AdLit.org is a national multimedia project offering information and resources to the parents and educators of struggling adolescent readers and writers. AdLit.org is an educational initiative of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in the nation's capital, and is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and by the Ann B. and Thomas L. Friedman Family Foundation.
Bio
Susan Campbell Bartoletti was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and grew up surrounded by lots of pets — ducks, guinea pigs, parakeets, hamsters, even a goat. As a girl, Bartoletti enjoyed horseback riding, piano lessons and exploring nature, but she liked reading and drawing the best.
Bartoletti majored in English in college and enjoyed all kinds of writing assignments, including research reports, creative writing assignments, poetry and journalism. After graduation, she became an eighth-grade English teacher and advisor to the student literary magazine. For nearly ten years she taught and wrote books, and she credits her students with inspiring her to pursue writing full time.
Bartoletti writes picture books, as well as great non-fiction for older students. She is the author of Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine 1845-1850 (Sibert Award) Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (Newbery Honor) and Growing Up in Coal Country.
Selected Books
from Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Hitler Youth : Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
Age Level: 12-14
How were otherwise kind, intelligent teenagers drawn into an organization like the Hitler Youth? This well-researched and well-documented book examines the rise of the Nazi party and its sway over teens. Using primary sources, including interviews, the author features the stories of several teens who came of age during Hitler's years of power.
Age Level: 9-12
Dangerous work and long hours were the norm for some poor children-many of them young immigrants — who worked in Pennsylvania coal mines prior to child labor laws.
Age Level: 9-12
A portrait of the grim conditions of child laborers in the 19th century, as well as children's role in organizing protests.
Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine
Age Level: 9-12
First-person accounts and news stories help convey the incredible devastation of the Irish Potato Famine, and its impact on Ireland, where many died or immigrated, and the U.S., which absorbed many of the refugees.
My Name is America: The Journal of Finn Reardon
Age Level: 9-12
The tale of a young Irish-American who aspires to be a reporter, while supporting his widowed mother and siblings by selling newspapers.
Age Level: 9-12
A German teen is jailed for treason after publishing leaflets that expose Hitler’s lies.
They Called Themselves the K.K.K.
Age Level: 14-16
The story of how a secret terrorist group took root in America, its evolution from a club formed by six young men in Tennessee to a secret society with members across the South.
