Books in Trailblazer Biographies series

What do you think of when you hear the name Albert Einstein? Perhaps you picture an old man with rumpled clothing, a halo of wild white hair, and an impish grin. You might know that he developed two of the most important and complex theories in science, the theories of relativity. You probably think of the word genius. Albert Einstein may have been a genius--but he was also much more than that. Einstein was a man who hated violence and took a stand for peace in the world. He was a man who was proud to be Jewish and worked to ensure a better life for his people. And he was a man who never took himself--or his fame--too seriously, and only wanted to be treated like an ordinary person and live an ordinary life.

Through howling snowstorms and over treacherous sheets of ice, Matthew Henson and Robert Peary raced against other explorers and death itself to be the first to reach the North Pole. After six expeditions and eighteen years, they finally planted the American flag at the top of the world on April 6, 1909. Because he was a black man, Henson had to start out as Peary's servant. But with his intelligence, bravery, and resourcefulness, Matthew Henson soon became Peary's chief assistant.

In the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, Zora Neale Hurston's mother used to tell her to "jump at de sun." She wanted Zora to be proud of herself and to do great things. Zora took her mother's words to heart. But when Zora was thirteen, her mother died. From then on, Zora wandered from job to job and school to school, always just squeaking by. Eventually, as a contributor to the Harlem Renaissance and as an anthropologist, Zora began writing and collecting the kinds of African-American tales she had heard as a child in Eatonville. Zora sparked a revolution in American thought. Her works urged African Americans to be proud of their background and to stop trying to be white. Zora's stories, plays, and folktale collections have won ongoing acclaim because of their power, vitality, and beauty. In Jump at de Sun, A.P. Porter takes readers on the lonely and exciting road that brought Zora from Eatonville to a place in history.