Describes the life, dancing, and choreography of Alvin Ailey, who created his own modern dance company to explore the black experience.

Sail the stars with astronaut Charlie Bolden as he recounts his amazing shuttle missions, including deploying the Hubble Space Telescope, training with Sally Ride, and leading the first US space mission that included a Russian cosmonaut as a crew member. Charlie even got to congratulate Star Wars creator George Lucas at the Academy Awards from space! Follow Charlie's incredible story, from watching movies as a kid about Flash Gordon flying to Mars...

A biography of the African-American woman who overcame crippling polio as a child to become the first woman to win three gold medals in track in a single Olympics.

In this stylish and complex memoir, Laymon, an English professor at the University of Mississippi and novelist (Long Division), presents bittersweet episodes of being a chubby outsider in 1980s Mississippi. He worships his long-suffering, resourceful grandmother, who loves the land her relatives farmed for generations and has resigned herself to the fact of commonplace bigotry. Laymon laces the memoir with clever, ironic observations about secrets,...

A biography of the Hall of Fame baseball player who broke Babe Ruth's career home run record.

Presents the life of the legendary boxer who began his career as Cassius Clay, discussing his prowess in the ring, his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War, and his life after boxing.

"The life of Junius G. Groves, a sharecropper in Kansas who grew a modest potato farm into a potato kingdom."-- Provided by publisher.