Reading biography is like trying on someone else's life - these titles let the reader check the fit of England in the 1950s and 60s, contemporary China, and pre-Civil War Virginia.

Partridge, Elizabeth John Lennon, All I Want is the Truth

This is a stunning biography and I could not put it down. A bright youngster, John read widely, wrote for his own pleasure, and almost completely rebelled against academic expectations and the rules of his various schools. He was a leader and risk-taker, impressing his friends by his more and more aggressive and outrageous behavior. Even art college wasn't a good fit for him, since requirements of any sort made him crazy. Music was an obsession for John; when he met Paul McCartney and the two began to collaborate John finally found a way to channel some of his intense emotions into composing and performing. The closeness the Beatles formed as they worked together kept them going through the intensity of their increasing fame, so when John met Yoko and insisted that she be a part of everything related to the Beatles, it's easy to understand the hostility the other three members of the group felt toward her. Lennon's life story is gritty; he was always teetering on the edge of craziness, and Partridge does not whitewash his drug use and incautious sexual adventures. I was most struck by how dependent he was on Yoko, and how little ability he had to take care of himself in the real world. Riveting, melancholy, not to be missed.

Ma, Yan The Diary of Ma Yan

Ma Yan lives in rural China, part of a culturally Moslem minority. Though her family is grindingly poor, her parents sacrifice by working long hours contracting out their labor so they can send all their children to school. The school is in a neighboring village where Yan and her brother are often hungry because they can't afford to buy food and weary because they have to walk for many hours to come home on weekends while wealthier students can buy a ride on a passing farmer's tractor. Yan begins writing the diary at age thirteen and at first her voice is quite stilted, but as the book progresses, she conveys more feeling. Western readers may find it hard to understand Yan's determination to succeed in school so as not to disappoint her mother and dishonor her family but will find her struggles to study on an empty stomach and her shame when she doesn't progress moving. Ma Yan's mother gave Yan's journal to a visiting French journalist who published excerpts in the newspaper; as a result a scholarship fund was formed to help Yan and about thirty other children in her small town stay in school. Not too long, interspersed with helpful explanatory notes about Chinese culture, a tribute to the value of education.

Good Brother, Bad Brother, the Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth by James Cross Giblin

John Wilkes Booth is notorious for assassinating Abraham Lincoln, but very little about the less-well-known rest of the Booth family could be considered ordinary either. The title presents an intriguing idea - was John simply the bad brother, and was the positive influence of good older brother Edwin insufficient to bend John from his political ideas which played out in such a deadly fashion? Edwin and John didn't spend many of their growing up years together. Father Junius wowed theater audiences in England before coming to the United States, where he supported his large family by constant touring. At age thirteen, Edwin was sent off with Junius to keep him sober on the road, which was often a difficult task. Edwin kept track of the details of constant packing, unpacking, and travel, while trying to keep up with his school work. Eventually he eased into taking small parts, then filling in for Junius when he was unable to perform. Meanwhile back at home in Richmond, mother Mary Ann was recovering from the unpleasant surprise of meeting Junius's first wife; they were wed in England and never divorced. While Edwin was establishing his career as an actor and learning about the world outside Virginia, John Wilkes identified with all things southern, eventually using his growing fame and access through the theater to become a spy and to smuggle needed items through the northern blockade. Illustrated with period photographs and wonderfully descriptive handbills.

Chris Gustafson is the Library Teacher at Whitman Middle School. Do you have a question for Chris? Email her at cgustafson@seattleschools.org