Menu

Portrait of Annette Bay PimentelI 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

4May

Cloth Lullaby

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
8 Comments

The language in this beautiful book about artist Louise Bourgeois is lyrical and full of abstract language: metaphors, similes, and sly double-meaning phrases. Right from the first line we’re plunged into the world of words packed tight with meaning: “Louise was raised by a river.” The obvious meaning is that her family lived next to […]

Read more
Tags:
27Apr

Dorothea’s Eyes

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
1 Comment

Dorothea’s Eyes fills a gap. Here, at last, is a biography of the great photographer Dorothea Lange. In her straightforward text, Rosenstock tells the story of Lange’s life. She traces how Lange’s childhood polio gave her keen empathy. We see Lange face struggles as the child of a single mother. We watch her insist that […]

Read more
Tags:
20Apr

Whale Trails

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
4 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about nonfiction text structures. I love lots of nonfiction picture books with traditional story structures: following a character through her life from birth to death, or recounting an event from beginning to end. But there are lots of other text structures possible, as well. Whale Trails: Before and Now elegantly sets […]

Read more
Tags:
6Apr

Miss Mary Reporting

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
3 Comments

Miss Mary Reporting is vintage Sue Macy–it’s the rollicking story of a woman breaking barriers in the world of sports. But this time, the woman isn’t an athlete but a reporter. This picture book biography tells the story of Mary Garber, one of the first and arguably the most prominent early female sportswriter. We learn about […]

Read more
Tags:
2Apr

Mountain Chef

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Links
No comments

I’m getting antsy for the publication date of Mountain Chef: How One Man Lost His Groceries, Changed His Plans, and Helped Cook Up the National Park Service.  But my book is on the way! It tells the true story of Tie Sing, a Chinese American chef who lived in a time of intense anti-Chinese feeling but […]

Read more
Tags:
30Mar

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
No comments

I love to find nonfiction picture books about women in science! This lovely new picture book tells the story of Marie Tharp, a cartographer and ocean researcher. She didn’t live that long ago, but she still encountered lots of opposition to her working in science. She managed to carve out a tiny place for herself […]

Read more
Tags:
29Mar

ReFoReMo

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Uncategorized
No comments

 I love Carrie Charley Brown’s Reading for Research Month. The idea is simple: for 20 days in March, you read picture books every day, write about what you learn from them, and read a blogpost about picture books that have taught them something about writing. There’s a mix of old and new, fiction and nonfiction, […]

Read more
23Mar

Sweet Sixteen

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Links Storytime lists
3 Comments

Are you ready for the Sweet Sixteen? Chips? Check. Cold drinks? Check. Stack of nonfiction picture books? Here are three great basketball books that every basketball fan–and every picture book fan!–will love. Hoop Genius: How a Desperate Teacher and a Rowdy Gym Class Invented Basketball, by John Coy (Carolrhoda: 2013). The unlikely story of the beginnings […]

Read more
Tags:
16Mar

Right to Vote

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
2 Comments

In this voting year, no child is going to escape bombardment with news about the election. But will those children understand the significance and context that led to that vote? Two new books look at the right to vote in very different ways. The first book is Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass is […]

Read more
Tags:
24Feb

Hillary

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
2 Comments

If the children’s publishing world has anything to say about it, it appears that our next president will be Hillary Clinton. Already this year two different nonfiction picture books about Hillary Clinton have been published–Hillary by Jonah Winter and Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls are Born to Lead by Michelle Markel. The art in the Markel book, […]

Read more
Tags:
10Feb

W is for Webster

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
6 Comments

A dictionary scholar is a tough sell as a picture book subject. Where’s the action?  What’s the illustrator going to illustrate? Sitting around writing and reading? W is for Webster tells the story of sitting around writing and reading with whimsy and humor. Fern picks out whimsical details to tell the story of Webster’s life–as a child […]

Read more
Tags:
3Feb

Sky Painter: Louis Fuertes Bird Artist

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
8 Comments

In Sky Painter: Louis Fuertes Bird Artist, Margarita Engle skillfully uses poetry to tell the remarkable life story of Louis Fuertes. He began painting birds when the state-of-the-art was to shoot the bird and then arrange it in a lifelike pose. Fuertes, however, couldn’t bear to kill the animals he admired. So he invented new techniques […]

Read more
Tags:
27Jan

Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
4 Comments

Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton is a lovely picture book biography about an African American who started writing poetry while he was enslaved. In the afterword, Tate says, “…the publishing industry could do a better job of balancing the topic of slavery with other African-American stories.” This month furor has erupted again over […]

Read more
Tags:
20Jan

Aaron and Alexander

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
5 Comments

“Aaron and Alexander could have been friends. They were alike in many ways. But the ways in which they were different made them the worst of enemies.” So begins Don Brown’s fascinating comparison of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, culminating in the events that led to their infamous duel. Brown’s language is solid and serious–as […]

Read more
Tags:
13Jan

Billy’s Booger

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
5 Comments

Hilarious nonfiction picture books can be hard to find. Gentle, amusing, sweet. It’s a lot easier to find nonfiction picture books that fit those descriptions. But rollicking, silly, laugh-out-loud nonfiction picture books are rare. William Joyce has provided just such a rare duck with his “sorta” memoir about the first book he wrote. At the […]

Read more
Tags:
11Jan

Winners!

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Links
No comments

It was an early morning, watching the live cast of the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards. A great morning for nonfiction picture books! Schneider Family Book Awards (literature representing the disability experience.   Emmanuel’s Dream. I wrote about the book here.     Sibert Informational Medal (most distinguished nonfiction)   Funny Bones. One of […]

Read more
23Dec

This Is My Home, This Is My School

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
No comments

This charming memoir, a follow-up to Jonathan Bean’s equally delightful Building Our House, takes us through a day of home-school with his family. The narrator, a cheery blond-headed boy (suspiciously like the photos of cheery blond-headed Jonathan Bean in the back of the book) shows us his world of school. He stands in front of his […]

Read more
Tags:
16Dec

Fur, Fins, and Feathers

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Book trailer Review
1 Comment

Before you visit the zoo next time, read this book. Then look for all the ways that Abraham Dee Bartlett helped create your zoo experience: informational signs, veterinary care, naturalistic habitat, all of them can be traced back to this self-taught nineteenth century zoo director. The book begins with Bartlett’s childhood, with one-on-one encounters with […]

Read more
Tags:
2Dec

Mock Siberts, Part 2

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Links
9 Comments

I already posted about books I wish could win the Sibert but probably won’t. Here’s my list of  books I hope are in the running:   A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat by Emily Jenkins, illustrations by Sophie Blackall. This book has been the center of a firestorm because one of […]

Read more
Tags:
25Nov

Fab Four Friends

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
No comments

This visually lovely biography looks at each Beatle individually. The first–and longest–chapter shows John Lennon’s troubled growing-up years. In other chapters we see Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr before they joined the band. Susanna Reich focuses on the boys’ inner lives–what drew them to music and why they were looking for a group […]

Read more
Tags:
18Nov

Mock Siberts, Part 1

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Storytime lists Uncategorized
2 Comments

KidLitFrenzy is running a mock Sibert competition, asking people to nominate their favorite contenders for this years ALA award for the most distinguished informational books for children. Right up my alley! So I’ve spent the last two weeks revisiting my favorite 2015 nonfiction picture books and reading them aloud with my family. So many great books! […]

Read more
Tags:
« Older posts
Newer posts »