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The Girl With a Mind for Math: The Story Of Raye Montague (Amazing Scientists #3)
by Julia MoscaAfter touring a German submarine in the early 1940s, young Raye set her sights on becoming an engineer. Little did she know sexism and racial inequality would challenge that dream every step of the way, even keeping her greatest career accomplishment a secret for decades. Through it all, the gifted mathematician persisted―finally gaining her well-deserved title in history: a pioneer who changed the course of ship design forever. <p><p> The Girl With a Mind for Math: The Story of Raye Montague is the third book in a riveting educational series about the inspiring lives of amazing scientists. In addition to the illustrated rhyming tale, you'll find a complete biography, fun facts, a colorful timeline of events, and even a note from Montague herself!
The Girl Without a Voice
by Casey WatsonCasey has been in the post for six months when thirteen-year-old Imogen joins her class. One of six children Casey is teaching, Imogen has selective mutism. She's a bright girl, but her speech problems have been making mainstream lessons difficult. Life at home is also hard for Imogen. Her mum walked out on her a few years earlier and she's never got along with her dad's new girlfriend. She's now living with her grandparents. There's no physical explanation for Imogen's condition, and her family insist she's never had troubles like this before. Everyone thinks Imogen is just playing up - except the member of staff closest to her, her teacher Casey Watson. It is the deadpan expression she constantly has on her face that is most disturbing to Casey. Determined there must be more to it, Casey starts digging and it's not long before she starts to discover a very different side to Imogen's character. A visit to her grandparents' reveals that Imogen is anything but silent at home. In fact she's prone to violent outbursts; her elderly grandparents are terrified of her. Eventually Casey's hard work starts to pay off. After months of silence, Imogen utters her first, terrified, words to Casey: -I thought she was going to burn me. ' Dark, shocking and deeply disturbing, Casey begins to uncover the reality of what Imogen has been subjected to for years.
The Girl and the Bombardier: A True Story of Resistance and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied France
by Susan Tate AnkenyThis enthralling WWII biography combines a downed B-17 bombardier&’s unfinished memoir with letters from the French girl who saved his life. Susan Tate Ankeny&’s father was a World War II veteran bombardier who had bailed from a burning B-17 over Nazi-occupied France in 1944. After he died, she found his unfinished memoir, stacks of envelopes, black-and-white photographs, mission reports, dog tags, and the fake identity cards he used in his escape. Ankeny spent more than a decade tracking down letter writers, their loved ones, and anyone who had played a role in her father's story, culminating in a trip to France where she retraced his path with the same people who had guided him more than sixty years ago. While piecing together her father&’s wartime experience, Ankeny discovered a remarkable hero. Godelieve Van Laere was just a teenaged girl when she saved the fallen Lieutenant Dean Tate, risking her life and forging a friendship that would last into a new century. The result is a fascinating and dramatic World War II tale enhanced by personal interviews with participants. It traces the transformation of a small-town American boy into a bombardier, the thrill and chaos of aerial warfare, and the horror of bailing from a flaming aircraft over enemy territory. It distinguishes the actions of a little-known French resistance network for Allied airmen known as Shelburne. And it shines a light on the courage and cunning of a young woman who risked her life to save another.
The Girl from Aleppo: Nujeen's Escape from War to Freedom
by Christina Lamb Nujeen MustafaPrize-winning journalist and the co-author of smash New York Times bestseller I Am Malala, Christina Lamb, now tells the inspiring true story of another remarkable young hero: Nujeen Mustafa, a teenager born with cerebral palsy, whose harrowing journey from war-ravaged Syria to Germany in a wheelchair is a breathtaking tale of fortitude, grit, and hope that lends a face to the greatest humanitarian issue of our time, the Syrian refugee crisis.For millions around the globe, sixteen-year-old Nujeen Mustafa embodies the best of the human spirit. Confined to a wheelchair because of her cerebral palsy and denied formal schooling in Syria because of her illness, Nujeen taught herself English by watching American soap operas. When her small town became the epicenter of the brutal fight between ISIS militants and US-backed Kurdish troops in 2014, she and her family were forced to flee.Despite her physical limitations, Nujeen embarked on the arduous trek to safety and a new life. The grueling sixteen-month odyssey by foot, boat, and bus took her across Turkey and the Mediterranean to Greece, through Macedonia to Serbia and Hungary, and finally, to Germany. Yet, in spite of the tremendous physical hardship she endured, Nujeen's extraordinary optimism never wavered. Refusing to give in to despair or see herself as a passive victim, she kept her head high. As she told a BBC reporter, "You should fight to get what you want in this world."Nujeen's positivity and resolve infuses this unforgettable story of one young woman determined to make a better life for herself. Told by acclaimed British foreign correspondent Christina Lamb, Nujeen is a unique and powerful memoir that gives voice to the Syrian refugee crisis, helping us to understand that the world must change—and offering the inspiration to make that change reality.
The Girl from Foreign
by Sadia ShepardA search for shipwrecked ancestors, forgotten histories, and a sense of home Fascinating and intimate , The Girl from Foreign is one woman's search for ancient family secrets that leads to an adventure in far-off lands. Sadia Shepard, the daughter of a white Protestant from Colorado and a Muslim from Pakistan, was shocked to discover that her grandmother was a descendant of the Bene Israel, a tiny Jewish community shipwrecked in India two thousand years ago. After traveling to India to put the pieces of her family's past together, her quest for identity unlocks a myriad of profound religious and cultural revelations that Shepard gracefully weaves into this touching, eye-opening memoir. .
The Girl from Human Street
by Roger CohenAn intimate and profoundly moving Jewish family history--a story of displacement, prejudice, hope, despair, and love.In this luminous memoir, award-winning New York Times columnist Roger Cohen turns a compassionate yet discerning eye on the legacy of his own forebears. As he follows them across continents and decades, mapping individual lives that diverge and intertwine, vital patterns of struggle and resilience, valued heritage and evolving loyalties (religious, ethnic, national), converge into a resonant portrait of cultural identity in the modern age. Beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing through to the present day, Cohen tracks his family's story of repeated upheaval, from Lithuania to South Africa, and then to England, the United States, and Israel. It is a tale of otherness marked by overt and latent anti-Semitism, but also otherness as a sense of inheritance. We see Cohen's family members grow roots in each adopted homeland even as they struggle to overcome the loss of what is left behind and to adapt--to the racism his parents witness in apartheid-era South Africa, to the familiar ostracism an uncle from Johannesburg faces after fighting against Hitler across Europe, to the ambivalence an Israeli cousin experiences when tasked with policing the occupied West Bank.At the heart of The Girl from Human Street is the powerful and touching relationship between Cohen and his mother, that "girl." Tortured by the upheavals in her life yet stoic in her struggle, she embodies her son's complex inheritance. Graceful, honest, and sweeping, Cohen's remarkable chronicle of the quest for belonging across generations contributes an important chapter to the ongoing narrative of Jewish life.From the Hardcover edition.
The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia
by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya Anna SummersThe prizewinning memoir of one of the world’s great writers, about coming of age and finding her voice amid the hardships of Stalinist Russia Born across the street from the Kremlin in the opulent Metropol Hotel—the setting of the New York Times bestselling novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles—Ludmilla Petrushevskaya grew up in a family of Bolshevik intellectuals who were reduced in the wake of the Russian Revolution to waiting in bread lines. In The Girl from the Metropol Hotel, her prizewinning memoir, she recounts her childhood of extreme deprivation—of wandering the streets like a young Edith Piaf, singing for alms, and living by her wits like Oliver Twist, a diminutive figure far removed from the heights she would attain as an internationally celebrated writer. As she unravels the threads of her itinerant upbringing—of feigned orphandom, of sleeping in freight cars and beneath the dining tables of communal apartments, of the fugitive pleasures of scraps of food—we see, both in her remarkable lack of self-pity and in the two dozen photographs throughout the text, her feral instinct and the crucible in which her gift for giving voice to a nation of survivors was forged.“From heartrending facts Petrushevskaya concocts a humorous and lyrical account of the toughest childhood and youth imaginable. . . . It [belongs] alongside the classic stories of humanity’s beloved plucky child heroes: Edith Piaf, Charlie Chaplin, the Artful Dodger, Gavroche, David Copperfield. . . . The child is irresistible and so is the adult narrator who creates a poignant portrait from the rags and riches of her memory.” —Anna Summers, from the IntroductionFrom the Trade Paperback edition.
The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement
by Teri KanefieldBefore the Little Rock Nine, before Rosa Parks, before Martin Luther King Jr. and his March on Washington, there was Barbara Rose Johns, a teenager who used nonviolent civil disobedience to draw attention to her cause. In 1951, witnessing the unfair conditions in her racially segregated high school, Barbara Johns led a walkout—the first public protest of its kind demanding racial equality in the U.S.—jumpstarting the American civil rights movement. Ridiculed by the white superintendent and school board, local newspapers, and others, and even after a cross was burned on the school grounds, Barbara and her classmates held firm and did not give up. Her school’s case went all the way to the Supreme Court and helped end segregation as part of Brown v. Board of Education. Barbara Johns grew up to become a librarian in the Philadelphia school system. The Girl from the Tar Paper School mixes biography with social history and is illustrated with family photos, images of the school and town, and archival documents from classmates and local and national news media. The book includes a civil rights timeline, bibliography, and index.
The Girl in White Gloves: A Novel of Grace Kelly
by Kerri MaherA life in snapshots… Grace knows what people see. She&’s the Cinderella story. An icon of glamor and elegance frozen in dazzling Technicolor. The picture of perfection. The girl in white gloves. A woman in living color… But behind the lens, beyond the panoramic views of glistening Mediterranean azure, she knows the truth. The sacrifices it takes for an unappreciated girl from Philadelphia to defy her family and become the reigning queen of the screen. The heartbreaking reasons she trades Hollywood for a crown. The loneliness of being a princess in a fairy tale kingdom that is all too real. Hardest of all for her adoring fans and loyal subjects to comprehend, is the harsh reality that to be the most envied woman in the world does not mean she is the happiest. Starved for affection and purpose, facing a labyrinth of romantic and social expectations with more twists and turns than Monaco&’s infamous winding roads, Grace must find her own way to fulfillment. But what she risks--her art, her family, her marriage—she may never get back.
The Girl in the Band: Bardot – a cautionary tale
by Belinda ChappleThis is the story Bardot&’s Belinda Chapple has wanted to tell for twenty years – a cautionary tale of exploitation and heartbreak. In 2000, millions of Australians tuned in to watch Popstars, one of the world&’s first reality television competitions, in which five girls were selected from thousands to become members of a new band: Bardot. And Belinda Chapple signed a contract that would turn her life upside down. Bardot shot straight to fame and Belinda spent the following three years relentlessly rehearsing, recording and touring. The band released two very successful albums, a slew of hit singles, and performed on world stages to thousands of adoring fans. But Belinda discovered that the life of a popstar could be lonely, and it came with consequences she never saw coming. The impact on her body image was disastrous, and it was impossible to maintain romantic relationships, but at least she had her fellow band members to turn to for support … or so she thought.The Girl in the Band is a behind-the-curtains look at the ruthlessness of the entertainment industry. Belinda Chapple&’s story will resonate with anyone who&’s given up everything for a dream, only to have it shatter around them.
The Girl in the Green Dress
by Dr George Blair-West Jeni Haynes'I didn't know that you're only supposed to have one personality. I didn't realise that having lots of voices in your head was abnormal. But you are protecting yourself. You are protecting your soul, and that's what I did.'An intelligent, poised woman, Jeni Haynes sat in court and listened as the man who had abused her from birth, a man who should have been her protector, a man who tortured and terrified her, was jailed for a non-parole period of 33 years. The man was her father.The abuse that began when Jeni was only a baby is unimaginable to most. It was physically, psychologically and emotionally sadistic and never-ending. The fact she survived may be called a miracle by some - but the reality is, it is testament to the extraordinary strength of Jeni's mind.What saved her was the process of dissociation - Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) - a defence mechanism that saw Jeni create over 2500 separate personalities, or alters, who protected her as best they could from the trauma. This army of alters included four-year-old Symphony, teenage motorcycle-loving Muscles, elegant Linda, forthright Judas and eight-year-old Ricky.With her army, the support of her psychiatrist Dr George Blair-West, and a police officer's belief in her, Jeni fought to create a life for herself and bring her father to justice. In a history-making ruling, Jeni's alters were empowered to give evidence in court. In speaking out, Jeni's courage would see many understand MPD for the first time.THE GIRL IN THE GREEN DRESS is an unforgettable memoir from a woman who refused to be silenced. Jeni Haynes is an inspiration and her bravery and determination to live is a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. This is a unique and profoundly important book as it is not only a story of survival, it also includes incredible insight from Dr George Blair-West, Jeni's psychiatrist and an expert in DID.
The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow
by Daniel Paisner Krystyna ChigerBased on the true story explored in the Academy Award–nominated film, In Darkness, this holocaust memoir is “a gripping account of survival and friendship” (Booklist).In 1943, with Lvov’s 150,000 Jews having been exiled, killed, or forced into ghettos and facing extermination, a group of Polish Jews daringly sought refuge in the city’s sewer system. The last surviving member this group, Krystyna Chiger, shares one of the most intimate, harrowing and ultimately triumphant tales of survival to emerge from the Holocaust. The Girl in the Green Sweater is Chiger’s heartwrenching first-person account of the fourteen months she spent with her family in the fetid, underground sewers of Lvov.The Girl in the Green Sweater is also the story of Leopold Socha, the group’s unlikely savior. A Polish Catholic and former thief, Socha risked his life to help Chiger’s underground family survive, bringing them food, medicine, and supplies. A moving memoir of a desperate escape and life under unimaginable circumstances, The Girl in the Green Sweater is ultimately a tale of intimate survival, friendship, and redemption.“With a powerful story and a keen voice, Chiger’s Holocaust survivor’s tale is a worthy and memorable addition to the canon.” —Publishers Weekly“Chiger’s exceptional story . . . stands out among the many Holocaust survival narratives as one that will touch the hearts of teens and adults alike and bring home the horrors of this very dark period in history.” —School Library Journal“Through the eyes of the child that Krystyna Chiger was in Lvov, Poland in 1939 we see the whole moral universe.” —Naomi Ragen, author of The Saturday Wife and The Covenant“[A] gripping memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews
The Girl in the Middle: Growing Up Between Black and White, Rich and Poor
by Anais GranofskyA moving and vivid memoir of a young girl—long before her starring role in the Degrassi series—who was always switching between worlds, wanting only to be lovedWhen Anais Granofsky’s parents meet in the early 1970s, they are foreign and fascinating to each other. Stanley is the son of a very wealthy Toronto Jewish family; Jean is one of fifteen children from a poor Black Methodist family, direct descendants of the freed Randolph slaves. When Jean becomes pregnant at nineteen, Stanley doesn’t anticipate being cut off by his parents. Nor does the couple anticipate that Stanley, soon to rename himself Fakeer, will find his calling in the spiritual teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh on an ashram in India.The Girl in the Middle is the story of a child who spends her life navigating between two very different worlds. Alone, Anais and her mother teetered on the poverty line, sharing a mattress in a single room in social housing in Toronto, while her grandparents lived a twenty-minute car ride away on the mansion-lined Bridle Path. As Anais grows up, she spends weekends having lunch with her grandmother by the pool, while during the week, she and her mother often don’t know where their next meal will come from, even after Fakeer’s return. Anais realizes that if she wants to be loved, she has to switch identities to please each of the adult women in her family. It isn’t until she gets a role in the TV series Degrassi Junior High that Anais finds a third world—her own—and begins to define an identity for herself. The Girl in the Middle offers a powerful lens to explore how two families, one white and one Black, faced systemic oppression spanning multiple generations and came out at opposite economic classes—and how they clashed when they shared a granddaughter. With compassion and vivid storytelling, Granofsky shares her experience of living in opposite worlds, and demonstrates how generational shame, grief and prejudice ultimately lead to love and forgiveness.
The Girl in the Middle: Growing Up Between Black and White, Rich and Poor
by Anais GranofskyIn this poignant and timely memoir—written with the searing power of Beautiful Struggle and Born a Crime—Degrassi Junior High star Anais Granofsky contemplates the lingering impact of a childhood spent in two opposite and warring worlds.Though recognized around the world for her role as Lucy Hernandez on the hit show Degrassi, Anais Granofsky’s true childhood story is largely unknown. Growing up, Anais was caught between two vastly different worlds: her father, Stanley, came from a wealthy, prominent, white Jewish family in Toronto. Her mother, Jean, was one of 15 children from a poor Black Methodist family in Ohio directly descended from freed Randolph slaves. When Anais’s parents met at Antioch College in the early 1970s and soon had their first child, they didn’t anticipate being cut off by the wealthy Granofskys, or that Stanley would find his calling in the spiritual teaching of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, change his name to Fakeer, and leave his family for an ashram in India.Young Anais and her mother teetered on the abyss of poverty, sharing a mattress in a single room in social housing in Toronto, while her grandparents lived in a mansion that was 20 minutes away. As Anais grew up, she spent weekends with her wealthy Granofsky grandparents. On Saturdays and Sundays she would wear expensive clothes and eat lunch by the pool. In the weeks between, she and her mother lived day by day penniless, rarely knowing where their next meal would come from. From her earliest youth, Anais realized that if she wanted to be loved, she had to keep her two lives separate, learning to code switch between her Jewish identity on the weekend and her Black one during the week. Her life was compartmentalized, until at age 12, Anais was cast in the internationally successful television show Degrassi Junior High. The Girl in the Middle is a tale of two vastly different families and the granddaughter they shared and clashed over. Compassionate and vivid, Anais’s story is a powerful lens revealing two divided families and the systematic, generational oppression that separated them. As Anais shares her experiences growing up in opposing worlds, she offers a heart-wrenching exploration of generational trauma, love, shame, grief, and prejudice—and essential insight for healing and acceptance.
The Girl in the Picture
by Denise ChongKim Phuc was nine years old in 1972. Severely burned by napalm, she ran from her burning village and was captured on film. Denise Chong relates Kim's experience and recovery in this astonishing biography and history of America's shameful war.
The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War
by Denise ChongOn June 8, 1972, nine-year-old Kim Phuc, severely burned by napalm, ran from a misplaced air strike over her village in South Vietnam and into the eye of history. Her photograph--one of the most unforgettable images of the twentieth century--was seen around the world and helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War. This book is the story of how that photograph came to be--and the story of what happened to that girl after the blink of the camera shutter. After years in rehabilitation, and a long battle to survive in a devasted and corrupt country, Kim Phuc defected to the West in 1992 and is now a UNESCO spokesperson. "The Girl in the Picture" is at once a riveting personal story about a victim of war and of propaganda and a groundbreaking social history that offers a rare view of everyday life in Vietnam during and after the war. Nick Ut of the Associated Press took the haunting photo, which turned a terrified girl into a living symbol of the Vietnam War's horror when a South Vietnamese air force napalm strike went wrong. Award-winning Canadian biographer Denise Chong (The Concubine's Children) has written an authorized biography of Kim Phuc that is both a rare look at the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese point-of-view and one of the only books to describe everyday life in the aftermath of this war. The book unearths the lingering effects on all the war's participants and unblinkingly presents graphic depictions of the horrors that the war visited on innocent civilians. Although her parents, once relatively prosperous South Vietnamese peasants, were reduced to dire poverty when the state took over her mother's noodle shop, Kim was allowed to receive further medical treatment in Germany. But amidst these tragedies Chong finds a redemptive story in Phuc's life, which, thankfully, has a happy ending. Through the heroic efforts of Nick Ut, British correspondent Christopher Wain and others, the girl was taken to an excellent hospital in Saigon. Through 17 operations (in 24 months), an international team of doctors saved her life. Later, she fled Vietnam and lives today with her husband in Canada with their two sons. Though in near constant pain and still with the deep scarring of entire back, Phuc works as an unpaid goodwill ambassador for UNESCO and runs her own foundation for child victims of war. Chong captures Kim as a complex woman of powerful religious faith: "It was the fire of bombs that burned my body. It was the skill of doctors that mended my skin. But it took the power of God's love to heal my heart. Finalist for the 2000 Governor General's Award. By the author of the award-winning memoir "The Concubine's Children".
The Girl in the Red Coat: A Memoir
by Roma Ligocka&“This poignant [Holocaust memoir] does honor to all children bewildered by horrorand injustice.&” —Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler&’s List When she first saw Schindler's List—to whose premiere in Germany she was invited—Roma Ligocka suddenly realized she was witnessing a part of her own life. She felt instinctively that the little girl in the red coat—the only spot of color in the film—was her. When she had lived in the Krakow ghetto during the Second World War she had worn a strawberry-red coat given to her by her grandmother. Unlike the girl in Spielberg's film, however, Roma survived the war. Startled by this eerie conjunction of art and reality, Ligocka determined to write the story of her own life, to find out what had become of the little girl, and to measure who she now was. From a harrowing childhood under the Nazis, described with a simplicity and innocence that lends it even greater power, through the trials of living in Communist Poland, to a career in the theater and film (an artistic struggle paralleling that of her cousin, Roman Polanski), Ligocka traces her struggle for self-definition and happiness. The Girl in the Red Coat is a courageous and moving story of survival and triumph. &“This is not only a Holocaust memoir but also a story of one woman&’s quest for contentment.&” —Booklist &“A fascinating work that reads like a novel.&” —Library Journal
The Girl in the Red Boots: Making Peace with My Mother
by Judith Ruskay RabinorCan a mother be both loving and selfish? Caring and thoughtless? Deceitful and devoted? These are the questions that fuel psychologist Dr. Judy Rabinor’s quest to understand her ambivalence toward her mother. While leading a seminar exploring the importance of the mother-daughter relationship, Dr. Judy Rabinor, an eating disorder expert, is blindsided by a memory of a childhood trauma. Realizing how this buried trauma has resonated through her life, she sets off to heal herself. The Girl in the Red Boots weaves together tales from Rabinor’s psychotherapy practice and her life, helping readers understand how painful childhood experiences can linger and leave emotional scars. In the process, Rabinor traces her own journey becoming a wounded healer and ultimately making peace with her mother, and herself. Not a traditional self-help book outlining “steps” to reconcile or forgive one’s mother, The Girl in the Red Boots is a poignant memoir filled with hard-won life lessons, including the fact that it’s never too late to let go of hurts and disappointments and develop compassion for yourself—and even for your mother.
The Girl in the Shadows: My Life in a Cult
by Katy Morgan-Davies'I was the shadow child no one ever saw...'From the day she was born until she escaped aged 30, Katy Morgan-Davies knew nothing but a life in captivity. Her father was the deluded and cruel leader of a cult based in South London who brainwashed those around him.Her father's paranoia and his need to completely control others led to Katy being imprisoned indoors and denied any kind of love or friendship. From a young age, Katy's father subjected her to violence and mental abuse. She was not permitted contact with anyone outside the house and on the rare occasions she did have to go out, she was always chaperoned. Katy never gave up hope of one day breaking free from her father's cruel clutches and finally found her freedom. This is her true story of endurance and survival.
The Girl in the Wicker Basket
by Ann KennyWhen Ann Kenny was four years old her foster mother hit her across the face with a fireplace shovel. She was left lying unconscious on the cold hard floor while the family went to mass. She almost lost an eye.This is just one of the childhood incidents Ann recalls in her vivid, shocking memoir of growing up in rural Ireland, in a house where she wasn't wanted. Her early story is Cinderella-like, but without the happy ending: she had two older sisters who were loved, but Ann was put to work on household chores and received constant neglect and physical abuse, and sexual abuse from her grandfather. On growing up Ann found it hard to escape the shadows of her past, marrying an alcoholic and effectively raised her children herself. Ann eventually found the road to recovery and her book is a testament to the strength of a survivor. She began writing the book as she set to find out who was the tiny child she remembered left in a wicker basket - that child turned out to be herself.
The Girl in the Yellow Poncho: A Memoir
by Kristal Brent ZookAt five years old, Kristal Brent Zook sat on the steps of a Venice Beach, California, motel trying to make sense of her white father’s abandonment, which left her feeling unworthy of a man’s love and of white protection. Raised by her working-class African American mother and grandmother, Zook was taught not to count on anyone, especially men. Men leave. Men disappoint. In adulthood she became a feminist, activist, and “race woman” journalist in New York City. Despite her professional success, something was missing. Coming to terms with her identity was a constant challenge.The Girl in the Yellow Poncho is Zook’s coming-of-age tale about what it means to be biracial in America. Throughout, she grapples with in-betweenness while also facing childhood sexual assault, economic insecurity, and multigenerational alcoholism and substance abuse on both the Black and white sides of her family. Her story is one of strong Black women—herself, her cousin, her mother, and her grandmother—and the generational cycles of oppression and survival that seemingly defined their lives.Setting out on an inner journey that takes her across oceans and continents, Zook tells the story of a little girl who never gives up on love, even long after it seems to have been destroyed. In the end she triumphs, reconciling with her father and mother to create the family of her dreams through forgiveness and sheer force of will. A testament to the power of settling into one’s authentic identity, this book tells a story of a daughter’s lifelong yearning, a mother’s rediscovery of lost love, and the profound power of atonement and faith to heal a broken family.
The Girl on the Balcony: Olivia Hussey Finds Life after Romeo and Juliet
by Olivia HusseyIn 1968, Olivia Hussey became one of the most famous faces in the world, immortalized as the definitive Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet. Now the iconic girl on the balcony shares the ups and downs of her truly remarkable life and career . . . At only sixteen-years-old, she was an internationally celebrated overnight discovery. The part was an opportunity of a lifetime for a simple girl from Buenos Aires, Argentina. But for Olivia, admired for her beauty and innocence, and praised as a fresh and burgeoning young talent, the role of movie star was hard to play, and harder still, to live up to. In this candid memoir, Olivia Hussey tells her story—from being an “It Girl” in swinging 60s London and her enduring friendship with Romeo & Juliet co-star Leonard Whiting, through three tumultuous marriages—including one with Dean Martin’s son, Dino—motherhood, stage-four breast cancer, debilitating agoraphobia, bankruptcy, and ultimately, a journey of self-discovery in India that led her on a path to fulfillment. She brings readers intimately close to the legendary performers she knew, loved, worked with, and battled, including The Beatles, Vanessa Redgrave, Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, Anthony Perkins, Christopher Reeve, Lawrence Olivier, Ingrid Bergman, and more. Olivia also finally reveals for the first time, the identity of the actor—a fellow young newcomer—who raped her, but who would not break her. Featuring a foreword by her star-making director Franco Zeffirelli, Olivia Hussey’s memoir shines with her luminous spirit and perseverance as she reflects on her unique life and experiences—inspiring, surprising, and fascinating to read about.
The Girl with Nine Wigs: A Memoir
by Charlotte Caroline Jongejan Sophie van der StapA fun-loving student, Sophie is 21 when she is diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of cancer. As she faces the challenges of chemotherapy, wigs become a crucial part of her self-expression. With refreshing honesty and a keen eye for the absurd, The Girl With Nine Wigs will make you smile when you least expect it.
The Girl with Three Birthdays: An Adopted Daughter's Memoir of Tiaras, Tough Truths, and Tall Tales
by Patti EddingtonPatti Eddington always knew she was adopted, and her beloved parents seemed amenable enough to questions—but she never wanted to hurt them by expressing curiosity, so she didn’t. The story of her mother cutting off and dying her hair when she was a toddler? She thought it was eccentric and funny, nothing more. When she discovered at fifteen that her birthday wasn’t actually her birthday? She believed it when her mother said she’d changed it to protect her from the “nosy old biddies” who might try to discover her identity. It wasn’t until decades later, when a genealogy test led Patti to her biological family (including an aunt with a shocking story) and the discovery of yet another birthday, that she really began to integrate what she thought she knew about her origins. Determined to know the truth, she finally petitioned a court to unseal records that had been locked up for almost sixty years—and began to put the pieces of her past together, bit by painstaking bit. Framed by a brief but poignant 1963 “Report of Investigation” based on a caseworker’s one-day visit to Patti’s childhood home, The Girl With Three Birthdays tells the story of an adoptee who always believed she was the answer to a couple’s seventeen-year journey to become parents, until a manila envelope from a rural county court arrived and caused her to question . . . everything.
The Girl with Three Legs: A Memoir
by Eve Ensler Soraya MiréHaving experienced firsthand the horror of female genital mutilation (FGM), Soraya Miré reveals the personal violation and immense challenges she overcame. This book is at once an intimate revelation, a testament to the empowerment of women, and an indictment of the violent global oppression of women and girls. This forthright narrative recounts what it means to grow up female in a traditional Somali family, where girls' and women's basic human rights are violated on a daily basis. Forced into an arranged marriage to an abusive older cousin, Miré was also witness to the instability of Somalia's political landscape--her father was a general in the military dictatorship of Siad Barre. In her journey to recover from the violence done to her, Miré realizes FGM is the ultimate child abuse, a ritual of mutilation handed down from mother to daughter and protected by the word "culture." Despite the violations she endured, her words resonate with hope, humanity, and dignity. Her life story is truly one of inspiration and redemption.