by Ben Brooks
It got hard being apart and his parents divorced.
When he was thirteen, Sergei earned a place at the Royal Ballet School in London, and he moved there to study ballet. By the time he was nineteen, he’d become the youngest main dancer ever in the Royal Ballet. He won awards and medals, and people said he might be the best dancer alive.
None of it made Sergei happy.
Sergei always thought that, by earning money from dancing, he’d be able to bring his family back together. He couldn’t. And he didn’t want to do it anymore.
So he left. Right in the middle of a rehearsal. And never came back.
The next time he appeared was in a music video for a rock song. In the video, Sergei dances alone in an abandoned old barn. The video’s been watched over eighteen million times.
Now, he puts together his own dances and shows with his own dancers and friends. He prefers to do things his own way.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE
(BORN 1989)
At school, Daniel never really felt he was good at anything. He had a problem called dyspraxia, which made even little things, like writing or tying his laces, more difficult for him than for other people. He didn’t have much confidence in himself.
Despite that, Daniel always knew he wanted to act. But it was almost an accident when he went to audition to play Harry Potter, the boy wizard who millions of readers everywhere had fallen in love with. Daniel had wanted to give up acting completely when he was eleven. It was only because they couldn’t find the right boy anywhere that the director persuaded him to audition.
As soon as he walked into the room, everyone working on the film agreed: this boy must play Harry Potter.
And, for the next ten years, he did. He went to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, played quidditch, flew on a hippogriff, battled a giant snake, and ultimately defeated Lord Voldemort. As Harry grew up, so did Daniel. Both he and his character shared the same burdens of being recognized wherever they went, being subject to great expectations, and even being bullied at school.
Daniel’s glad that he took the part in Harry Potter, not because it made him famous or rich, but because it meant he hadn’t let the dyspraxia stop him from doing anything he wanted to. And now he has the chance to do good for others.
To help, he has supported the United Kingdom-based charity Get Connected, now known as The Mix, which is a service for young people in need of advice. Instead of buying him Christmas presents, he once asked fans to send money to a hospital for sick children. And, in the United States, he’s worked with The Trevor Project, a phone line that young LGBTQ people can call if they feel sad, alone, or unsafe.
“Some people think I’m gay,” he said. “Which I think is awesome.”
GHYSLAIN RAZA
Ghyslain loved Star Wars. He loved the sleek spaceships, laser battles fought through space, and the grand struggle between Good and Evil. He loved it so much that he recorded a video of himself swinging a golf stick like a Jedi with a lightsaber.
Unfortunately, some boys at his school found the video. They uploaded it to the Internet without asking him first. Overnight, millions of people had watched Ghyslain playing around at being a Jedi. And they weren’t kind about it in their comments.
The worst part for Ghyslain was coming across these comments when he read about his video online. People he didn’t even know were making fun of him. At school, he was bullied so badly that he had to leave. He wasn’t safe on the streets either. He never knew when he’d be recognized and laughed or shouted at. He felt worthless and alone.
He had become famous for all the wrong reasons. Reporters wouldn’t stop calling his house. Ghyslain was invited for TV interviews. Characters in famous cartoons made fun of him.
It took time, but Ghyslain slowly got his confidence back. He went to college and got a degree, and the parents of the boys who’d stolen his video had to pay a lot of money to his family for the pain they’d caused.
Ghyslain wanted to send a message to any kids in similar situations: “You’ll survive. You’re not alone. You are surrounded by people who love you.”
Years later, lots of people proudly post videos online of themselves wielding lightsabers. There’s even a group dedicated to teaching lightsaber choreography: the Golden Gate Knights.
“Ghyslain Raza helped blaze a trail for other Star Wars fans,” said their leader. “In a way, he was our chosen one that brought us all into the light.”
HANS SCHOLL
(1918–1943)
When the Nazis took control of Germany, they killed millions of innocent people and took freedom away from everyone.
At their university, Hans, his sisters Sophie and Inge, and their friends started held secret talks about the Nazis and how cruel and unfair their actions were.
They decided to create a secret group: the White Rose.
The White Rose printed leaflets that described how the Nazis were killing Jews, disabled people, and other minorities. They talked about nonviolent resistance, the same as Gandhi had practiced. The problem was that a lot of people didn’t know what was going on or what they could do about it, and the White Rose wanted to change that.
Their leaflets were posted to schools, bars, cafes, and houses found randomly in the phonebook. Soon, the effects were felt. Anti-Nazi graffiti appeared on the city walls. “Hitler is a murderer!” read one piece. “Down with the Nazis!” cried another.
One day, Hans and his sister, Sophie, were stopped and searched. The police found a draft of a new leaflet in his pocket and knew they’d caught two of the leaders of the White Rose. At the age of twenty-four, Hans was executed for standing up to the Nazis.
But the group’s work didn’t stop there. One White Rose leaflet was smuggled out of Germany, to England, where thousands of copies were made. English planes flying over German cities dropped the leaflets in the streets, letting the people know what was happening in their country and what they could do to fight it.
Despite fear, despite the possibility of death, and despite living under one of the most terrifying regimes ever to exist, Hans, Sophie, and rest of the White Rose never stopped fighting for what they believed in.
PERCY SHELLEY
(1792–1822)
Percy couldn’t understand sports, didn’t know how to talk to other boys, and spent most of his time buried in books. He was bullied at school. The bullying made him angry, and his anger made the bullying worse. Once, he stabbed another boy with a fork. They called him Mad Shelley, and he felt more alone than he ever had before. It was as though a monster kept taking control of him.
When he moved on to college, Percy met a friend at last. They would stay up late, talking, arguing, and working on projects together. One of their works, a book about how they couldn’t believe in God, got them both thrown out of school.
Percy’s father was furious. And he was double furious when, instead of applying to other universities, Percy ran away to Scotland with one of his sister’s friends. While there, Percy spent his time scribbling down thoughts and poems and sending them out into the world in paper boats, glass bottles, and tiny hot-air balloons.
Then he met a woman named Mary.
They ran away to Paris, and from there they walked all through Europe. As they walked, they read aloud to each other from books. At night, they both wrote. Percy worked on poems that turned out to be some of the most beautiful and important ever written in English. Mary wrote a book called Frankenstein, about a grotesque monster and the scientist who’d created him.
Percy made friends with the other great poets of the age, Byron and Keats, and they spent their days together reading, writing, and rowing boats.
BOYAN SLAT
(BORN 1994)
On vacation in Greece, sixteen-year-old Boyan dived into the glistening sea, excited to swim among shoals of exotic fish. But Boyan was shocked. He could barely see any fish; all he could really see were plastic bags. He wanted to know why.
When he got home, Boyan starte
d researching and was surprised by what he found.
Every year, more and more plastic trash is dumped into the earth’s oceans. The plastic poisons animals like turtles, seals, and birds, and it can also be swallowed by fish, which humans then go on to eat, making us sick. All of the plastic waste lumps together in vast garbage patches that are impossible for animals to avoid. One of the largest, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is twice the size of the United States of America.
Boyan wanted to change that.
He got to work and invented a new type of ocean cleaner that would drift along on the currents, collecting plastic as the seawater passed through it.
Some scientists were doubtful that Boyan’s invention would work, but after a whole year of tests, he proved to them that it would. People were so impressed that his company raised over thirty million dollars to start their work.
Within ten years, Ocean Cleanup will have halved the size of the Pacific Garbage Patch. In 2014, Boyan became the youngest person ever to be given the title Champion of the Earth. Hopefully, within his lifetime, he’ll be able to leap back into the same Greek sea that started it all and watch thousands of beautiful fish dart through water as clear as glass.
VEDRAN SMAILOVIĆ
(BORN 1956)
The city of Sarajevo was being torn to pieces by the war that raged around it. For 1,425 days, tanks rolled through the streets, bombs crashed, and shots were fired. It would be the longest ever siege of a city in the history of modern war.
One afternoon, Vedran heard an explosion and looked out of his window. A bomb had gone off and killed twenty-two people who’d been waiting in line to buy bread at the bakery.
Vedran slumped to the ground.
He felt so angry, so sad, and so powerless. His life, his country, and his friends were all being destroyed, and what could he do about it? He wasn’t a soldier, he couldn’t fight. He wasn’t a politician, he couldn’t negotiate. He was a musician. How would that help?
Doing the only thing he could do, Vedran put on his fanciest suit, picked up his cello, and went down into the smoke-filled streets of his city. He set up a stool in the hole left by the bomb and played.
A journalist came to interview him.
“Are you crazy?” the journalist asked.
“You ask me am I crazy for playing the cello?” Vedran replied. “Why do you not ask if they are crazy for destroying Sarajevo?”
He played in the same spot for the next twenty-two days: a day for each person who had died. He played on as buildings burned, bombs fell, and shells flew around him. He played for peace. He played for humanity. And he played to show that, even in the darkest, most terrifying times, there can be hope and beauty, if you only remember to look.
STEVEN SPIELBERG
(BORN 1946)
Growing up was difficult for Steven. His family was Jewish, and neighbors and kids at school would shout insults at him because of it.
One night, Steven snuck out of his bedroom and covered all his neighbors’ windows in peanut butter. When they confronted his mom, she laughed and told them she was proud of him. But Steven still often felt uncomfortable about being Jewish.
Luckily, he found he could forget about all this when he made films. He loved using his family’s home movie camera, making videos of family camping trips and birthday parties. For his first movie, he crashed his toy trains and filmed it. He found he much preferred writing scripts and cutting his films to playing with the other kids in his school.
As he grew up, Steven became famous as a film director. He made films about killer sharks, aliens, dinosaurs, and time travel. But he hadn’t ever made a film about being Jewish.
Then he heard the story of Oskar Schindler. During World War II, when the Nazis were killing Jews in great numbers, Oskar saved the lives of over a thousand Jews by giving them jobs in his factories. He spent his entire fortune paying Nazis not to take them away. Steven knew it was a story that needed to be told.
Actually, it was so important, he didn’t even think he was good enough to make it, so he asked other people if they’d do it first. When they said no, Steven traveled around Poland to see the places behind the real history.
“Jewish life came pouring back into my heart,” he said. “I cried all the time.”
Once it was released, the film earned over twenty awards. It’s now classed as one of the best films of the past hundred years.
CHESLEY “SULLY” SULLENBERGER
(BORN 1951)
Flight 1549 had just taken off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport when it struck a huge flock of squawking geese. Both engines cut out. The plane was 3,000 feet in the air and traveling at 250 miles per hour.
Thankfully, the passengers on that flight were under the watch of Captain Sully, a devoted pilot who’d been flying planes for over forty years. He’d wanted to fly since he was five years old.
“We’re heading back to the airport,” Sully told ground control.
Then he realized they couldn’t make it.
“We’ll head to a runway at the next airport instead,” he said.
Then he realized they wouldn’t make that either. The only remaining option was the Hudson River.
It was a terrifying decision to make. Only one other plane had ever landed in the river, and it had crashed, killing its pilot. No one would have blamed Sully if he’d tried to turn back to the airport, but he could see that going back just wasn’t an option.
“Brace for impact,” he announced over the loudspeaker.
Miraculously, Captain Sully managed to land the plane in the river. If he’d brought the plane in at an angle that was even slightly wrong, it would have broken in half, and people could have died. But everyone lived.
The crew safely managed to evacuate every passenger on board. Captain Sully was the last person off the plane.
When investigators ran a simulation of flight 1549, they found that no other pilot was capable of doing what Sully had done. But Sully’s modest. He says their success was due to every member of the crew knowing their job, thinking on their feet, and working together.
Sully retired a year later. Now he spends his time giving talks through-out America about safety. He wants to make sure that, when people find themselves in emergencies, they’re as prepared as they can be.
SWAMPY
(BORN 1973)
No one knows a lot about Daniel Hooper, better known as Swampy. All they know for sure is that he was born to a normal family, in a normal town in England, and that he cares fiercely about protecting our planet.
When the government announced their plans to build a new road through the countryside in Berkshire, people were angry. The road would mean that a lot of beautiful old oak, ash, and beech trees would be torn down.
To protest, hundreds of people, including Swampy, moved to where the new road was going to be built, and set up camps. The camps had names like Pixie Village, Heartbreak Hotel, and Rickety Bridge. The people in the camps lived together, without electricity or running water, sharing meals and foraging for food. They built houses out of wood in the trees, which they called twigloos, and wooden houses on the ground, which they called benders.
The government wasn’t happy. They couldn’t build their road and the delay was expensive, so they sent in people to take the protesters away.
But Swampy and his friends had another idea. They dug a maze of tunnels under the ground and hid in them. For a whole week, they lived in the tunnels until they were caught. Swampy was the last person to be found and removed.
“I feel like it’s the only way to get a voice these days,” he told journalists as the police led him away.
Although the protesters didn’t win, they were heard. Swampy appeared on TV and radio, sharing his message of living in harmony with nature, and the government started to look at ways to avoid building new roads through ancient countryside.
DANIEL TAMMET
(BORN 1979)
As a baby, Daniel never stopped crying. He woul
d bash his head against the wall until his mom picked him up and rocked him to sleep. No one knew what was wrong.
Then Daniel had an epileptic fit. Everyone was terrified, because his grandfather had died of epilepsy. They thought his life was over.
Instead, it turned out that the fit had done something to Daniel’s brain.
He first noticed it when his dad gave him a book about counting. Looking at the numbers, he saw more than just ones, twos, and threes. He saw images for each number. Images like crashing thunder or running water. Some numbers were lumpy, others were smooth. Some were loud and some were quiet.
As a joke, while they were playing, his brother asked him, “What’s 82 x 82 x 82 x 82?”
The images twirled and spun in Daniel’s head.
“45,212,176,” Daniel said.
And he was right.
It didn’t help Daniel to make friends in school, though. He preferred to be alone. He was diagnosed with autism and sometimes things felt overwhelming. When he needed to calm down, he would just watch the numbers go past in his head or collect ladybugs and sit between the trees.
Aside from numbers, Daniel likes languages. He can speak ten and has created his own, called Manti. He’s written multiple books. And his memory isn’t bad either.
“I memorized pi to 22,514 decimal places,” he said, “and I am technically disabled. I just wanted to show people that disability needn’t get in the way.”
TANK MAN
In the summer of 1989, thousands of students were marching through the capital of China. They were protesting against their unfair government. For years, they’d been watching the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, while those in government only looked after themselves.
