The thing is, fiction usually steals the show. But the truth? Real stories can be just as exciting and even more meaningful. Biographies, in particular, can teach kids powerful life lessons and give them background knowledge that helps across every subject in school.

Let’s take a closer look at why biographies are worth reading and which ones tend to spark the most interest in young readers.

Why Biographies Matter

Biographies aren’t just stories from the past. They’re full of heart, courage, and lessons that stick with you long after the last page. Here’s what makes them stand out.

They Introduce Kids to Real-Life Role Models

It’s one thing to read about a made-up hero who conquers a dragon, but it’s another to read about a real person who faced fear, failure, or prejudice and kept going anyway. Biographies show kids that greatness isn’t reserved for the rich or famous.

It’s often found in everyday people who stay true to their values, work hard, and make a difference. Whether it’s someone who became the first to break a barrier, speak out against injustice, or invent something we now take for granted, these stories remind kids that they, too, have the potential to leave their mark on the world.

They’re Packed With Life Lessons

Every biography is a behind-the-scenes look at someone’s journey, the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Reading about someone who failed multiple times before finding success can be especially powerful. It normalizes the ups and downs of life and helps kids understand that growth often comes through struggle.

They Bring History to Life

History can feel like a jumble of dates and names when taught out of context. But when kids read about someone who lived through an event, whether it’s the Civil War, the moon landing, or the Civil Rights Movement, it becomes personal and it sticks.

Biographies put a human face to history. Instead of memorizing facts, students feel like they’ve traveled back in time and walked alongside someone who experienced it all firsthand. That kind of learning is unforgettable.

Biographies Kids Actually Want to Read

Now that we’ve talked about why biographies matter, let’s look at some engaging categories and titles that resonate with young readers. There’s something here for every interest, from politics and science to adventure and activism.

Presidential Lives and Leaders

Biographies about U.S. Presidents can give kids insight into the foundations of our country and the qualities that define leadership.

Titles about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt offer powerful glimpses into courage, innovation, and resilience. And it’s not just the Founding Fathers—more recent figures like Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter offer a more modern lens on what it means to lead with compassion and vision.

For students fascinated by the military or U.S. history, stories about leaders like Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Robert E. Lee can also spark curiosity and deepen understanding of complex events like the Civil War and World War II.

Try these:

• Who Was Abraham Lincoln? by Janet B. Pascal
• I Am George Washington by Brad Meltzer
• Kid Presidents: True Tales of Childhood from America’s Presidents by David Stabler

Adventurers and Explorers

If your students enjoy thrilling stories, biographies of explorers are gold. Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and James Cook braved the unknown and changed how we view the world.

Space exploration is another huge hit, kids are captivated by astronauts like Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, and Mae Jemison. Their journeys into the vast unknown not only tell the story of science but of bravery, curiosity, and human determination.

Try these:

• Who Was Neil Armstrong? by Roberta Edwards
• The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles (while not a traditional explorer, her bravery in uncharted social territory makes her a modern-day explorer of justice)
• To the Stars! The First American Woman to Walk in Space by Carmella Van Vleet and Kathy Sullivan

Trailblazing Women

Biographies of strong women show kids that determination knows no gender. Girls and boys alike can be inspired by the stories of Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Malala Yousafzai. Helen Keller’s biography opens up conversations about perseverance in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles.

Jane Goodall’s passion for animals encourages kids to connect with the natural world. And Katherine Johnson’s work with NASA proves that math and science careers aren’t just for men. These stories are powerful reminders that history is full of women who dared to defy the norms of their time.

Try these:

• Who Was Rosa Parks? by Yona Zeldis McDonough
• Amelia Earhart (Little People, BIG DREAMS) by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara
• Helen’s Big World: The Life of Helen Keller by Doreen Rappaport

Biographies in Science

Curious minds light up when they learn about real inventors and scientists who changed the world. Kids who love to ask questions will be fascinated by Thomas Edison and the birth of electricity, or Alexander Graham Bell and the invention of the telephone.

Modern innovators and engineers of modern technology can also appeal to tech-savvy students who are growing up in the age of smartphones and AI. These stories help kids see how creativity and persistence go hand in hand.

Biographies in science also give students the chance to explore careers they might not have considered and encourage them to follow their own ideas, no matter how “out there” they may seem.

Try these:

• Who Was Thomas Edison? by Margaret Frith
• Alexander Graham Bell: An Inventive Life by Elizabeth MacLeod
• Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly (Young Readers’ Edition)

Fiction is fun to read, and there’s always room for imagination in a child’s reading life. But biographies offer something uniquely powerful. They show students what it looks like to face the real world with courage, creativity, and heart. By adding more nonfiction stories to your shelves, you’re giving kids more than just facts. You’re giving them stories of courage, hope, and possibility.

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The good news is that kids are reading. The average child reads for about 25 minutes a day outside of school. The question is: what are they reading? It turns out they are mainly reading fiction. The imbalance favoring fiction is also mirrored in the classroom. Only about 10% of texts in classroom libraries is nonfiction. On average, even in the classroom, in 2012, students were spending under four minutes a day reading nonfiction.

It is easy to understand why kids prefer reading fiction. It is the ultimate escapist pastime. They can leave their mundane, sometimes stressful, world behind and take a journey to the center of the earth, to a school for wizards, or experience a time and place that is different from their own.

However, the truth is that nonfiction reading skills are needed to be successful in this time and place, in everyday lives and careers. According to a 2012 ACT study, there are three essential skills required in 98% of jobs paying a sufficient wage to support a family. Those skills are applied mathematics, locating information, and reading for information. Notably, two of the three skills are nonfiction reading skills. So, while reading fiction is fun and builds valuable social-emotional qualities such as empathy, it doesn’t fully provide the reading skills needed to obtain gainful employment in the real world.

Accordingly, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts (ELA) and Literacy in History or Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects require an increase in nonfiction reading. The CCSS requires a fifty-fifty balance between informational and literary reading in kindergarten through fifth grade.

The standards strongly suggest that these texts are selected to provide students with a well-rounded knowledge base across subject areas. That means that teachers are encouraged to choose texts addressing historical, social, scientific, and technical subjects at every grade level. In sixth through 12^th grade, that balance shifts in favor of nonfiction with a seventy-thirty split. Bear in mind that this is a split across a child’s school day. English and language arts teachers may find themselves using more fictional texts than their counterparts in other subjects.

Nonfiction Reading Strategies for Older Students

There are two broad approaches to teaching nonfiction reading strategies to older students, such as high school students and beyond. One of them is a content-area literacy approach, and the other is a disciplinary literacy approach.

Content-Area Literacy Approach

The content-area literacy approach advocates for teaching reading and writing processes that are common across disciplines. It teaches students to interpret texts using broad skills such as making predictions, summarizing, and using word-analysis strategies. These skills are implemented across all subjects.

Content-area literacy also teaches older students to compose and revise texts using standard processes such as brainstorming, organizing ideas, revising, and editing. Again, these are not discipline-specific. They can be used for any composition task, from a narrative to a lab report.

Disciplinary Literacy Approach

The disciplinary literacy approach advocates for teaching students goals and practices that are unique to specific disciplines. Disciplinary literacy works to increase access to deep content knowledge, giving students “insider” status as scientists, mathematicians, sociologists, musicians, athletes, and more.

According to Rachel Gabriel and Christopher Wenz, in “Three Directions for Disciplinary Literacy”, published in the February 2017 issue of Literacy in Every Classroom, there are two broad approaches to teaching discipline-specific literacy. One of them involves teaching students discipline-specific strategies. For instance, teachers might choose authentic, disciplinary texts. This may mean avoiding textbooks and choosing actual texts from the field. By doing this, students learn how experts argue using the rules of their field, supporting their claims with evidence, and using technical language.

Modeling Expert Practices

Modeling expert practices requires teachers to be experts. For example, a science teacher may think out loud to students as they read data to conclude an experiment; a social studies teacher shows students how they might confirm the authenticity of a primary document. These are all nonfiction reading skills that require specific disciplinary expertise.

Encouraging Full Participation

The other broad approach is encouraging full participation in the discipline, outside of reading and writing skills. This project-based learning happens with the objective of accomplishing a real-world task, not becoming better readers and writers. For instance, if a class is planning a fundraiser for new playground equipment, they might learn to become better readers by reading about the safest and most fun playground equipment available. Then they become better writers by crafting fundraising emails and press releases to accomplish their goal of buying new playground equipment. The learning happens in the context of a real-life objective.

Neither content-area literacy nor disciplinary literacy stands alone as a good nonfiction reading approach. Both yield positive results and should be used in tandem to provide optimal results for students, both in and out of the classroom.

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