Critical biography presents the weaknesses and strengths of the subject. Scoundrel Time by Lillian Hellman presents the historic period of the 1950s during the blacklisting era of Joseph McCarthy. The Story of a Storyteller by Paul Kresh shows the influences on Singer's life from the start in the Warsaw ghetto. Biographical collections provide short accounts of people's lives who have some commonality. Hiroshima by John Hersey relates the story of six survivors of the atomic bomb.
Collections are valuable as reference sources and for reluctant readers.
Marketing and economizing are important in this category. The writer chooses a central theme such as sports heroes, pioneers, artists, or inventors. Subjects are selected and books written to fit the theme. These tend to be more economical because the format and design are the same. The commercial firms, Silver Burdett and Lerner, specialize in biographies for the junior and senior libraries.