http://mppl.org/services/teen-services/good-reads/?category=teens&list=2025+Teen+Book+Bingo%3A+Biography+or+Memoir
List: 2025 Teen Book Bingo: Biography or Memoir
The Fire Never Goes Out
In a collection of personal comics that span eight years of her young adult life, author-illustrator Noelle Stevenson charts the highs and lows of being a creative human in the world.
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Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler
Acclaimed novelist Ibi Zoboi illuminates the young life of the visionary storyteller Octavia E. Butler in poems and prose. Born into the Space Race, the Red Scare, and the dawning Civil Rights Movement, Butler experienced an American childhood that shaped her into the groundbreaking science-fiction storyteller whose novels continue to challenge and delight readers fifteen years after her death.
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A Different Kind of Normal
Hi! My name is Abigail, and I'm autistic. But I didn't know I was autistic until I was (kind of) an adult. This is my true story of growing up in the confusing "normal" world, all the while missing some Very Important Information about myself. There'll be scary moments involving toilets and crowded trains, heartwarming tales of cats and pianos, and funny memories including my dad and a mysterious tub of ice cream. Along the way, you'll also find some Very Crucial Information about autism. Important, funny, and completely unique, this book is for anyone who has ever felt different.
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Disappearing Act
Moving and evocative, this YA memoir-in-verse follows author Jiordan Castle's coming-of-age as her family reckons with the aftershocks of her father's imprisonment.
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Golden Boy: Beethoven's Youth
Master cartoonist Mikael Ross tells the story of Beethoven from 1778 to his first major public appearance in Vienna in 1795. It begins when the family is living a difficult life in Bonn. Father Johann battles with alcoholism and is deep in debt. Only young Ludwig and his talent at the piano offer any hope for the future--if only he would stop composing his own pieces and just play what's expected of him.
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The Ballerina of Auschwitz
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.
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The Beautiful Struggle
A memoir from Ta-Nehisi Coates, in which he details the challenges on the streets and within one's family, especially the eternal struggle for peace between a father and son and the important role family plays in such circumstances.
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Dissenter on the Beach: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life and Work
The life and career of the fiercely principled Supreme Court Justice, now a popular icon, with dramatic accounts of her landmark cases that moved the needle on legal protection of human rights.
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Call Him Jack: The Story of Jackie Robinson, Black Freedom Fighter
An enthralling, eye-opening portrayal of this barrier-breaking American hero as a lifelong, relentlessly proud fighter for Black justice and civil rights.
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As Fast as Her: Dream Big, Break Barriers, Achieve Success
The world told Kendall Coyne to slow down. They said "not so fast" when she picked up hockey skates instead of figure skates. They said "just a minute" when she tried out for the boy's team. They told her "you're not enough" so often that she started to believe it. But Kendall had a passion and a dream, so instead of slowing down, she sped up, going on to win Olympic gold and a spot in the Fastest Skater Competition at the 2019 NHL All-Star Weekend. As Fast as Her explores how Kendall held on to her dream, overcame her insecurities and naysayers, and pushed herself past barriers to achieve her goals-and how you can too!
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Black Internet Effect
Musician and technology phenom Shavone Charles explores how curiosity and nerve led her from a small college in Merced, California, to some of the most influential spaces in the tech world: from Google to Twitter to eventually landing a spot on the coveted Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Grateful for being the first in many spaces, but passionate about being neither the last nor the only, Charles tells her story in the hopes of guiding others and shaping a future where people, particularly women of color, feel empowered to make space for themselves and challenge society's status quos.
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A Face for Picasso: Coming of Age with Crouzon Syndrome
The first known identical twins to survive Crouzon syndrome, Ariel and Zan underwent many appearance-altering procedures. In this memoir, Ariel explores identity and beauty, and the strength it takes to put your life, and yourself, back together time and time again.
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Hurdles in the Dark
In this inspiring story of grit, tenacity, and hope, a Mexican-American track star shares how she found freedom from poverty, violence, and an inappropriate coach-student relationship by becoming one of the top ranked hurdlers in the U.S. and the first in her family to attend college.
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How Do I Draw These Memories?
Jonell Joshua spent her childhood shuttling back and forth between Savannah and New Jersey -- living in grandparents' homes during the times her mother, struggling with mental illness, needed support to raise her and her brothers. Together the family found a way to keep going even in the darkest of times. This illustrated memoir about nostalgia, faith, the preciousness of life, and unconditional love.
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How the Boogeyman Became a Poet
Poet, writer, and hip-hop educator Tony Keith Jr. makes his debut with a powerful YA memoir in verse, tracing his journey from being a closeted gay Black teen battling poverty, racism, and homophobia to becoming an openly gay first-generation college student who finds freedom in poetry.
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¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico
In this memoir, Christine Suggs explores a trip they took to Mexico to visit family, as Christine embraces and rebels against their heritage and finds a sense of belonging.
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Pieces of a Girl
A memoir about abuse and addiction and the power of storytelling and community that helped zine creator and novelist Stephanie Kuehnert survive and thrive. Told in journal entries, original illustrations, and pages torn from her actual diaries and zines, this is the story of Stephanie's life as a struggling outsider who survived substance and relationship abuse to become a strong young woman after years trapped in a cycle that sometimes seemed to have no escape.
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Funny Gyal: My Fight Against Homophobia in Jamaica
The inspiring story of Angeline Jackson, who stood up to Jamaica's oppression of queer youth to demand recognition and justice.
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The Girl Who Fought Back: Vladka Meed and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
In 1940s Warsaw, Poland, when her family is deported to concentration camps, teenage Vladka joins the Jewish underground, a group determined to fight back against the Nazis, becoming a smuggler of secret messages and weapons out of the Warsaw Ghetto to prepare for an uprising like no other.
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They Better Call Me Sugar: My Journey from the Hood to the Hardwood
Sugar Rodgers's road to a successful WNBA career was fraught with hardship and tragedy. Left essentially homeless at fourteen, she clung to basketball as a way to keep herself focused and sane. Here Rodgers delivers a powerful message of discipline, perseverance, and self-determination for anyone growing up in economically challenging conditions.
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The Sun Does Shine: An Innocent Man, a Wrongful Conviction, and the Long Path to Justice
Adapted for young readers, this true story follows a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit and how he transformed not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, until his release in 2015.
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Work with What You Got
Zion Clark has always had big dreams for himself despite the many hardships he faced growing up as a Black disabled child in the foster care system of Ohio. His childhood years were marked by instability as he moved from home to home, experiencing abuse and neglect. And yet his determination and grit pushed him to become an elite wrestler and wheelchair racer. His constant reinvention led him to activism, speaking out about the failings of the foster care system. The list of Zion's accomplishments and accolades is lengthy, but he's not even close to slowing down. As he says, "Work with what you got! If I can do it, so can you."
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Passport
Young Sophia has lived in so many different countries, she can barely keep count. Stationed now with her family in Central America because of her parents' work, Sophia feels displaced as an American living abroad, when she has hardly spent any of her life in America. Everything changes when she reads a letter she was never meant to see and uncovers her parents' secret. They are not who they say they are. They are working for the CIA. As Sophia tries to make sense of this news, and the web of lies surrounding her, she begins to question everything. The impact that this has on Sophia's emerging sense of self and understanding of the world makes for a page-turning exploration of lies and double lives.
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This Indian Kid
Growing up impoverished and shuttled between different households, it seemed life was bound to take a certain path for Eddie Chuculate. Despite the challenges he faced, his upbringing was rich with love and bountiful lessons from his Creek and Cherokee heritage, deep-rooted traditions he embraced even as he learned to live within the culture of white, small-town America that dominated his migratory childhood.
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From Here
Refugee advocate Luma Mufleh writes of her tumultuous journey to reconcile her identity as a gay Muslim woman and a proud Arab-turned-American refugee.
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Stephen King: His Life, Work, and Influences
A thrilling visual companion curated for young adults voraciously reading their way through Stephen King’s colossal corpus of creepy books.
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Piece by Piece: How I Built my Life (No Instructions Required)
David Aguilar was born missing part of one arm, a small detail that seemed to define his life and limit people's ideas of who he was and who he could be. But in this funny and heartfelt memoir, David proves that he can throw out the rulebook and people's expectations and maybe even make a difference in the world--and all with a sense of humor. At only nine years old, David built his first prosthesis from LEGO bricks, and since then he hasn't stopped creating and thinking about how his inventions, born from a passion for building things, could fuel change and help others.
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Speak Up, Speak Out!: The Extraordinary Life of
Meticulously researched and reviewed by experts, this inspiring biography of the first Black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives shows how change happens when you speak up and speak out.
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Inuunira: My Story of Survival
In this harrowing survival story, Brian Koonoo takes off on a hunting trip in Canada's Arctic. After his snowmobile breaks down, his GPS loses signal, and his camping fuel runs low, Brian is left alone to survive for seven days. He experiences close encounters with planes, blizzards, and hunger, all while much of his gear is lost, and walking long distances in search of safety. He uses the knowledge his father and Elders taught him--modern and traditional means of navigation, finding water, making shelters, and keeping his spirits up--to continue on. This true tale of survival is presented in a journal style with illustrations, photos, and diagrams.
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Punching Bag
Punching Bag is the compelling true story of a high school career defined by poverty and punctuated by outbreaks of domestic abuse. Rex Ogle here describes his struggle to survive; reflects on his complex, often paradoxical relationship with his passionate, fierce mother; and charts the trajectory of his stepdad's anger. Hovering over Rex's story is the talismanic presence of his unborn baby sister.
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Quiet Fire: Emily Dickinson's Life and Poetry
Emily Dickinson is revered as one of America's greatest and most original poets. Quiet Fire presents the life and art of Dickinson through the poet's own letters and poems.
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Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir
Tyler Feder shares her story of her mother's first oncology appointment to facing reality as a motherless daughter in this frank and refreshingly funny graphic memoir
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