Background

From Asleep to Awake:  The Revival of Biographies



"An enormous number of biographies lack the elements of story and instead merely list an individual's accomplishments.  Such books offer no more information than would an encyclopedia, a source that may provide much-needed background, a quick spot for fact checking or a chronological overview of someone's life.  But no story." 

 -Better Carter,  A Story, by Someone Else, More than a Hundred Pages (2010)

Since biographies are thought to put people to sleep, their outside cover has to look something like this to get evoke any interest. 

Believe it or not, students are not the only ones neglecting this genre.  "One study published in 2000 of elementary education in more than twenty schools that teachers devoted just 3.6 minutes a day to nonfiction books (in schools located in poor neighborhoods, this declined to 1.9 minutes a day)." 

-Marc Aronson, Cinderella Without the Fairy Godmother (2010)

Thankfully, authors of today have taken this genre and transformed it!
Use this website to find a number of biographies that will NOT put you to sleep.