Autobiographies for 7th and 8th Graders
at the Elmhurst Public Library

The Searching Spirit: Joy Adamson’s Autobiography
This Austrian woman spent most of her adult life in Kenya as a conservationist and painter; she is best known as the author of Born Free, a book about her work in returning Elsa the lioness to the African wilds.  244 pages   (921 Adamson)

My Lord, What a Morning: An Autobiography  
by Marian Anderson
The first African American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera, Anderson used her marvelous voice to fight racism.  314 pages   (921 Anderson)

The Times of My Life: A Memoir  
by Brent Ashabranner
The prolific author describes how his interest in writing developed as he was growing up in the Oklahoma of the Depression and chronicles his years after World War II as a government worker in Africa and a Peace Corps official.  114 pages   (J 921 Ashabranner)

Days of Grace  
by Arthur Ashe
Tennis star Ashe writes about his career, his political activism, and his battle against the HIV virus, contracted during heart surgery.  317 pages   (921 Ashe)

Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Patillo Beals
One of the “Little Rock Nine,” Beals relates the horror and the triumph she experienced at age 15, when she entered the hostile hallways of Central High.   312 pages   (370.19342 Bea)

As the Waltz Was Ending  
by Emma Macalik Butterworth
An autobiographical account of a young girl whose ballet career with the Vienna State Opera was interrupted by the invasion of the Nazis and who later had to fight for her life during the Russian occupation.  187 pages   (J 921 Butterworth)

A Girl from Yamhill: A Memoir  
by Beverly Cleary
Follows the popular children's author from her childhood years in Oregon through high school and into young adulthood, highlighting her family life and her growing interest in writing.  279 pages  (J 921 Cleary)

Boy: Tales of a Childhood  
by Roald Dahl
Presents humorous anecdotes from the author's childhood which includes summer vacations in Norway and an English boarding school.  176 pages   (J PB Dahl  and J 921 Dahl)

Going Solo  
by Roald Dahl
As a young man working in East Africa for the Shell Company, Roald Dahl recounts his adventures living in the jungle and later flying a fighter plane in World War II.  209 pages  (J PB Dahl  and  823.914 D137)

Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo  
by Zlata Filipovic
A Croatian girl tells of her life during the war in Sarajevo.  200 pages  (J 949.742 Filipovic)

The Abracadabra Kid: A Writer's Life  
by Sid Fleischman
The autobiography of the Newbery award-winning children's author who set out from childhood to be a magician. Along the way he became a World War II pilot and a screen-writer for John Wayne movies.  198 pages  (J 813.54 Fle)

The Diary of a Young Girl  
by Anne Frank
Anne’s diary describes her life and the lives of the seven people who hid in an attic with her for two years to avoid arrest by the Nazis.  340 pages  (921 Frank  and  J PB Frank)

The Autobiography and Other Writings  
by Benjamin Franklin
Wise and witty words from a signer of the Declaration of Independence, inventor, diplomat, printer, and author.  361 pages   (921 Franklin)

A Pioneer Woman's Memoir: Based on the Journal of Arabella Clemens Fulton  
by Arabella Fulton       160 pages   (J 978.02 Ful  and  978.02 Ful)

Eleanor's Story: An American Girl in Hitler's Germany  
by Eleanor Garner
When she was eight, Eleanor’s father took his family from America to Germany to take a two-year job. While they were on the ship to Germany, World War II was declared; Eleanor’s family would spend the next six years trying to survive bombs, hunger, and, worst of all, the Nazis.  268 pages  (J 940.548173 Gar)

The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia  
by Esther Hautzig
Ten-year-old Esther, her mother and grandmother were taken by the Russians from Poland to Siberia in 1941, and forced to work. They managed to stay together and alive for four horrible years.  243 pages  (J 921 H297)

Rocket Boys  
by Homer Hickam
The son of a miner, growing up in Coalwood, West Virginia during the 1950's, dreams of building rockets, while his father expects him to “be a man” and join him in the coal mines. 368 pages   (921 Hickam)

Sky: A True Story of Resistance during World War II  
by Hanneke Ippisch
The true story of a young girl's involvement with the Dutch Resistance during World War II and her subsequent arrest and imprisonment by the Germans.  146 pages   (J 940.53492 Ipp)

The Story of My Life  
by Helen Keller
Includes Helen’s letters and an account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan.  213 pages   (J 921 Keller  and  921 Keller)

I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust  
by Livia Jackson
Thirteen-year-old Elli and her family were taken from their home in Hungary in 1944 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. This book tells how they survived two nightmarish years.  224 pages   (J 940.5318 Jac)

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution   
by Ji Li Jiang
A true-story of Ji-li Jiang, twelve year-old girl, whose family is accused of capitalist crimes during China's Cultural Revolution.  285 pages   (J 951.056 Jia)

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio  
by Peg Kehret
The author describes her battle against polio when she was thirteen and her efforts to overcome its debilitating effects.  179 pages  (J 362.196835 Keh)

Me, Me, Me, Me, Me: Not a Novel  
by M.E. Kerr
The author recounts escapades from her own teenage years and reveals how many of those real-life people and events served as springboards for the fictional characters and plots in her nine young adult novels.  212 pages   (J 9221 Ker)

Lost Childhood: My Life in a Japanese Prison Camp During World War II 
by Annelex H. Layson
In a shockingly honest narrative, a former prisoner-of-war tells how her family and ten thousand other Dutch residents living in the Dutch East Indies were shipped off to internment camps where food rationing, terrible sanitary conditions, and an uncertain future were the norm for more than three years.  (J 940.5317 Layson)

No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War  
by Anita Lobel
The author, known as an illustrator of children's books, describes her experiences as a Polish Jew during World War II and for years in Sweden afterwards. 193 pages   (J 921 Lobel  and  YA 921 Lobel)

Looking Back : A Book of Memories  
by Lois Lowry
Using family photographs and quotes from her books, the author provides glimpses into her life.  181 pages   (J 921 Lowry)

Courage Was the Rule: General Douglas MacArthur's Own Story  
by Douglas MacArthur
An abridged version of the five-star general’s memoirs.   296 pages  (J 921 Mc12)

West with the Night  
by Beryl Markham
A beautifully written memoir by a woman pilot in East Africa in the 1920s. 293 pages (J 921 Markham  and  921 Markham)

Starting from Home: A Writer’s Beginnings  
by Milton Meltzer
Meltzer recounts the discoveries, hardships, and triumphs of his early life and the influences that shaped him as a person and writer.   145 pages   (J 921 Meltzer)

Born Naked  
by Farley Mowat
When in his seventies, nature writer Mowat wrote this enjoyable autobiography about his idyllic childhood in Canada, during the 1920’s and ‘30s. Even then, his love of animals was a defining part of his life.  256 pages   (818.54 Mow)

Bad Boy: A Memoir  
by Walter Dean Myers
A children's author tells the story of growing up in Harlem during the 1940s and 1950s. During a time in which he rejected the values of a loving home and community and got into trouble frequently, his love of reading endured.  214 pages   (J 921 Myers  and  YA 921 Myers)

In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer  
by Irene Gut Opdyke
Recounts the experiences of the author who, as a young Polish girl, hid and saved Jews during the Holocaust.   276 pages   (J 940.5318 Opd  and  YA 940.5318 Opd)

Rosa Parks: My Story  
by Rosa Parks
One brave woman with a “very strong sense of what was fair” refused to be treated as a second class citizen, and sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and the civil rights movement.  192 pages   (J 921 Parks)

Never Die Easy: The Autobiography of Walter Payton
This autobiography of “Sweetness” is mixed with recollections by family and friends. Payton, the NFL’s leading all-time rusher, was known for his character as much as his accomplishments on the field: a hard-worker, gracious, polite, charitable and fond of practical jokes.  268 pages  (921 Payton)

My Life in Dog’s Years  
by Gary Paulsen
The author describes some of the dogs that have had special places in his life, including his first dog, Snowball, in the Phillippines; Dirk, who protected him from bullies; and Cookie, who saved his life.  137 pages  (J 921 Paulsen)

Bill Peet: An Autobiography  
by Bill Peet
The well-known author and illustrator relates the story of his life and work, including his time as an animator at the Disney studios.  190 pages   (J 813.54 Pee)

Within Reach: My Everest Story  
by Mark Pfetzer
The author describes how he spent his teenage years climbing mountains in the United States, South America, Africa, and Asia, with an emphasis on his two dangerous expeditions up Mount Everest.  224 pages   (J PB Pfetzer)

The Upstairs Room  
by Johanna ReissA Dutch Jewish girl describes the two-and-one-half years she spent in hiding in the upstairs bedroom of a farmer's house during World War II.  196 pages   (J 940.5315 Rei)

The Only Way I Know  
by Cal RipkinMemoirs of the great Baltimore Orioles baseball player.  326 pages   (J 796.357092 Rip and  921 Ripkin)

Breakthrough to the Big League  
by Jackie Robinson
An autobiography of the baseball star who was the first black player to be accepted by a major league team.   168 pages   (J 921 Robinson)

Prairie-town Boy  
by Carl Sandburg
An autobiographical account of the author's boyhood in the Midwest.  179 pages   (J 921 Sa5)

Witness to Our Times: My Life as a Photojournalist  
by Flip Schulke
An autobiography of a man whose documentary photographs in American magazines helped to shape public opinion on such issues as the civil rights movement and the space race. 112 pages   (J 921 Schulke)

Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary, 1939-1944  
by Aranka Siegal
Recounts the bewilderment of being a Jewish child in Hungary between 1939 and 1944, and relates the ordeal of survival in the ghetto.  213 pages   (J 947.718 Sie)

A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw  
by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Nineteen autobiographical stories about the author's childhood in Poland from 1908 to 1918.  227 pages   (J 921 Si64)

Knots in My Yo-yo String: The Autobiography of a Kid 
by Jerry Spinelli
This Italian-American Newbery Medalist presents a humorous account of his childhood and youth in Norristown, Pennsylvania.  148 pages  (J 921 Spinelli  and  J PB Spinelli)

Students on Strike: Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Brown, and Me: A Memoir 
by John Stokes
(J 379.2 Sto)

Leon’s Story  
by Leon Tillage
The son of a sharecropper recalls the hard times faced by his family and other African Americans in the first half of the 20th century and the changes the civil rights movement helped bring about.  107 pages   (J 975.655 Til)

The Invisible Thread: An Autobiography  
by Yoshiko Uchida
The author describes growing up in Berkeley, California, as a Nisei, second generation Japanese American, and her family's internment in a Nevada concentration camp during World War II.  136 pages  (J 921 Uchida)

Up from Slavery  
by Booker T. Washington
Born a slave on a tobacco plantation in 1856, Washington struggled to succeed after the Civil War, and became an educator, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute, and America’s most influential black leader. His autobiography is a classic of American literature.  330 pages  (J 921 W273)

Rattlesnake Mesa: Stories from a Native American Childhood  
by EdNah New Rider Weber
An unusual memoir about the author’s experiences, good and bad, at a military-like Catholic school that she was required to attend under the harsh government restrictions of the early 1900s.   132 pages   (J 921 Weber)

My Diary – My World  
by Elizabeth Yates
Drawing on her diaries written from age 12 to 20, the author depicts her life as daughter of a well-to-do-upstate New York family and her determination to become a writer despite her family's objections.  187 pages  (J 921 Yates)

Yeager: An Autobiography  
by Chuck Yeager
Test pilot Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier, tells about his life, his years as fighter pilot in World War II, and his work.  342 pages   (623.746048 Yeager)

The Lost Garden  
by Laurence Yep
This Chinese American from San Francisco describes how he came to use his writing to celebrate his family and his ethnic heritage.  117 pages  (J 921 Yep)

The Pigman and Me  
by Paul Zindel
An account of Paul Zindel's teenage years on Staten Island, when his life was enriched by finding his own personal pigman, or mentor.  168 pages  (J 921 Zindel)