Annette Bay Pimentel

I love to read nonfiction picture books by other people. Unless otherwise stated in a post, I do not accept any books for the purpose of review. I check books out of the library or buy them before I review them.

Recent Posts

12Jan

Ben Franklin’s Big Splash

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

This book is based on a passage in a letter (helpfully included in the book’s back matter) where Franklin describes his youthful invention of a swimming aid: swim fins and flippers! Using that single paragraph as her starting point, Barb Rosenstock imagines the process young Ben Franklin–or anyone–would follow to invent something new. The […]

Tags: alliteration American Revolution back matter biography Calkins Creek inventor scientist word choice

9Jan

Red Bird Sings

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

It’s only 32 pages long, but this biography of a Native American artist and activist is dense and wordy, coming in at over 3500 words. It’s obviously not targeted at the youngest readers. I hope older readers won’t dismiss it out of hand, though, because it uses its primary sources in really innovative ways. […]

Tags: biography Carolrhoda history Native American primary sources

7Jan

Goldie Takes a Stand

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

This book is another biography of a recent public figure, this time Golda Meir. Who knew that she lived in Wisconsin as a child? I hadn’t! The book is based on a 1909 Milwaukee Journal newspaper article telling about a benefit that Golda and her friends organized. The author is very clear in the back […]

Tags: biography first person narration invented dialogue Israel politician refrain

5Jan

Star Stuff

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

I’m sometimes surprised by the topics that pop up in nonfiction picture books. Carl Sagan seems to me more like newspaper material than history book fodder, but to an audience of four to eight year olds, he’s just as much The Past as are George Washington and Julius Caesar. After all, he died years […]

Tags: back matter biography Page turn Roaring Brook Press scientist

2Jan

Craft: Reading before Writing

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Craft

I love Linda Sue Park’s books, so I was interested to see her writing advice on her blog: Read. That’s the single best thing an aspiring writer can do for his or her work. I once heard an editor say, “Read a thousand books of the genre you’re interested in. THEN write yours.” I appreciate […]

Tags: reading journal

22Dec

Anna & Solomon

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

I firmly believe that every family has a story that its children need to know, and I love nonfiction picture books that grow from those stories. This delightful book came about when the New Yorker artist, Harry Bliss, finally convinced his mother-in-law to put her family story on paper. It is a beautiful […]

Tags: biography family history Farrar Straus Giroux history immigration Page turn religion Russia scaffolding

19Dec

Deep in the Sahara

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

We lived in Khartoum, Sudan with our children. We’d lived several places in Europe before that, and I thought i was an experienced expatriate. Sudan, however, stunned me. It was so very, very different from any other place I had ever lived! I watched in surprise as my children fitted themselves comfortably into the rhythms […]

Tags: Africa historical fiction religion Schwartz & Wade

17Dec

Animal Teachers

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

“Who taught you to do things? Your parents and others who care about you were your first teachers. Who teaches animals?” Each spread of this book explores a different animal which has to learn a survival behavior after it is born. It’s a layered text–you can read just the large font text and have it […]

Tags: animals biology Blue Apple layered text

15Dec

Edward Hopper Paints His World

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

This lovely, quiet book tells the story of Edward Hopper’s life from the time he was a child with a new pencil box until he finished his last painting. The narrative voice is soulful, telling emotionally-charged anecdotes with vivid words, as well as reflective, using questions to organize the story: Edward wondered: will I ever […]

Tags: artists back matter biography Christy Ottaviano Books narrative voice

12Dec

Craft: How to Write a Title for your Picture Book

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Craft

Titles are tough. How do you condense everything you’ve poured into that manuscript to a few words? Words that need to intrigue and engage. Words that need to impel someone to pick up your book and open it. What makes a good title? This question became more than idle speculation for me when my editor […]

Tags: reading journal title

10Dec

Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! A Gamer’s Alphabet

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

This inventive book cruises through the alphabet with specialized videogame terms. The narrative voice isn’t stuffy at all but complicit–a good buddy revealing secrets. My eleven year old son–who seldom looks at any ABC books these days–loved it. Besides being great for gamers or would-be gamers, this book could be used in the classroom or […]

Tags: ABC books jargon narrative voice Pow! Books

8Dec

Review: Ellen’s Broom

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

Sometimes important historical events remain only in fragmentary records. Thank goodness for historical fiction, which lets us see what those records mean in real human lives. Inspired by the Freedmen Bureau’s Cohabitation List of 1866, Lyons has constructed a story that shows the trauma slavery inflicted on black marriages and the joy with which couples […]

Tags: Civil War historical fiction Reconstruction

5Dec

Move!

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

This book is built around an insight so obvious you’ve probably never thought about it. I hadn’t! Despite what we teach toddlers, bunnies don’t only hop and birds don’t only fly. All living creatures move in different ways at different times. Page builds that insight into her clever structure: we see each featured animal move in two different […]

Tags: animals Houghton Mifflin Harcourt science structure

3Dec

Separate is Never Equal

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

Duncan Tonatiuh’s distinctive artwork illustrates this story of a family that brought a lawsuit to desegregate schools. The story is long–2321 words!–but Tonatiuh makes sure everything is told from young Sylvia’s point of view. The dialogue in the book keeps things lively, and I was delighted that the author included a note about that dialogue […]

Tags: Abrams Books back matter biography civil rights court cases narrative voice quotations segregation

1Dec

War Dogs

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

It’s hard to find a new angle on topics that have been written about before. Over. And. Over. But Selbert does so charmingly: Rufus’ best friend, Winston Churchill, is a busy man, but most days Rufus and Winston share a walk. From this auspicious beginning, we watch Churchill save the Western world from the perspective […]

Tags: biography British Charlesbridge history pets World War II

26Nov

What to Read for Thanksgiving

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Holidays

[booknet booknumber= 9780547199450] Turkeys and Pilgrims are important, of course, but this book speaks to another aspect of modern-day Thanksgiving: the Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade. Both text and illustrations are brilliant, and will give you a new appreciation for all those character balloons bobbing about on your TV screen! Balloons over Broadway, by Melissa Sweet. […]

Tags: biography Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Thanksgiving

24Nov

Those Rebels, John and Tom

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

This brilliantly written book explores the differences and similarities between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and how they helped shape their cooperation in making a new nation. The book starts with a strong opening: The true story of how one gentleman–short and stout–and another–tall and lean–formed a surprising alliance, committed treason, and helped launch a […]

Tags: American Revolution biography history John Adams narrative voice quotations Scholastic Thomas Jefferson word choice

21Nov

Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

This book, about a landmark moment in jazz history, is written with a jazz-inspired narrative voice, playing with literary convention–there’s no end punctuation in the entire book–and dabbling with different poetic devices, like rhyme, alliteration, and onomatopoeia, without ever committing to one. The story’s told with staccato phrases in shotgun bursts. Ransome uses rich and […]

Tags: biography history Holiday House music narrative voice segregation word choice

19Nov

All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

Sometimes historical fiction is the closest we can get to the past. In an “Author’s Note,” Angela Johnson explains the limitations she was under in writing about the day slaves were emancipated: I’d love to know how my great-grandparents celebrated when told they were free. But that tale has been lost to time, so I […]

Tags: Angela Johnson Civil War historical fiction history Simon & Schuster

17Nov

Look Up! Henrietta Leavitt, Pioneering Woman Astronomer

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review Uncategorized

In writing biography, it’s tempting to start at your subject’s birth and finish at your subject’s death. But usually that’s not the structure that will best tell the story. In this biography of an astronomer, the book starts with her gazing at the stars as a child and wondering about them. We see her work […]

Tags: astronomer biography scientist Simon & Schuster structure

14Nov

Under the Freedom Tree

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

This is an inspiring story with haunting art. It tells of three slaves who escape to the shelter of a Union fort during the Civil War and what follows their brave action. Van Hecke’s language is spare and evocative. She even leaves out articles to distill the language . We get unadorned image: May moon […]

Tags: art Charlesbridge Civil War history word choice

12Nov

Fish for Jimmy

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review Uncategorized

[booknet booknumber=9780823423750] Historical fiction can be used to present troubling topics in a controlled way appropriate for young children. In this historical fiction, Yamasaki skillfully tackles a difficult subject–World War II Japanese-American internment camps. Her story shows the triumph of brotherly kindness and courage, without glossing over the institutional cruelty of the camps. Her narrative voice is […]

Tags: family history historical fiction Holiday House Katie Yamasaki World War II

10Nov

What to Read on Veteran’s Day

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Holidays

There aren’t too many Veteran’s Day picture books. You could read a book about a particular veteran, but this book is the rare one that honors veterans as a group. Demarest tells the stories of Arlington Cemeteries. It includes the big stories–JFK’s eternal flame, the Tomb of the Unknowns, Robert E. Lee’s memorial–but I love […]

Tags: Roaring Brook Press Veteran's Day

7Nov

Nonfiction Picture Books in the Real World

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Interview

I write nonfiction for children, but I’m also writing for adults. When it comes to picture books, adults are the gatekeepers. Generally, they select the books to buy or check out and they’re the ones who read them to children. I’m curious about how adults make those decisions and about how they share nonfiction picture […]

Tags: biography interview parent

5Nov

Review: The World’s Best Noses, Ears, and Eyes

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

[booknet booknumber=”9780823431614″] In this inventive nonfiction picture book, each page is written in the voice of an animal who is arguing about why its nose (or ear or eye) is the “best.” These are great examples of persuasive writing, and along the way we learn a lot about how animals specialize to fit their individual environmental […]

Tags: biology Holiday House nature persuasive writing Sweden

3Nov

What to Read on Election Day

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Holidays

Tomorrow is Election Day here. I’ll be going to the polls, grateful that I have the right to cast a ballot. This book is the story of Susan B. Anthony’s illegal vote in 1872 when she cast a ballot in the presidential election. The book tells an important story and it’s beautifully constructed. Malaspina doesn’t […]

Tags: Albert Whitman biography Election Day history nineteeth century sensory detail structure suffrage Susan B. Anthony voting rights

31Oct

What to Read on Halloween: The Bat Scientists

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Holidays

Happy Halloween! Books in the Scientist in the Field series look and feel like a picture book (albeit hefty ones at 80 pages). They get shelved with nonfiction picture books. But inside, they’re middle grade material, complete with chapters. They’re also totally engaging. Every chapter in this book features a different scientist working on some […]

Tags: conservation halloween Houghton Mifflin scientist

29Oct

A Home for Mr. Emerson

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

How do you summarize a life like Ralph Waldo Emerson’s for a picture book biography? Barbara Kerley did it by choosing one theme–Emerson’s desire for a home–and follows it throughout his life. We see him longing for a home as a child, building a home and community with his wife, losing his home to a […]

Tags: lists nineteenth century philosopher quotations Scholastic sensory detail

27Oct

Review: Animal School: What Class Are You?

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review

[booknet booknumber= “9780823430451”] Despite the title, this book doesn’t have anything to do with school or classes (check out Snow School if you’re looking for an animals-school comparison). Instead, it’s a clever rhyming picture book outlining the different characteristics of vertebrate classes: amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles. Lord uses rhyming couplets, each with 7 or 8 […]

Tags: biology Holiday House Michael Garland Michelle Lord nature poetry vertebrates

24Oct

What to read during the World Series

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Holidays

In honor of the World Series, here are some great recent nonfiction picture books about baseball: [booknet booknumber=9780375868443] You Never Heard of Willie Mays? Jonah Winter also wrote You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax? [booknet booknumber=9781419705212] Barbed Wire Baseball by Marissa Moss. Haunting and inspirational story of a semi-pro player in a Japanese American internment camp in World […]

Tags: sports

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