Jonathan Starr is not your traditional do-gooder, and in 2009, when he decided to found Abaarso, a secondary school in Somaliland, the choice seemed crazy to even his closest friends. Why, they wondered, would he turn down a life of relative luxury to relocate to an armed compound in a breakaway region of the world's number one failed state? To achieve his mission, Starr would have to overcome profound cultural differences, broken promises, and threats to his safety and that of his staff.

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms.

The star of Marvel’s first Asian superhero film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, tells his own origin story of being a Chinese immigrant, his battles with cultural stereotypes and his own identity, becoming a TV star, and landing the role of a lifetime.

Through the Fires is a triumphant comeback story in life and business. Robert Carr reflects on decades of struggle that took him to the brink of financial ruin at age 50. Carr would later make a fortune in the card payments industry only to lose almost everything in 2009 after one of the most devastating data breaches ever.

This book is a four-generation family journey from repression and poverty in China to freedom and prosperity in the United States. Their lives overlap with many significant historical events taking....

The true story of a man, who at age 10, ran away from home and for five years, he survived on the streets of Kampala, Uganda, a city of 1.5 million. One man saw potential in him, supported Peter through school, and forever altered Peter's outlook in every possible way. Since then, Peter's turn-around story only becomes more remarkable. In Now I Am Known, Peter reveals the transformational power of taking risks, learning to forgive, overcoming self-doubt, and believing in a better future marked by optimism and purpose.

Will Jawando tells a deeply affirmative story of hope and respect for men of color. As a boy growing up outside DC, Will, who went by his Nigerian name, Yemi, never quite fit in. He was a Black kid with a divorced white mother, a frayed relationship with his biological father, and teachers who scolded him for being disruptive in class. Eventually, he became close to Kalfani, a kid he looked up to. Years after he got the call that Kalfani was dead, another casualty of gun violence, Will looks back on the extraordinary mentors that enabled him to thrive.

America Ferrera has always felt wholly American, and yet, her identity is inextricably linked to her parents’ homeland and Honduran culture. Speaking Spanish at home, having Saturday morning salsa-dance parties in the kitchen, and eating tamales alongside apple pie at Christmas never seemed at odds with her American identity. Still, she yearned to see that identity reflected in the larger American narrative. Now, in American Like Me, America invites 31 of her friends, peers, and heroes to share their stories about life between cultures.

On the surface, Arce's story sounds like a how-to manual for achieving the American dream: growing up in an apartment on the outskirts of San Antonio, she worked tirelessly, achieved academic excellence, and landed a coveted job on Wall Street, complete with a six-figure salary. The level of professional and financial success that she achieved was the very definition of the American dream. But in this brave new memoir, Arce digs deep to reveal the physical, financial, and emotional costs of the stunning secret.

Phiona Mutesi sleeps in a decrepit shack with her mother and four siblings and struggles to find a single meal each day. Phiona Mutesi is also one of the best chess players in the world. One day in 2005, while searching for food, nine-year-old Phiona followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende, another child of the Ugandan slums, who works for an American organization that offers relief and religion through sports. Robert introduced Phiona to the game of chess and soon recognized her immense talent.

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just 16 years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "A pencil." This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of 24.

When 13-year-old Vidal Chastanet told photographer Brandon Stanton that his principal, Ms. Lopez, was the person who most influenced his life, it was the pebble that started a whirlwind for Nadia Lopez and her small, new public school in one of Brooklyn's most wretched communities. The posting on Stanton's wildly popular site, Humans of New York ( HONY), went megaviral. Lopez - not long before on the verge of quitting - found herself in the national spotlight and headed for a meeting with Obama as well as the beneficiary of a million-dollar IndieGoGo campaign.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement. Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools.

This is the story of Condoleezza Rice that has never been told, not that of an ultra-accomplished world leader, but of a little girl - and a young woman - trying to find her place in a sometimes hostile world, and of two exceptional parents, and an extended family and community, that made all the difference.

The keynote speaker at the 2012 DNC and the former San Antonio mayor and secretary of housing and urban development, Julian Castro, tells his remarkable and inspiring life story.

Phiona Mutesi sleeps in a decrepit shack with her mother and four siblings and struggles to find a single meal each day. Phiona Mutesi is also one of the best chess players in the world. One day in 2005, while searching for food, nine-year-old Phiona followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende, another child of the Ugandan slums, who works for an American organization that offers relief and religion through sports. Robert introduced Phiona to the game of chess and soon recognized her immense talent.

This book is a four-generation family journey from repression and poverty in China to freedom and prosperity in the United States. Their lives overlap with many significant historical events taking....

Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement. Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools.

A deeply personal and shocking look at how China is coming to terms with its conflicted past as it emerges into a modern, cutting-edge superpower.

All too often, we hear about the dangers of male friendships in which peer pressure prevails over common sense. But for George Jenkins, Sampson Davis, and Rameck Hunt, strong and supportive male friendship was a powerful antidote to the temptations and pitfalls of street life. It led three boys to make a vow to be there for one another, to encourage one another every step of the way, until they overcame the odds and became doctors.

As a young woman growing up in Africa, 17-year-old Leymah Gbowee was crushed by a savage war when violence reached her native Monrovia, depriving her of the education she yearned for and claiming the lives of relatives and friends. As war continued to ravage Liberia, Gbowee’s bitterness turned to rage-fueled action as she realized that women bear the greatest burden in prolonged conflicts.

A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago.

Find Me Unafraid tells the uncommon love story between two uncommon people whose collaboration sparked a successful movement to transform the lives of vulnerable girls and the urban poor. With a foreword by Nicholas Kristof.

Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student. Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year.

In The Power of a Plant, globally acclaimed teacher and self-proclaimed CEO (Chief Eternal Optimist) Stephen Ritz shows you how, in one of the nation's poorest communities, his students thrive in school and in life by growing, cooking, eating, and sharing the bounty of their green classroom.

Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, and all four want to live the American dream, but only two have documents. As the girls attempt to make it into college, they discover that only the legal pair see a clear path forward. A coming-of-age story about girlhood and friendship, as well as the resilience required to transcend poverty, Just Like Us is also a book about identity.

How do other countries create "smarter" kids? In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they've never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy.What is it like to be a child in the world's new education superpowers? In a global quest to find answers for our own children, author and Time magazine journalist Amanda Ripley follows three Americans embed­ded in these countries for one year.

When 14-year-old Carlotta Walls walked up the stairs of Little Rock Central High School on September 25, 1957, she and eight other Black students only wanted to make it to class. But the journey of the “Little Rock Nine”, as they came to be known, would lead the nation on an even longer and much more turbulent path, one that would challenge prevailing attitudes, break down barriers, and forever change the landscape of America.

Into a memoir that is gripping, funny, heartbreaking, and unforgettable, Walter Dean Myers richly weaves the details of his Harlem childhood in the 1940s and 1950s: a loving home life with his adopted parents, Bible school, street games, and the vitality of his neighborhood. Although Walter spent much of his time either getting into trouble or on the basketball court, secretly he was a voracious reader and an aspiring writer.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish---now known simply as the "Gaza doctor"---captured hearts and headlines around the world in the aftermath of horrific tragedy: On January 16, 2009, Israeli shells hit his home in the Gaza Strip, killing three of his daughters and his niece. By turns inspiring and heartbreaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is Abuelaish's account of an extraordinary life.