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Jesse Owens

From the Series On My Own Biography

  • Interest Level: Grade 2 - Grade 4
  • Reading Level: Grade 3

From the time he was a young boy on a farm in Alabama until he received his fourth Olympic gold medal in Berlin in 1936, all Jesse Owens wanted to do was run. Overcoming sickness, poverty, and racial discrimination, Jesse worked hard, shattered many track and field records, and earned countless medals and trophies. But perhaps his greatest and most important accomplishment came when he stood up to the hatred of Adolf Hitler and proved that the belief in the superiority of German athletes was false. This beautifully illustrated and simply told biography tells the inspirational story of a man with strength of spirit and heart.

Format Your Price Add
978-1-57505-487-2
 $7.99
978-1-57505-363-9
 $28.99
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Interest Level Grade 2 - Grade 4
Reading Level Grade 3
Category 5 Kinds of Nonfiction, 5KN: Narrative Nonfiction, Diverse Books: Race & Ethnicity, Diverse Books: Social Class, Diverse Books: Social Justice, Diversity
Copyright 2001
Publisher Lerner Publishing Group
Brand On My Own Books
Imprint First Avenue Editions ™, Millbrook Press ™
Language English
Number of Pages 48
Publication Date 2000-08-01
Reading Counts! Level 2.5
Text Type Narrative Nonfiction
BISACS JNF007100, JNF007050, JNF007020
Dewey 796.42'092
Graphics Full-color illustrations
Dimensions 5.875 x 8.5
Lexile 580
Guided Reading Level P
ATOS Reading Level 3.3
Accelerated Reader® Quiz 41944
Accelerated Reader® Points 0.5
Features Afterword, Teaching Guides, and Timeline

Author: Jane Sutcliffe

Jane Sutcliffe was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in the days when library fines were a penny. One of her earliest memories was the weekly trip to the local library with her father. She’s loved books ever since. Her childhood was fairly average. In fact, it was so average that all her friends had pretty much the same childhood. They all went to the same school, and attended the same church on Sundays. Their mothers all called them home to supper at the same time. On weekends they visited grandmothers and aunties who spoke a different language when they didn’t want the children to understand.
To live any differently seemed exciting and exotic to her, so she began to read biographies, just to get a peek at how other people lived day to day, in different times and places. When she was 10 or 11, she spent a whole year reading nothing but biographies.
So it wasn’t a big surprise when Jane began to write them, too. So far she’s written nearly two-dozen biographies as well as other nonfiction books and articles. She loves everything about writing: the research, the sweating over the perfect word or phrase or sentence, the joy in the finished product. But she especially loves the time she spends visiting readers at schools. She lives in rural Connecticut with her husband, Skip, their dog Willy, assorted cows and goats—and lots and lots of books.

Illustrator: Janice Lee Porter

Janice Lee Porter was born and raised in Chicago. She has a BFA in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from California State University, Chico. She is the illustrator of over two dozen children’s books and is an art faculty member at Shasta College in Redding, California, where she teaches painting and drawing. She lives in Chico, California.

Lerner eSource™ offers free digital teaching and learning resources, including Common Core State Standards (CCSS) teaching guides. These guides, created by classroom teachers, offer short lessons and writing exercises that give students specific instruction and practice using Common Core skills and strategies. Lerner eSource also provides additional resources including online activities, downloadable/printable graphic organizers, and additional educational materials that would also support Common Core instruction. Download, share, pin, print, and save as many of these free resources as you like!

On My Own Biography

Engage readers’ interest and imagination! These award-winning biographies feature full-page illustrations. Written in story format, each book features pivotal episodes that reveal what kind of person the subject is (or was) and how he or she came to be famous. View available downloads →