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18Mar

Standing Up, Speaking Out

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Storytime lists
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Children marching with handmade protest signs.
https://tinyurl.com/vwuvzd3

My book came out March 10. It was just before coronavirus warnings stepped up, so I got to share it with lots of kids and adults at various book events. One was a special library visit where I shared selections from my book and several other books about activism. We talked about people standing up, speaking out, and demonstrating for change.

After we had read about the ways demonstrations have helped prompt change in America, we did our own demonstration. The library provided poster board. I thought kids would need lots of help figuring out what they wanted to write on their posters. I was wrong! Only one or two kids asked for help. The others knew right away what they cared about. There were many posters about the environment!

We chanted and marched through the library, outside, and up and down the sidewalk. When our march was over, I asked how it had felt. One very honest boy said, “Kinda embarassing.” And he’s right. Sometimes standing up, speaking out, and advocating for change can be uncomfortable.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do!

Books I used in my storytime:

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything by Annette Bay Pimentel, illustrated by Nabi Ali (Sourcebooks: 2020).

Equality’s Call: The Story of Voting Rights in America by Deborah Diesen, illustrated by Magdalena Mora (Beach Lane: 2020).

If You’re Going to a March by Martha Freeman, illustrated by Violet Kim (Sterling: 2018).

The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist by Cynthia Levinson, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton (Atheneum: 2017).

Image shows a tree growing from a book and reads Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge 2020

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19Jul

Pedal Power

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Pedal Power cover shows people of many ages riding bicycles across an Amsterdam canal bridge

Pedal Power cover shows people of many ages riding bicycles across an Amsterdam canal bridge

I’m on the wonderful Kirby Larson’s blog talking about nonfiction back matter. Please visit!

Our family lived in the Netherlands for several years. We owned a car but seldom used it. It was much, much easier to navigate our ancient town by bike than by car, and with bikes parallel parking was never an issue (though finding an empty bike rack sometimes was!). Two of our children were born while we lived there, and they hated their carseats. Even when the cold North Sea wind blew, they much preferred riding in their bike seats to being cooped up in the car. And our family’s dependence on bicycles was not quirky or unique. For all of our neighbors, bikes were the standard of transportation. So I was astonished to read Pedal Power and learn that it was not so many years ago that bicycles were not the go-to form of transportation in the Netherlands.

In this nonfiction picture book, Allan Drummond traces the history of the bicycle on Dutch streets. He profiles Maartje Rutten, one of the bicycle activists who agitated for traffic changes in the 1970s. He shows, especially in illustrations, how children participated in the protests (and I loved the back matter photographs that show children activists). He makes it clear that change didn’t come about because of a single protest but because of protests and actions over time. This is a wonderful addition to his other books about environmental change, like Green City, and I personally found it very inspiring that such a pervasive cultural change could occur in such a relatively short time.

In the back matter, Drummond talks about his own connection to bicycle community, about traveling to Amsterdam to interview Maartje Rutten, and about the ways bicycles have become important in other cities.

I’ll be returning the copy of the book that I read to my library later today. And I’ll be doing it, of course, on my bicycle.

Pedal Power: How One Community Became the Bicycle Capital of the World by Allan Drummond. Farrar Straus Giroux: 2017.

Children with book around a globe

I participate every Wednesday in the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at Kid Lit Frenzy.

 

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