Biography book list
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One of the most common projects in elementary school, especially around 4-6 grades is a biography project or book report.
It can be tricky to find biography books for kids that hit that sweet spot between a picture book and an absolutely overwhelming non-fiction tome (lots of biographies lean too far into the young adult realm and they’re just too hefty for an elementary school reader!).
Here are some great options that are interesting, readable and perfect for school or personal reading!
(P.S. If you’re looking for biography series like the extremely popular “Who Was. . .?” series, I have a whole list of favorites here! The books on that list tend to steer a little younger and shorter).
10+ Great Kids Biography Books
The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum by Candace Fleming
If your child was obsessed with The Greatest Showman, this book is for them. It is almost unreal how fascinating the real P.T. B
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The 50 Best Biographies of All Time
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Crown The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, bygd Tom Reiss
You’re probably familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo, the 1844 revenge novel by Alexandre Dumas. But did you know it was based on the life of Dumas’s father, the mixed-race General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, son of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave? Thanks to Reiss’s masterful pacing and plotting, this rip-roaring biography of Thomas-Alexandre reads more like an adventure novel than a work of nonfiction. The Black Count won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2013, and it’s only a matter of time before a filmskapare turns it into a big-screen blockbuster.
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The 30 Best Biographies of All Time
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Blog – Posted on Monday, Jan 21
Biographer Richard Holmes once wrote that his work was “a kind of pursuit… writing about the pursuit of that fleeting figure, in such a way as to bring them alive in the present.”
At the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: bring their subjects to life. A great biography isn’t just a laundry list of events that happened to someone. Rather, it should weave a narrative and tell a story in almost the same way a novel does. In this way, biography differs from the rest of nonfiction.
All the biographies on this list are just as captivating as excellent novels, if not more so. With that, please enjoy the 30 best biographies of all time — some historical, some recent, but all remarkable, life-giving tributes to their subjects.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number