Creative Minds Biography
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Shoes for Everyone
A Story about Jan Matzeliger
by Barbara Mitchell
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Jan Matzeliger felt anything but welcome in Philadelphia in 1873. As well as being a foreigner, Jan was half African American, which meant that most doors were closed to him. Although the Civil War had been over for nearly ten years, inequality for African Americans still persisted in its aftermath. However, Jan refused to let prejudice keep him from achieving his dream of making a shoe-lasting machine to replace the tedious, time-consuming hand sewing that held up shoe manufacturing processes in his day.
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Writing for Freedom
A Story about Lydia Maria Child
by Erica Stux
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Lydia Maria Child grew up in the 1800s reading countless books. She defied the idea that girls weren't supposed to fill their minds with ideas and stories. They weren't supposed to write their own books, either, but that is exactly what Lydia Maria did. Although she gained remarkable success as a writer for children and adults, she sacrificed everything when she took up her pen against slavery. Lydia Maria believed that slavery was wrong--and she wasn't afraid to say so. As a result, her courageous words changed her life and helped change the course of American history.
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To The Point
A Story about E. B. White
by David R. Collins
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
E. B. White first recognized the magic in words when he was very young. As a child, some of his happiest hours were spent finding just the right words to describe his feelings and experiences. After graduating from college, he took a job with a new magazine called The New Yorker. The magazine's readers soon began to look forward to the poetry and essays written by E. B. White. His writing was clear and lively with no wasted words, and it could make people laugh as easily as it could make them cry. In 1936, White and his family moved to a little farm near the coast of Maine, complete with sheep, chickens, and pigs. It was there that E. B. White wrote Charlotte's Web, perhaps one of the most beloved children's books ever written.
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The Play's the Thing
A Story about William Shakespeare
by Ruth Turk
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
The year was 1569 and the place was Stratford-on-Avon. A little boy watched a company of traveling actors perform on a makeshift stage. No one could have known that the child, whose name was William Shakespeare, would one day become the most famous playwright in history. This is the story of the man who wrote Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and many other plays that have been performed and enjoyed again and again for more than four hundred years.
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Walking the Road to Freedom
A Story about Sojourner Truth
by Jeri Ferris
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in New York in 1797 or 1798. She never knew for sure which year she was born or even whether it was summer or winter. By the time she was a young woman, Sojourner knew she could no longer live as a slave, and with the help of Quakers, she escaped to freedom. She then began her long struggle to reunite her family and to free other slaves.
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President of the Underground Railroad
A Story about Levi Coffin
by Gwenyth Swain
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Growing up in a Quaker family in the South in 1830, Levi Coffin did not support slavery, but he was exposed to its atrocities. Convinced that every person deserved to be free, Levi began helping slaves escape to the North along the Underground Railroad, and during the following 40 years he was able to help over 3,000 people find freedom.
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Healing Warrior
A Story about Sister Elizabeth Kenny
by Emily Crofford
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
In 1942, polio epidemics raged out of control, and medical treatments were largely unsuccessful in fighting the disease. When Elizabeth Kenny, a self-taught nurse, boldly declared she had found an effective treatment, the desperate public took notice. The medical community, however, considered her a quack. After countless battles for recognition, Sister Kenny's results proved her right, and Kenny's methods were used to save thousands world-wide from life-long paralysis. From Elizabeth Kenny's childhood in the Australian bushlands to her triumph against polio and skeptics, biographer Emily Crofford skillfully brings this memorable character to life.
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Listening to Crickets
A Story about Rachel Carson
by Candice Ransom
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
From the time she was a very young girl, Rachel Carson felt a bond with nature. Growing up in Pennsylvania, she spent hours exploring meadows and woods, dreaming of seeing the ocean. As Rachel grew older, she combined her gift for writing with her love of nature, producing award-winning books about the sea. But her best-known achievement was the publication of Silent Spring, an account of the dangerous effects of pesticides on plants and animals. With Silent Spring, Rachel helped create a movement to ban these harmful chemicals. Her findings helped to assure that future generations would be able to dream about the ocean and listen to crickets.
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A Head Full of Notions
A Story about Robert Fulton
by Andy Russell Bowen
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Robert Fulton was an American inventor born in 1765. Some of his accomplishments include designing some of the first submarines and designing the first commercially successful steamboat, the Clemont.
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Maker of Machines
A Story about Eli Whitney
by Barbara Mitchell
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Eli Whitney's love of inventing and pondering new ideas made him one of America's greatest inventors. Best known for inventing the cotton gin, one of the most important American inventions of the century, he changed cotton production forever. A few years later, Whitney invented machines to make muskets that were identical. The first mass-manufacturing business in the country, his musket factory revolutionized the way Americans made things.
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Voice of Freedom
A Story about Frederick Douglass
by Maryann N. Weidt
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Born a slave, Frederick Douglass grew up facing hunger, hard work, and terrible beatings. After overhearing that reading was the key to freedom, Frederick became determined to learn to read. Against all odds, he did learn and escaped from slavery. A powerful and inspirational speaker, Frederick spoke and wrote about his remarkable life and fought for the freedom and equal rights of African American men and women.
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Voice of the Paiutes
A Story about Sarah Winnemucca
by Jodie Shull
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Sarah Winnemucca, a Northern Plains Indian, lived in the last half of the nineteenth century when white settlers were moving west into land the Paiutes had inhabited for thousands of years. Sarah's grandfather encouraged her to learn the ways of the white settlers, including their language. As a result, she was instrumental in negotiating benefits for her people. She traveled across the country speaking about the plight of the Paiutes. She challenged reservation agents, cooperated with the U.S. Army, and traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz and President Rutherford B. Hayes. With the help of two East Coast women, she wrote a book about Paiute life and established a school for Paiute children.
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Sisters Against Slavery
A Story about Sarah and Angelina Grimké
by Stephanie Sammartino McPherson
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Sisters against Slavery recounts the lives of Sarah Grimke and Angelica Grimke Weld. These daughters of wealthy Southern planters and slave owners renounced slavery in the 1830's. Through their writings and through a series of lectures delivered in the North, the sisters became famous for their views on slavery and women's rights. Although the sisters were active as speakers and essayists for a relatively short time in the 1830's and 1840's, they reached tens of thousands of people, influenced American views on slavery, and were an inspiration to women's rights leaders for decades to come.
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Farmland Innovator
A Story about Cyrus McCormick
by Catherine A. Welch
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Cyrus McCormick patented and manufactured the reaper, an important 19th century invention that dramatically improved the efficiency of wheat farming. While McCormick did not invent the reaper solely by himself, he did refine and popularize it. His company eventually became the International Harvester Company.
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A World of Knowing
A Story about Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
by Andy Russell Bowen
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet had a sharp mind and a great determination to make a difference in the world. When Thomas met Alice Cogswell, a little girl who was deaf, he decided to go to Europe to study deaf education and became a teacher. The signs he learned developed into American Sign Language and helped his students to leave their isolation behind.
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Jazz Age Poet
A Story about Langston Hughes
by Veda Boyd Jones
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
The author of such poems as I, To; Sing America; and The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Langston Hughes combined his experiences and emotions with the rhythms and themes he found in jazz music to create an exciting new style of poetry. Throughout his lifetime, Hughes won many awards and honors for his various books of poetry, novels, short stories, plays, children's books, autobiographies, and magazine articles. Despite always struggling to succeed financially, Hughes never gave up trying to be a better writer, and a better man.
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Tales for Hard Times
A Story about Charles Dickens
by David R. Collins
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
As a small boy, Charles Dickens worked in a dark, musty London warehouse, pasting labels onto pots of boot polish. He tried not to listen to his grumbling stomach or the rats squeaking on the stairs. His dream was to escape that misery one day and become a fine, educated gentleman. Through his gift for writing, that day did come for Dickens. But he never forgot what it was like to be poor. He wrote stories about London's lower classes--tales that made people laugh, cry, and work to improve their social conditions. By the time of his death, Charles Dickens had become one of the most popular English writers ever. Step into nineteenth-century London and the life of Charles Dickens in this exciting book. David R. Collins's exciting biography and David Mataya's powerful illustrations bring this master storyteller to life.
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With Open Hands
A Story about Biddy Mason
by Jeri Chase Ferris
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Born a slave in Georgia in 1818, Bridget "Biddy" Mason learned to survive in a harsh world. Taken from her parents as a young child, Biddy grew up to be self-reliant and hard working. When she and her children finally found freedom in California in 1855, she turned her nursing skills into a successful career as a midwife. Even after she became a wealthy landowner in Los Angeles, Biddy never forgot her basic philosophy of sharing with others: "The open hand is blessed," she always said, "for it gives in abundance, even as it receives."
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Flying Against the Wind
A Story about Beryl Markham
by Andy Russell Bowen
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Born in England and raised in the bush of East Africa, Beryl Markham was an extraordinary child--and lived an extraordinary life. She learned how to train racehorses from her father and became the first woman to succeed in Kenya's competitive racing circuit. When an airplane came to Africa, Beryl learned to fly. After a few years of carrying mail and passengers, she decided to take on the Atlantic Ocean. As the first person to fly non-stop from England to North America, Beryl Markham proved that no matter what the challenge, she was not afraid to fly against the wind.
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We'll Race You, Henry
A Story about Henry Ford
by Barbara Mitchell
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Henry Ford loved mechanical things: springs and gears, cogs and wheels, and things that clicked and ticked and turned. One hot summer day in 1876, Henry and his father were riding to Detroit in their farm wagon. Suddenly there was a huffing-puffing monster heading straight toward them. It was a road-roller, and it was lumbering down the road all by itself. That was the day Henry started thinking about horseless riding machines--and he never stopped. In We'll Race You, Henry, young readers will discover the origins of one of the most popular cars of all time--the Model T--as well as the daring side of its inventor and the early days of automobile racing.
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Frontier Surgeons
A Story about the Mayo Brothers
by Emily Crofford
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
In the 1870's, surgery was a crude affair performed on the patient's kitchen table. In the frontier town of Rochester, Minnesota, Dr. W. W. Mayo brought his young sons, Will and Charlie, to assist him with operations. Fifty years later, Rochester became a medical mecca as the Mayo brothers were established as world-class surgeons. With a firm belief in sharing information and learning from others, the Mayo brothers proved the benefits of cooperation in a jealously competitive field, and accomplished more than any single colleague of their time. Emily Crofford gives a vivid account of the Mayo's' meteoric rise to fame and their contributions as pioneers on the frontier of modern surgery.
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Stateswoman to the World
A Story about Eleanor Roosevelt
by Maryann N. Weidt
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Eleanor Roosevelt is perhaps best known for her role as First Lady, wife to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But this strong-willed woman was a skilled politician in her own right, who overcame her own prejudices to fight for the rights of women, blacks and the poor. This inspiring biography tells of Eleanor Roosevelt's development from a lonely, orphaned teenager to a determined, socially conscious woman, beloved in the United States and throughout the world.
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Bold Composer
A Story about Ludwig van Beethoven
by Judith Pinkerton Josephson
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Famous 19th century composer Ludwig van Beethoven composed hundreds of works in his lifetime, including the well-known Moonlight Sonata and Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 9. He remains among the most-studied and most-loved composers.
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Click!
A Story about George Eastman
by Barbara Mitchell
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
When George Eastman decided to make photography his hobby, "simple" was hardly the word to describe the pastime. He had to lug 50 pounds of camera equipment around with him, including the fragile glass plates that would become pictures. But resourceful George wasn't one to put up with such inconvenience for long. Click! is the story of how George Eastman developed a camera simple enough for anyone to use-the Kodak, predecessor of today's pocket instamatics-and forever revolutionized photography.
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Freedom Seeker
A Story about William Penn
by Gwenyth Swain
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
The son of a wealthy, repected admiral, William Penn did what was forbidden in seventeenth-century England--he openly practiced the Quaker religion. Penn dreamed of a place with freedom of religion. He asked for land in the New World and was given a colony called Pennsylvania. His success in establishing a new and just government there later became the blueprint for thirteen newly independent colonies.
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Uncommon Revolutionary
A Story about Thomas Paine
by Laura Hamilton Waxman
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Thomas Paine believed that American liberty was not only possible but worth dying for. He was dissatisfied with his quiet life until he traveled to the American colonies. There, the cause of American freedom from English rule lit a fire within him. To inspire colonists to support and fight the war, he wrote Common Sense and The American Crisis. He was the first person to use the term the United States of America in print. He helped transform an entire nation with the power of his words.
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Dance of the Swan
A Story about Anna Pavlova
by Barbara Allman
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1881, Anna Pavlova grew up dreaming of becoming a prima ballerina. Throughout her lifetime, Anna inspired and encouraged people around the world with her exceptionally graceful and expressive dance. Believing that expressing beauty is essential to the human spirit, Anna strove to help audiences discover the soaring beauty that could uplift their spirits.
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Revolutionary Poet
A Story about Phillis Wheatley
by Maryann N. Weidt
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Taken from her family in Africa at the age of seven, Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston as a slave in 1761. After she was purchased by the Wheatley family, Phillis quickly learned to speak and read English. The bright young girl soon began writing poetry. By 1771, her poems had been published in newspapers all over the colonies, and critics were praising the "extraordinary negro poetess." In this engaging biography, author Maryann Weidt tells the story of how a young slave girl in revolutionary Boston became an internationally famous poet and the first black American to publish a book.
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Liberty or Death
A Story about Patrick Henry
by Stephanie Sammartino McPherson
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
"Give me liberty, or give me death!" A passionate speaker, Patrick Henry mesmerized and motivated audiences with his powerful words. Henry believed that Britain had stolen America's freedom, and he was determined to prevent this injustice. Using his skills as a lawyer and politician, he inspired his fellow colonists to prepare for a war against Britain--and helped to create a new nation.
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Pioneer Plowmaker
A Story about John Deere
by David R. Collins
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
In the 1800's, the moist soil of the Midwest would stick to plow blades, stopping the farmers as they plowed. Young blacksmith John Deere knew about the problem, so he designed and built a self-scouring plow. With this small start, he founded the famous farm implement company Deere & Company and started down the road to success.
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Between Two Worlds
A Story about Pearl Buck
by Barbara Mitchell
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Growing up in China as the child of American missionaries, Pearl read and listened to stories from both the East and the West. A story, she thought, was a wonderful way to learn about people and places. Pearl had read and heard about America and her family there, but she had never met her American relatives. When, at the age of 10, she spent a year in America, Pearl came to understand that she was a part of two worlds. Between Two Worlds tells the story of how Pearl Buck worked to increase the understanding between the two worlds she knew.
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Mark T-W-A-I-N!
A Story about Samuel Clemens
by David R. Collins
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Samuel Clemens grew up in a child's paradise--Hannibal, Missouri. There, mischief added humor to everyday events as Sam encountered the folks who would one day reappear as Huck Finn, Aunt Polly, and Becky Thatcher in his books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At eighteen, Sam left Hannibal to seek his fortune. He became a newspaperman and story writer. Then, always a restless spirit, he tried his hand as a steamboat pilot (where he took a liking to the riverboat call "mark twain"), a soldier, and a gold prospector. All the while, Sam collected tales to tell on stage and recount in his many books. David Collins invites readers into the fabulously exciting, endlessly entertaining world of "America's Greatest Humorist"--the beloved Mark Twain.
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Father of the Constitution
A Story about James Madison
by Barbara Mitchell
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
James Madison loved to debate--as long as he wasn't in public! Painfully shy, Madison was content to listen and absorb ideas rather than to speak them. But when he saw a newly independent America about to be torn apart, his love for the American nation conquered his shyness. Known as the father of the constitution because of the leadership he showed during its creation, he helped shape what America would become.
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Fighting for Equal Rights
A Story about Susan B. Anthony
by Maryann N. Weidt
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Born a Quaker, Susan B. Anthony grew up being taught that women were equal to men. During her lifetime, she was a teacher, a newspaperwoman, and an activist. She worked to further many causes such as the temperance, the abolitionist, and women's rights movements. Although she didn't live to see her dreams of women's suffrage come true, her tireless dedication to the cause was crucial to its success.
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Seneca Chief, Army General
A Story about Ely Parker
by Elizabeth Van Steenwyk
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Ely Parker grew up on the Tonawanda Reservation in New York in the 1830s. There he learned the ways of his people, the Seneca Indians. Ely worked many years to save his reservation from a land company, and as a result, he was made a sachem, or chief, by his people. At the same time, he was working as a translator and ambassador to bridge the gap that divided his people from the white Americans. After serving in the Civil War, Ely went on to become a United States general and lead the agency in charge of Indian affairs. Author Elizabeth Van Steenwyk tells this inspiring, and surprising, story of a man who achieved amazing success in two very different worlds.
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Living with the Senecas
A Story about Mary Jemison
by Susan Bivin Aller
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Mary Jemison was born in 1743 as her parents emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania. When she was fifteen years old, a group of raiding Shawnee Indians and French soldiers captured her and her family. She was the only one to survive. For seventy-five years, she lived among the Seneca Indians who adopted her. She outlived two husbands and bore eight children. She witnessed two wars and a revolution. Even though she could have returned to the white world, she chose to remain with the Seneca's and became a loyal and respected member of her tribe.
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Oh, The Places He Went
A Story about Dr. Seuss
by Maryann N. Weidt
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Dr. Seuss is known as the creator of some of the most beloved children's books of all time. Journey to the fantastic world he created in this appealing story about the author/illustrator whose magical, rhyming characters have delighted children of all ages.
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Science Fiction Pioneer
A Story about Jules Verne
by Tom Streissguth
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
When Jules Verne was born in 1828, his family had his future planned out for him. They expected him to become a lawyer, but he dreamed of writing. He started out writing more traditional poetry and plays, but then he began to create a new, unconventional kind of fiction. It combined adventure, the modern world of science and invention, and his personal view of the future. With fantastical characters, spaceships to the moon, and deep-sea submarines, his books told of things that would not actually occur for decades.
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The Road to Seneca Falls
A Story about Elizabeth Cady Stanton
by Gwenyth Swain
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a little girl in the early 1800's, she realized that most people seemed to think that boys were better than girls. As Stanton grew up, she saw that women had fewer opportunities than men. With this in mind, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her longtime friend Lucretia Mott organized the nation's first women's rights convention, which took place in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.
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Mr. Blue Jeans
A Story about Levi Strauss
by Maryann N. Weidt
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
In 1847 an eighteen-year-old immigrant arrived in New York. He had little in his pockets and no knowledge of English. However, by 1874, people throughout the United States knew him as the man who made blue jeans with copper rivets. Even now Levi Strauss's name lives on as a mark of quality and style. In Mr. Blue Jeans, Maryann N. Weidt presents the history of this hardworking man, as he struggles through long, grueling days as a peddler and challenging times as a young businessman. His honesty, integrity, and generosity stand out as clearly as his name, making this rags-to-riches story well worth reading. The accurate and highly readable text is enriched by Lydia M. Anderson's dramatic black-and-white illustrations.
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Musical Genius
A Story about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
by Barbara Allman
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
A musical prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began playing the piano and composing when he was just three years old. Able to play multiple instruments, among them the piano and violin, Mozart spent much of his youth touring European courts with his family. From the time he was three until his death just thirty-two years later, he produced a huge volume of musical works. Among them the famed operas The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Don Giovanni.
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Her Piano Sang
A Story about Clara Schumann
by Barbara Allman
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
At the age of nine, Clara Wieck gave her first public performance as a concert pianist. She played beautifully. When the concert was over, she felt as if she were dancing on a cloud. As she grew older, Clara's concerts took her all over Europe. Audiences adored her, and she became friends with other famous musicians-including her father's student, Robert Schumann. Robert and Clara fell in love and eventually married. Robert took some of Clara's melodies and shaped them into compositions, and Clara performed his pieces, introducing them to new audiences. Throughout her life, Clara Schumann's performances set the standard for piano music. The greatest composers of her time-impressed with the power and beauty of her playing-wrote music for her. Clara was a pianist, composer, and mentor, as well as an inspiration to the romantic movement that was her life. She made the piano sing.
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Words of Promise
A Story about James Weldon Johnson
by Jodie Shull
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
A teacher and principal, a lawyer, an entertainer, a diplomat, and a writer, James Weldon Johnson spent his entire life working to help African Americans gain the rights and respect they deserved. The first black chief executive of the NAACP, Johnson lived from the end of Reconstruction in the South through the exciting years of the Harlem Renaissance. He spent his life keeping the promise of equality alive, not only through his actions but through his wordsLift Every Voice and Sing. Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won.
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A Pocketful of Goobers
A Story about George Washington Carver
by Barbara Mitchell
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
There wasn't anything that George Washington Carver couldn't grow. He took the common goober--today's peanut--and created hundreds of useful products from it, turning goobers into a very profitable staple for the South. At the same time, this very special man passed on to everyone who knew him the importance of following one's own dreams.
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Discovering Nature's Laws
A Story about Isaac Newton
by Laura Purdie Salas
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Sir Isaac Newton changed the world with his many discoveries and inventions about mathematics, science, optics, and physics. Although he was brilliant, Newton felt no need to publish his ideas or to inform his fellow scientists of the amazing discoveries he made. Because of this, his discoveries were often disputed. Despite the controversy that often surrounded him, Newton made astounding advances in his efforts to understand how nature worked. His legacy lives on through inventions such as microscopes, eyeglasses, telescopes, and cameras.
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The Wizard of Sound
A Story about Thomas Edison
by Barbara Mitchell
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
In 1877 a young man developed a way to reproduce sounds so they could be heard again and again. This young man, Thomas Edison, has since been heralded as one of the world's greatest inventors. This inspiring biography details the creation of Edison's favorite invention, the phonograph. Young readers will also discover that Edison did not allow his handicap (he was hard of hearing) to slow him down.
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First Son and President
A Story about John Quincy Adams
by Beverly Gherman
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
Americas sixth president and son of Americas second president, John Quincy Adams lived an extraordinary life. Beginning as a young boy as secretary for his father during the peace talks that ended the Revolutionary War, Adams served his country as a diplomat, state senator, secretary of state, the president, and as a representative in congress. Through his many speeches, essays, books, and written reports, Adams helped shape America. Today, he is remembered as a great statesman, a scholar, and a poet, just as he hoped he would be.
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Say It With Music
A Story about Irving Berlin
by Tom Streissguth
Part of the Creative Minds Biography series
As a boy, Israel Baline had to work after school to help his poor immigrant family. He sold newspapers on street corners to help his family survive. He loved to sing to pass the time, and sometimes listeners tossed an extra penny or two at his feet. No one who heard him could have guessed that he would someday become known as Irving Berlin, the best-loved songwriter in the land. The composer of "God Bless America," "White Christmas," and many other well-known tunes began his musical career on the streets and in the seedy cafes of New York City's Lower East Side. Author Tom Streissguth tells Berlin's remarkable story in lively prose that captures the spirit of the long-gone days of ragtime, vaudeville, and Broadway glory.