30th July, 2020
Below is a selection of some of our Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs that are available to borrow for the upcoming Year 9 Life Writing assessment, and of course these books are available to all of our students at any time.
Link to LibGuides
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by Cathy Freeman
Hi guys,Ever since I was little I only had one dream – to win a gold medal at the Olympics.
When I was twenty-seven years old, my dream came true. I’ll never forget that night at the Sydney 2000 Games – as I crossed the finish line, it was as if the whole of Australia was cheering for me. (www.goodreads.com)
by Francelia Butler
Describes how Indira Gandhi’s life was intertwined with the political development of India, eventually leading her to become prime minister. (www.goodreads.com)
Aussie Heroes
By: Gabiann Marin, Rae Dale (Illustrator) Six-year-old Helen Porter just wanted to sing on stage. As a child, and then a teenager, she continued to pursue her dream of being a great opera star.
Born Helen Porter Mitchel, she changed her name to reflect her Melbourne heritage. In 1887 Nellie Melba made her operatic debut. She went on to sing in all the great opera houses of Europe. During World War One Nellie Melba worked tirelessly holding many fundraising concerts for the war effort.
Nellie Melba was the first great Australian diva. (www.goodreads.com)
This book lists the 100 most influential women chronologically. It begins with Hatshepsut and ends with Diana, Princess of Wales. Overall, the selections offer a good balance of gender, nationality, and ethnicity. (www.goodreads.com)
by Rula Jebreal,
John T. Cullen (Translator)
Miral is a novel that focuses on women whose lives unfold in the turbulent political climate along the borders of Israel and Palestine. The story begins with Hind, a woman who sacrifices everything to establish a school for refugee Palestinian girls in East Jerusalem. (www.goodreads.com)
by Sean Hepburn Ferrer
Now in paperback, an intimate look at the woman the world adored, by the son who adored her with unique photos, drawings, and other rare Audrey memorabilia. (www.goodreads.com)
by Miranda Tapsell
Growing up, Miranda Tapsell often looked for faces like hers on our screens. There weren’t many. And too often there was a negative narrative around Indigenous lives, and Aboriginal women especially. Now an award-winning actor, she decided to change things herself. (www.goodreads.com)
by Malala Yousafzai,
Patricia McCormick
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. (www.goodreads.com)
by Jacqueline Kent The first biography of Australia’s first female Prime Minister.
Julia Gillard has always been an exceptional figure in Australian politics, widely admired by her adversaries as well as in the electorate. And now she is also an exceptional figure in Australian history: the first woman to be this country’s Prime Minister. (www.goodreads.com)
by Sue Williams
‘I believe that nothing is impossible if you dare to dream, plan and take action. I’m an ordinary girl who simply refused to give up on a dream, and that’s all it takes to succeed in life.’ (www.goodreads.com)
by Christine Nixon,
Jo Chandler
Honest and engaging, this memoir reveals the remarkable rise through police ranks of Australia’s first female chief commissioner. A police officer for more than 35 years, Christine Nixon shares the pressures of a life in the public eye and coping with difficult aspects of the job, such as losing a colleague in the line of duty. (www.goodreads.com)
by Emmah Money
Emmah is young and beautiful, with the world at her feet. She is also a true survivor …
Emmah Money’s life story is a remarkable one.
During a night out, an acquaintance noted Emmah’s resemblance to some friends of his. This observation would prove to have a profound effect on Emmah’s life. (www.goodreads.com)
by Jeannie Meekins
Mary MacKillop devoted her life to educating poor children. With the help of Father Julian Woods, she established her own religious Order, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
She set up over 100 schools, educated 12,000 children, and received approval from the Pope for her Order. (www.goodreads.com)
by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
“Sunshine, you’re my baby and I’m your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she’s not your mama.” Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. (www.goodreads.com)
by Nicole Dryburgh
In Nicole’s first book, she told readers about her cancer tumors, her hospitalization, her paralyses, and her her blindness. In this second installment of her life story, Nicole begins going deaf. She must learn deaf/blind sign language after the pink hearing aides fail her. Where most of us would have broke down and cracked, Nicole kept going. (www.goodreads.com)
A Journey into the Mind of a Champion
by Lydia Lassila February 24, 2010 – Vancouver Olympic Games. Through the fog lies a four metre high icy wall that will launch you as high as a four story building. The only thing in between you and Olympic glory is one final jump…’Jump’ is a story about mind, body and a fighting spirit. It is journey of self discovery, self belief and battles to overcome injury and setbacks.
by Brian MacArthur (Editor)
To be published in paperback on August 31, a year to the day after her tragic death, these recollections and tributes show why the People’s Princess won so many hearts. There are dozens of pictorial remembrances, but this is the only book in which people from all walks of life have penned their thoughts, feelings, and memories of Diana. (www.goodreads.com)
Susanna De Vries
Mary Reibey – Esther Johnston – Caroline Chisolm – Truganini – Georgiana Molloy – Georgiana McCrae – Ann Caldwell – Mary McConnel – Mary Watson – Sister Lucy Osburn – Ann Caldwell – Mary McConnel. (www.goodreads.com)
by Michelle Obama
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women. (www.goodreads.com)
by Gillian Triggs
Gillian Triggs invites you to speak up
“As president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs advocated for the disempowered, the disenfranchised, the marginalised. She withstood relentless political pressure and media scrutiny as she defended the defenceless for five tumultuous years. (www.goodreads.com)
The Will to Fly is the inspirational story of Olympic champion Lydia Lassila. It chronicles the journey of her tumultuous freestyle aerial skiing career, from fearless beginner to Olympic gold medalist to sporting visionary. (www.goodreads.com)
by Robert Wainwright
The Australian actress who became one of London’s most famous suffragists.
Discover the most inspiring woman you’ve never heard of …
In 1909, a young Australian actress made headlines around the world when she took to the sky over London in an airship emblazoned with the slogan ‘Votes for Women’ and dropped leaflets over the city. (www.goodreads.com)
When Zlata’s Diary was first published at the height of the Bosnian War, it became an international bestseller and was compared to The Diary of Anne Frank, both for the freshness of its voice and the grimness of the world it describes. (www.goodreads.com)
by Susanna de Vries
This is the story of the lives of 11 significant women who sailed to the colonies in Australia’s founding years.
The first to arrive was Esther Abrahams, an attractive 16-year-old Jewish girl transported for shoplifting two cards of lace. (www.goodreads.com)
By: Margaret Kiddle Caroline Chisholm was the most remarkable woman in early Australian colonial history. Her national importance has been marked by the use of her portrait on Australian stamps and currency.
This is the classic biography of the woman whose remarkable and hard-won achievements first asserted the place of women in Australian public life. Almost single-handedly and against strenuous and sometimes malicious opposition, the indomitable Chisholm worked to establish a Female Immigrants’ Home, to encourage family immigration and to fight for better conditions on immigrant ships. (www.goodreads.com)
by Courage Books
Admired by the world for her altruistic efforts on behalf of the sick and poor of India, the late Albanian-born nun became a legend in her own lifetime. Created before her death, this pictorial biography both enlightens and inspires as it sheds light on Mother Teresa’s beginnings and illuminates the selfless and remarkable work that earned her a Nobel prize. (www.goodreads.com)
by Andrew Marr
A surprising and very personal biography of a woman who may be the world’s last great queen, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of her reign. (www.goodreads.com)
by Anne Henderson
This is the story of an extraordinary woman – mother of twelve, Prime Minister’s wife, first woman member of the House of Representatives and the first women in a Federal cabinet, radio broadcaster, newspaper columnist, author of three boos – Enid Lyons was for many years the best known woman in Australia. (www.goodreads.com)
by Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Frank, fearless, funny, articulate, and inspiring, Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a young Muslim dynamo offering a bracing breath of fresh air—and hope. At 21, Yassmin found herself working on a remote Australian oil and gas rig; she was the only woman and certainly the only Sudanese-Egyptian-Australian background Muslim woman. (www.goodreads.com)
by Michelle Payne,
John Harms
The extraordinary story of the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup
Michelle Payne rode into history as the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup. She and her 100-to-1 local horse Prince of Penzance took the international racing world by surprise, but hers was no overnight success story. (www.goodreads.com)
by Carol Baxter
The remarkable true story of a beguiling Melbourne housewife who in the 1920s seeks international fame, fortune and adventure as an aviator and finds herself as the central figure in a sensational American murder trial. (www.goodreads.com)
by Christine Milne
An Activist Life is the story of an apparently ordinary woman – a high-school English teacher from northwest Tasmania – who became a fiery environmental warrior, pitted against some of the most powerful business and political forces in the country. (www.goodreads.com)
by Saroo Brierley
Aged just five, Saroo Brierley was separated from his family in India when he boarded a train that took him 1500km from his hometown. After weeks surviving alone on the streets of Calcutta, he was eventually adopted by an Australian couple. (www.goodreads.com)
by Margaret Cheney
In this “informative and delightful” (American Scientist) biography, Margaret Cheney explores the brilliant and prescient mind of Nikola Tesla, one of the twentieth century’s greatest scientists and inventors.(www.goodreads.com)
by Ashlee Vance
Elon Musk, the entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, sold one of his internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius’s life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits. (www.goodreads.com)
by Behrouz Boochani,
Omid Tofighian
Winner of The Victorian Prize for Literature, and the Prize for Non-Fiction, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2019
Where have I come from? From the land of rivers, the land of waterfalls, the land of ancient chants, the land of mountains…(www.goodreads.com)
by Ali Gripper
‘A true insight into my remarkable friend Dr Sanduk Ruit.’ – Gabi Hollows
‘He reminds me of Don Bradman. They both have a God-given talent and skill…’ – Ray Martin
‘If I’ve done one thing in life I’m proud of, it’s launching Ruit into the world’. – Fred Hollows. (www.goodreads.com)
by William Kamkwamba
Bryan Mealer
The New York Times bestselling memoir of the heroic young inventor who brought electricity to his Malawian village is now perfect for young readers
When a terrible drought struck William Kamkwamba’s tiny village in Malawi, his family lost all of the season’s crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. (www.goodreads.com)