Biography, an informative narrative, is nonfiction in that it is centered on the story of an actual person’s life. The events of this person's life are portrayed through a writer’s eyes. The writer selects from the information available those fragments that can then be shaped into a cohesive story. Biographies vary in the degree of fictionalization and liberties that an author takes. Some writers use only documented facts; whereas other writers may choose to embellish the facts to create a believable account of a person’s life. Some biographies, such as I, Juan de Pareja and Tituba of Salem Village, are so fictionalized that they are no longer considered to be nonfiction and are labeled as juvenile fiction.  Robert Lawson in Ben and Me took fictionalized biography to the fanciful level in his account of Ben Franklin's life as seen by Amos the mouse, giving the reader another perspective on biography.  Scroll down to see the Booklist for this genre.

The key criteria for selecting titles in the biography collection centered on the importance of the person chosen as the subject for the work as well as the biographer's mode of presentation.  In order to understand who we are as a people, readers today need to know about the life and times of Martin Luther King: The Peaceful Warrior as well as to learn about contemporary astronaut Sally Ride in To Space and Back.

Biographies give readers a close look at historical figures that  were important in shaping the America we know and love. Russell Friedman’s Lincoln: A Photobiography conveys new insights into this historical leader with photographs that reveal the degree of his struggle over the issue of slavery and the Civil War.  Virginia Hamilton’s Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave describes a man who escaped from slavery but who was tracked down and later tried.

Autobiographies, stories of one’s own life, give an even closer view inside another person. Readers of Little by Little: A Writer’s Education will empathize with Jean Little’s account of her difficult years growing up with a serious visual handicap and share her triumph when her first poem is published. Jean Fritz, another noted writer, shows us what her life was like as she grew up in China as a missionary child in Homesick: My Own Story.  While this "autobiography" is highly fictionalized, it is included in this collection to demonstrate another author's approach to sharing her experiences.

A glimpse of the biography titles included in the Core Collection will reveal a balance between sung and unsung heroes and heroines, each of which will provide positive role models for young readers.

Recommended Placement Level: The following chart lists the titles by our level designations.  A column is provided for you to indicate placement or reading level based on your student population and your class for a given year.  You can print this page and work with your school librarian and the reading coordinator to identify books that are challenging for your students, easy for your students, or right on grade level.  We also suggest that you have several books available and let your students select a book based on their interest and/or favorite genre.  Oftentimes, your students will stretch to the level of the book because their interest is so high.  To confirm the selection, you might choose to have your student(s) read a page aloud.

Ethnic Group:  Books with Ethnic themes provide numerous opportunities for readers to learn more about themselves as well as children from other ethnic groups. Many of the titles were chosen because they reflect both the cultural traditions and contemporary experiences of the ethnic groups in our multicultural society. These titles are indicated as follows: As-A for Asian American Af-A for African American; Hi-A for Hispanic American; Je-A for Jewish American; Na-A for Native American.