggling crackhead. From the Ashes is a remarkable memoir about hope and resilience, and a revelatory look into the life of a Métis-Cree man who refused to give up. Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Jesse Thistle briefly found himself in the foster-care system with his two brothers, cut off from all they had known. Eventually the children landed in the home of their paternal grandparents, whose tough-love attitudes quickly resulted in conflicts. Throughout it all, the ghost of Jesse’s drug-addicted father haunted the halls of the house and the memories of every family member. Struggling with all that had happened, Jesse succumbed to a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, spending more than a decade on and off the streets, often homeless. Finally, he realized he would die unless he turned his life around. In this heartwarming and heart-wrenching memoir, Jesse Thistle writes honestly and fearlessly about his painful past, the abuse he endured, and how he uncovered the truth about his parents. Through sheer perseverance and education—and newfound love—he found his way back into the circle of his Indigenous culture and family. An eloquent exploration of the impact of prejudice and racism, From the Ashes is, in the end, about how love and support can help us find happiness despite the odds.