Author
Russell Freedman
6 books here
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Nonfiction · ages 9–12 · 820L · 1990
Freedman's accessible, photo-rich biography makes FDR's disability and determination feel immediate without sentimentality; kids grasp both the man and the era.
Children of the Great Depression
Nonfiction · ages 10–14 · 800L · 2005
Freedman's photographs and firsthand accounts make economic hardship visceral without trauma—kids understand scarcity and resilience through real children's voices, not sentiment.
Lincoln: A Photobiography
Nonfiction · ages 9–12 · 780L · 1988
The gold standard for presidential biography at this age—photographs do the heavy lifting, prose is precise without being dry, and kids grasp both Lincoln's ordinariness and his moral consequence.
Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery
Nonfiction · ages 10–14 · 820L
Freedman makes Eleanor's shyness and self-doubt visceral, then traces her deliberate evolution into moral courage—a biography that works as a coming-of-age arc for kids discovering who they might become.
The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane
Nonfiction · ages 9–12 · 780L
Freedman's prose makes the technical and human details equally vivid; kids discover that breakthrough invention looks like obsessive tinkering and failure, not inspiration.
The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights
Nonfiction · ages 10–14 · 800L · 2005
Freedman's definitive, beautifully illustrated biography makes Anderson's dignity and strategic brilliance tangible—kids grasp why her voice mattered beyond singing.