Hit: Primary Biographies

[Michele Engelbrecht <MEngelbrec@AOL.COM>]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for primary level biographies,
especially 20th century ones.  Here are your responses:

"A Picture Book Life Of..." including Rosa Parks, Frederick
Douglas, Jesse Owens.  I know one of the authors is Adler.

Lerner(800-328-4929) under its Carolrhoda imprint has a good 3-4 series
calledCreative Minds Biographies.  Carol Greene has written a good series of
biographies published by Childrens Press.  For Columbus I recommend a
book which is in Lerner's holiday series, but it is an excellent, easy
and accurate biography for the youngest kids: _Columbus Day_ by Vicki
Liestman, Carolrhoda 1991. It's available at Follett or Lerner.

Rookie Biographies By Children's Press is a very basic series.  I have used
it starting in 2nd grade

Our kids really enjoy the biography series written
by David Adler.   They are picture book-type books about famous
people (like Martin Luther King, George Washington, Abe Lincoln,
Anne Frank, Sitting Bull, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, etc.)
that contain many facts in a simple format with illustrations
(very colorful and not intimidating).

Jean Fritz's historical biographies are also nice... a little
more reading involved, though.

I love Carolrhoda's Creative Minds Biographies. They are easy,
interesting, and accurate. They include some old standards and some
unusual but interesting people like Hershey and Strauss (as in blue
jeans). It's a fairly small series, but worth looking at. (Carolrhoda is
part of the Lerner Publishing Group.)

My third graders were mesmerized when I read them the "Picture Book
Biography of Rosa Parks" during MLK week.  (Didn't have the one about
MLK--but this tied in.)  There are enough basic facts to bring the person's
accomplishments into focus and the illustrations help hold their attention.
I have a couple others in the series and I have ordered the whole set.

Rookie Biographies by Children's Press

I have used the Adler books,  James Stevenson's autobiographical books and a
greeat read aloud is the Bill Peet Autobiography.

The Rookie Biographies by Childrens Press, written by Carol Greene, are
the perfect reading level for 2nd and 3rd graders, but are not 20th
century people.

Try the Raintree-Steck Vaughn catalog.  They have a
series of biography books which I am ordering for grades 3 - 4. Dr. Seuss
is one of them, R. L. Stine, Jim Carrey, etc.