Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/11/2011
ISBN-13: 9780547424859
ISBN-10: 054742485X

Author Eric Greitens, a Rhodes scholar and White House fellow, sought as an undergraduate to make connections with cultures very different from his own. Later, after volunteering in several refugee camps, he began to worry more about preventing the violence that displaced people from their homes. His concern prompted him to join the Navy and become a SEAL. This thought-provoking and inspiring memoir tells how Greitens combines compassion and military dedication into a balanced whole. For another soldier's inspiring memoir about humanitarian service, read It Happened on the Way to War by Rye Barcott.

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Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/16/2011
ISBN-13: 9780547327938
ISBN-10: 0547327935

Derek Jeter is one of Major League baseball's star players, known not only for his abilities on the field but for his amiable relationships with fans and sportswriters. As a boy, he predicted he would play for the Yankees, who, sure enough, drafted him at age 18. Growing up in Michigan and spending summers near Jersey City working with his grandfather, Jeter developed skills as a player and a hardworking attitude that have not been dulled by celebrity. Biographer Ian O'Connor puts detailed research into this unauthorized biography that will captivate Yankees fans and all lovers of baseball. For an earlier book on Jeter in his own words, take a look at The Life You Imagine.

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Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/03/2011
ISBN-13: 9780446583770
ISBN-10: 0446583774

When Alice Ozma was nine years old, she and her father made a deal that he would read to her at bedtime for 100 nights in a row--no exceptions. Once they made that goal, they found they didn't want to stop, even after 1,000 nights. Alice's father, an elementary school librarian, was dedicated to the promotion of reading, but "The Streak," as they called their reading practice, was valuable for much more than the reading itself. It became the anchor of the father-daughter relationship, helping to sustain Alice through her mother's abandonment, her sister's sojourn abroad, and other wrenching experiences. Ozma's memoir is an inspiring testament to the power of books and reading for life--not just education.

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/11/2011
ISBN-13: 9780151015085
ISBN-10: 0151015082

Portuguese novelist José Saramago, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, died at age 87 in June, 2010, leaving behind this memoir. He writes detailed vignettes of life in his grandparents' fishing village, where he was born and later spent his summers, alternating with his family's life in Lisbon after they moved there. Vivid, lovingly described characters and scenes present an enthralling account of his childhood and youth. Whether you know Saramago mainly from the motion picture based on his novel Blindness, or have read every word of his novels, you'll enjoy his beautiful writing in this brief memoir.

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Publisher: Harmony Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/31/2011
ISBN-13: 9780307382337
ISBN-10: 0307382338

From her youth during the Depression through her years as Frank Sinatra's wife, Barbara Sinatra's memoir describes the American Dream of many young women of her generation. Her family moved to California from Missouri when she was a teenager, and soon Barbara embarked on a career as a model that brought her together with entertainers and celebrities. She married Zeppo Marx and joined the Hollywood inner circle. Later, in 1976, she married Frank Sinatra and remained with him until his death more than 20 years later. Barbara gives plenty of inside scoop on Hollywood life, but if you can't get enough of Ol' Blue Eyes himself, read Frank by James Kaplan, an account of the crooner and actor's earlier years.

Publisher: HarperCollins
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/01/2008
ISBN-13: 9780061240300
ISBN-10: 0061240303

Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Jeff Gammage and his wife went to China in 2006 to adopt a two-year-old girl. Economic conditions and the country's "one child" policy result in the abandonment of many girl babies by families who want to have a boy instead. Two years after they adopted Jin Yu, the Gammages returned to China and adopted baby Zhao Gu. This moving memoir of Gammage's loving relationship with his adopted daughters also thoroughly examines the adoption process in China and the complexities of race and culture as they affect both the children and their American families. For another story about adopting a girl from China, read Wuhu Diary by Emily Prager.

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Publisher: Penguin Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 03/25/2008
ISBN-13: 9780143113317
ISBN-10: 0143113313

After her birth mother got in touch with her out of the blue, novelist A. M. Homes pieced together the details of her irregular adoption. Then she had to deal with both the unexpected death of the mother she had met just once and the hostility of her birth father. The resulting memoir is a "fierce and eloquent" (New York Times) account of the upheaval that came from meeting her biological parents at age 31. If you want to read more of Homes' writing, try her novel In A Country of Mothers.

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/14/2008
ISBN-13: 9780812975659
ISBN-10: 0812975650

Elyse Schein knew she was adopted, and at the age of 35 decided to find out more about her roots. She learned--to her surprise--that she had a twin sister, Paula Bernstein, and got in touch with her. The twins joined forces in researching their background: why they were separated, the twin study connected with the agency that handled their adoption, the identity of their birth mother. Told by both sisters in alternating chapters, this is a real-life detective story as well as a personal account of the emotional effects of their newfound relationship. Publishers Weekly calls it a "transfixing memoir."

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Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/05/2005
ISBN-13: 9781400081608
ISBN-10: 1400081602

Journalist Neely Tucker is a white man from Mississippi; his wife is an African-American woman from Detroit. When Tucker was assigned by the Detroit Free Press to a post in Zimbabwe, they met and fell in love with Chipo, a little girl in an orphanage, and were allowed to take her home. When they sought permission to adopt their daughter formally, however, they were hindered by red tape and hostile bureaucrats who resented Americans. This affecting memoir is a story of interracial relationships and international resentments, but above all, of perseverance motivated by love.

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Publisher: Henry Holt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/13/2010
ISBN-13: 9780805093384
ISBN-10: 0805093389

Baltimore Ravens football star Michael Oher, whose story was told in the book and film The Blind Side, grew up in inner-city Memphis, neglected by his family and fending for himself on the streets and in foster homes. Then Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy met the African-American teenager walking along the street in winter, wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. Inspired to make a snap decision, the middle-class white couple took Michael in and gave him the love and care he had never had. The Tuohys' inspiring account, full of humor and goodwill, explains their Christian beliefs about reaching out to others, summed up in the book's subtitle, Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving.

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