Menu

14Feb

2017 Nonfiction Picture Books I’m Just Now Reading

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

I’m still scrambling to catch up with 2017 books (though maybe that will give my library time to get a few 2018 titles in…). Here are three 2017 nonfiction picture books I’m just now reading. All three titles have beautiful art depicting nighttime scenes:

Cover of book shows boy dressed as an ancient Egyptian on a reed boat, as a grown-up paddles.

Nile Crossing is a surprising first-day-of-school book. The main character, Khepri, is nervous about leaving Mom and Dad behind, and worried about the new activities he’ll have to get used to. But he’s a child in ancient Egypt instead of the next town over, and he has to leave home before dawn in order to cross the Nile to get to school. The beautiful art is inspired by ancient Egyptian art. The back matter actually continues the story–we get to see Khepri make his first friend!–and watch him write his first letter. I’ve never before seen a sequel embedded in back matter, and I can only imagine how delighted Egypt-crazy kids will be to discover that the story continues. The back matter also has a fascinating essay about why it’s likely that lower-class boys and some girls attended school in ancient Egypt. In the Author’s Note, the author talks about how she got interested in the topic, and in her analogous note the illustrator talks about the process of illustrating a story from long ago.

Nile Crossing by Katy Beebe, illustrated by Sally Wern Comport. (Eerdmans: 2017).

 

 

Cover of book shows a boy--Vincent Van Gogh--asleep under a starry sky

 

 

Vincent Can’t Sleep is a lyrical picture book biography of Vincent Van Gogh. It’s structured around the refrain, “Vincent can’t sleep…” We follow Vincent throughout his life, seeing his wakefulness and attentiveness as a child, as a young person, and as an adult, lead to careful observation of the world around him. The scenes are biographical, placing Vincent where he actually lived at different stages of his life–“while the sturdy Dutch village of Zundert slumbers, he lies rocking in his wooden cradle” and he is “away at boarding schools in bigger towns. Zevenbergen. Tilburg”–but they also evoke his most famous paintings. We see him looking at the stars (Starry Night) and painting in the country (The Potato Eaters). The art is reminiscent of VanGogh’s art, and the back matter gives more detail about his life, including the fact that “from boyhood on, he was plagued with long bouts of insomnia.” I love how the book conveys the energy and emotion of Van Gogh’s paintings.

Vincent Can’t Sleep by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Mary Grandpre. (Alfred A. Knopf: 2017).

 

 

 

 

 

On the cover of the book a young Harriet Tubman looks at the night sky.

 

Most narrative nonfiction picture books have a straightforward, beginning-to-end structure. Before She Was Harriet inverts that pattern. It tells the life of Harriet Tubman starting with old age. Then, with each page turn, we move backward in time and see her at younger and younger ages: “Before she was an old woman she was a suffragist…Before she was a suffragist she was General Tubman…Before she was General Tubman she was a Union spy.” The structural device of moving from old age to youth means that the climax of the book is the moment when we arrive back at her childhood and see her, still unformed, ready to move forward bravely into life. She’s a child, not yet knowing the great good that she will accomplish in her life. It’s inspiring, and puts its child readers there with Harriet, imagining what good they will accomplish in their lives. The paintings in the book are luminous. I especially loved the ones set at night and in dark spaces. In those, Harriet almost seems like a source of light herself. [And this just won a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor!]

Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James Ransome. (Holiday House: 2017).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture of children surrounding a globe

Alyson Beecher hosts the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at kidlitfrenzy.com. Visit there for more great nonfiction picture books!

Tags:
20Sep

The Skydiving Beavers

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

Cover of The Skydiving Beavers shows a beaver on the ground watching boxes attached to parachutes float toward the groudThe Skydiving Beavers is a great title–especially when you know it’s also a nonfiction story. (The only thing that I, as an Idahoan, think might have made it better would have been to keep it in its original form–The Skydiving Beavers of Idaho.)

This is the story of airlifting beavers, but it’s also the story of how scientists think and work through problems.

The story is set in 1940s Idaho–the era is signaled with the wonderful illustrations with vintage clothes and automobiles–when McCall, Idaho  was growing and encroaching on beaver habitat. I loved the refrain that Wood uses to start the story:

“It all started when the folks of McCall, Idaho, realized they ahd a problem. A big problem. A big, beaver-type problem.”

A little later she changes the refrain to show another side of the story:

“Now the beavers had a problem too. A big problem. A big, people-type problem.”

When a local Department of Fish and Game official, Elmot Heter, decides they should move the beavers away from humans, she uses this version of the refrain:

“But Elmo had a problem. A big problem. A big, transportation-type problem.”

The refrain has elegantly set up the problem and then moved us into the heart of the book.

The story shows Elmo mulling over the problem, thinking about the difficulties of moving wild animals, and coming up with different ideas for solutions. We see him drawing plans on paper and building prototype equipment in his workshop and then testing it in the field. It’s really a great inside look on the real work of daily science, and one that would go well with a class on the scientific method.

The Author’s Note expains that Elmo’s solution would be considered unwise today and explains why it’s good for humans to make room in their world for beavers. I love that the book celebrates Elmo’s ingenuity but also shows the way added knowledge can change what we consider good practices.

It’s the rare picture book that’s set in Idaho. I feel lucky that we get such a fun one!

The Skydiving Beavers: A True Tale by Susan Wood, illustrated by Gysbert van Frankenhuyzen. Sleeping Bear Press: 2017.

Children with book around a globe

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

 

Tags:
9Aug

The Hawk of the Castle

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

The cover of The Hawk in the Castle shows a whawk wheeling in the air above a castle.Kings…princesses…castles. The Hawk of the Castle appeals to all of those fairy tale elements, but it’s full of nonfiction content. It uses a fictional narrator (“This is me. This is my father.”) to explain how falcons and hawks were used in medieval times for hunting.  The text is in verse reminiscent of “This is the House that Jack Built”:

This is our hawk: a sight to behold,

a master of  flight, graceful and bold.

My father trains this bird of prey

who lives with us at the castle.

In every stanza, the first two lines rhyme, and the last line ends with a preposition and then “…the castle.” (In fact, I could imagine using this book for a lesson on prepositions, finding the different preopositions at the end of every stanza.) Every spread also has a text box with nonfiction information about hunting birds and how they were trained and used. The real pleasure of the book, though, is in reading it aloud. Of course, that read aloud may well prompt passionate interest that can be met with the text boxes.

In the back matter, Danna Smith describes her own experience with falconry, describing learning from her own father.

The art, by Bagram Ibatoulline, is rich and luscious with detailed settings for every spread.

The Hawk of the Castle: A Story of Medieval Falconry by Danna Smith, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Candlewick: 2017.

Children with book around a globe

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

Tags:
24May

John Ronald’s Dragons

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
3 Comments
A boy sits under a tree conversing with a dragon. The dragon appears to be part of the tree.

A boy sits under a tree conversing with a dragon. The dragon appears to be part of the tree.John Ronald’s Dragons is a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, focusing on the parts of his life that inspired his fantasy writing. The book invites you to see Gandalf in a headmaster who smoked a pipe, dragon’s smoke in the smoke pouring out of smokestacks in an industrial city, and the frightening Mines of Moria in World War I trenches.

The author, Caroline McAlister, is an English professor who teaches Tolkien, so the book carries with it an air of authority. The back matter includes an Author’s Note with more biographical details than are in the main text, a Catalog of Tolkien’s Dragons, and Quotes from Tolkien’s Scholarly Writing on Dragons, as well as a Bibliography.

Endpapers of book show dragons wheeling through air.The art manages to marry the everyday with the fantastical in wonderful illustrations. The endpapers are probably my favorite so far this year. I especially loved the Illustrator’s Note in the back matter, which comments, page by page, on details in the art. The illustrator, Eliza Wheeler, points out that she has painted one of Tolkien’s favorite childhood books, The Red Fairy Book on one spread; that she has added a specific piano in one illustration as homage to Tolkien’s grandfather; comments on how she used “forced perspective” to get in all the landmarks that needed to be in the illustration; and so on and so forth. I wish every illustrator did this! It made the book so much richer for me.

I can imagine parents who love Tolkien sharing this book with their children. I can imagine children being totally captivated by the images of dragons that pop up throughout the book. I wonder what they will take away from the picture book to their first reading of The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Rings, but maybe it will act not as a spoiler but as an accelerator, encouraging kids to plow into the books.

John Ronald’s Dragons: The Story of J.R.R. Tolkien by Caroline McAlister, illustrated by Eliza Wheeler. Roaring Brook Press: 2017.

Children with book around a globe

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

Tags:
12Apr

Trudy’s Big Swim

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

cover of book shows Trudy swimming from an underwater point of viewSue Macy writes big, bold picture book biographies of female athletes. Trudy’s Big Swim: How Gertrude Ederle Swam the English Channel and Took the World by Storm is a gorgeous book that begins with Trudy in the Channel and follows her swim, hour by hour, to a new world record.

I loved the details of her swim–how she swam to the strains of music blasted from a phonograph on the boat that was keeping pace with her; how she managed to eat fried chicken passed to her in a net and drank chicken broth from a baby bottle while she swam. I loved the lively quotes Macy includes, like, “England or drown is my motto.” Macy is great at describing an athletic event so that you as a reader feel like you are there, just as breathless with anticipation as the spectators who were really there.

But in this book I especially loved the art. Matt Collins also illustrated two other Macy books I love, Roller Derby Rivals and Basketball Belles, but in this book, his illustrations make the book. He paints from shifting perspectives. Sometimes we’re looking down at Trudy, as if we were on the board. Sometimes we see her at sea level, as if we were swimming next to her. Sometimes we see her from shore. On one of my favorite spreads we see her from under the water, and we also see the threat of luridly pink jellyfish lurking about her. The swim took fourteen hours, and Collins uses the shift to darkness to increase tension. In one memorable spread, he paints how it must have looked when English drivers trained their cars’ headlights on the water to form a beacon for Trudy, to show her which way to swim in the dark.

I didn’t notice the endpapers on my first read of the book, but was delighted when I went back and looked at them again. The front endpapers show Trudy walking into the water. On the last endpapers, we see a movie-maker in place, ready to film her emerging from the water.

One thing I love about Sue Macy’s books is her back matter. This book includes an Afterword that tells about Trudy’s deafness and about how she overcame a spinal injury later in her life. There’s an “Author’s Note” that discusses why Trudy’s birthdate is often misstated. There’s a short essay on “Sources and Resources” about why one newspaper had much better coverage than any other, as well as lists of Macy’s sources. And there are also source notes, attributing all the quotes in the book. I was fascinated to see that Macy also provided attribution for some of her other assertions (for example, that Trudy’s coach had failed twelve times in his attempt to swim across the Channel); usually source notes in picture books are limited to direct quotations.

A great read about a scrappy, determined swimmer.

Trudy’s Big Swim: How Gertrude Ederle Swam the English Channel and Took the World by Storm by Sue Macy, illustrated by Matt Collins. Holiday House: 2017.

Children with book around a globe

 

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

Tags:
2Nov

Across America to Win the Vote

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

Cover of Around America to Win the Vote shows two women and a kitten in a 1915 yellow carElection day is next week. In the relentless frenzy over this election, I try to remember how many women fought for my right to vote. Mara Rockliff’s book Around America to Win the Vote: Two Suffragists, a Kitten, and 10,000 Miles is  a light-hearted, fun look at what women were willing to do to change hearts and minds.

In the book, we follow Nell Richardson and Alice Burke as they circle the country in an automobile–a notable novelty at the time–to campaign for Votes for Women. They have plans for how to respond to naysayers–“If anyone said women didn’t have the brains to vote, then Nell would dash a poem off right then and there to prove they did. If anyone said they should cook and sew and leave running the nation to the men, then Nell would whip an apron up while Alice gave a speech to prove they could do both.”

They encounter challenges on the road: a blizzard, sinkholes, swarming children, a recalcitrant horse. But they simply deal with the problems and continue on their way, talking everywhere about votes for women.

Hadley Hooper’s pencil and print illustrations capture period detail with a deft touch. And the back matter explains why yellow is so important in her palette–“The color yellow stood for Votes for Women everywhere in the United States.”

I loved the back matter in this book. I’ve been thinking a lot about back matter lately because as adults talk to me after reading my new book, they almost always mention how much they love the back matter. That doesn’t surprise me because I was thinking of adults when I wrote it. But I was surprised at a reading when a fourth grader peppered me with questions about the back matter, too. Later his mom told me that had been his favorite part of the book. I hadn’t realized it would have child readers, too!

Rockliff’s back matter is extensive–two full spreads–but her audience seems to be the engaged child reader, like that fourth grader at my reading (for example, the recommended books are all kids’ books). The narrative voice is very similar to that in the main text of the book. I love the telling details she includes in the back matter–that the christening of the car left a dent in the radiator, that the car company used Nell and Alice in their advertising, and that women held a “walkless parade” in St. Louis, where they stood silent on city sidewalks as conventioneers passed them on the way to a political convention.

If the current election is getting you down, let the history of suffrage give you some welcome distance. And inspire you to actually cast that ballot!

Around America to Win the Vote: Two Suffragists, A Kitten, and 10,000 Miles by Mara Rockliff, illustrated Hadley Hooper. Candlewick: 2016.

Children around a globe.

 

 

 

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

Tags:
21Sep

Nonfiction content in fictional picture books

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

Nonfiction is nonfiction and fiction is fiction. But sometimes picture books use a fictional framework to present nonfiction content. Sometimes that’s called historical fiction, but sometimes it’s something else entirely. The thing without a name.

Cover of book shows Vincent Van Gogh striding past a childIn The Artist and Me, Shane Peacock imagines a child who is a neighbor to Vincent Van Gogh and, along with other townsfolk, teases and bullies the artist. Eventually, he is moved by the beauty of Van Gogh’s art and as an adult, comes to regret his actions. The story is fictional but inspired by the reality of the reaction to Van Gogh’s work.

It’s a pity that Peacock couldn’t dive into letters and diaries of Van Gogh’s tormentors to document how poorly they treated him. But it is a rare situation where someone records such acts of daily, offhand unkindness. And yet we know from Van Gogh’s letters about this poor treatment. This is one of those stories that perhaps can only be told through fiction.

Cover of book showing wolves morphing into dogs.Hudson Talbott’s book about the evolution of wolves into dogs, From Wolf to Woof!, also faces the problem of the lack of specifics. Scientists know that dogs are related to wolves and they can conjecture about how they came to be dogs, but it’s merely conjecture. Talbott takes this uncertainty and overlays it with an origin myth. He creates an outcast boy who develops a mutually beneficial relationship with an outcast wolf to lay out one plausible scenario of how wolves might have been domesticated.

In both of these books, the authors use back matter to talk about where their stories depart from nonfiction. I don’t think children will be ill-served or tricked by either book (especially if the adults in their lives share the back matter with them). I liked both of them.

The Artist and Me by Shane Peacock, illustrated by Sophie Casson. Owlkids: 2016

From Wolf to Woof! The Story of Dogs by Hudson Talbott. Nancy Paulsen Books: 2016

Children around a globe.

 

 

 

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

Tags:
17Aug

Prairie Dog Song

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

Cover of book showing prairie dogs peeking out of their burrowsElementary school children learn about living webs–that plants and animals interact with each other within an environment. There are some great books depicting ecosystem webs–High Tide for Horseshoe Crabs looks at the interactions of animals around Delaware Bay, No Monkeys, No Chocolate examines the interactions of animals and plants in the rain forest, Tree of Wonder explores all the life in a single tree. Prairie Dog Song follows in this tradition.

Prairie Dog Song looks at how plants and animals interacted to build the great American prairies and then what happened when those relationships were disrupted by farmers and ranchers. In a singsong cadence, we hear how “the grass turned to desert land.” The book ends hopefully, though, showing how keeping a “keystone species” like prairie dogs intact also keeps other parts of the ecosystem healthy. The text chants, “in one place lived prairie dogs,…and the grasses waved all around.”

The main part of the text can be sung as a cumulative song, based on an old tune titled “The Green Grass Grows All Around,” (music included in the back matter), but my favorite part of the book was the wonderful explanatory text on every spread. It gives rich detail about the science behind the page and also about scientists who have worked with prairie species.

The art on every page is collage. It reminds me a lot of Susan Roth’s previous work on Parrots over Puerto Rico. Her technique is especially successful when she’s depicting animals within a landscape, but even the collages with people in them have charm.

The great back matter for the book includes not just the music for the song but also “More Prairie Dog Facts,” a “Timeline of the Janos Grasslands,” a “Glossary and Pronunciation Guide,” a bibliography (with over 30 sources!), and my favorite–photographs of the animals, landscapes, and scientists depicted in the book.

Prairie Dog Song by Susan L. Roth and Cindy Trumbore. Lee and Low: 2016

Children around a globe.

Tags:
30Mar

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea

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

Cover of book shows woman looking across ocean sceneI 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 at the ocean-studies lab at Columbia University and with a colleague came up with the idea of mapping the ocean floor.

Because she was a woman, she wasn’t allowed to actually do the research required to make the map, but she gathered all the data and figured out how to put it into a usable form. In her work, she became convinced that the theory of tectonic plates was accurate and then used her maps to convince her colleagues. What a great role model of a gutsy, persistent scientist!

The book is written in first person, a choice that makes it easy for the reader to identify with Marie Tharp’s passions, patience, and success.

The back matter includes an interesting glossary (interesting! a glossary!) of terms related to Marie Tharp’s work: Pangaea, Ring of Fire, seafloor spreading. There’s also an interesting section titled “Things to Wonder About and Do” which invites young readers to do things like make soundings in a lake, to research deep ocean spots online, and to speculate about the center of the earth.

Raul Colon’s art is beautiful and lovely accompaniment to this biography. This video profiles another book he did using the same materials he used in this book.

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea, by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Raul Coloon. Paula Wiseman Books (Simon & Schuster): 2016.

Tags:
9Mar

Fearless Flyer

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

Cover of book, showing Ruth Law flying in a biplane.What did it take to be a woman aviator in the early 1900s? Pluck. Intelligence. Courage.

Ruth Law had them all. This story of her record-breaking flight from Chicago to New York City had me worrying for her, pulling for her, and ultimately applauding her success.

I especially loved the way quotes from Law are used throughout this book. There are thirteen quotes in all, and each of them is strategically placed for maximum impact. None of them are introduced with “she said” or any dialogue tag at all. They give the reader a sense of immediacy, as if I were really hearing Ruth Law tell her own story. For example, as she enters New York City, I read:

Gliding, Ruth circled around the State of Liberty toward Governor’s Island.

“She smiled at me when I went past. She did!…I think we both feel alike about things.”

As soon as I turned to the back matter, I knew this book had to have been published by Calkins Creek. They love back matter and lavish care and attention on it. We get two full pages of “More About Ruth Law,” giving more details about this trip as well as telling what happened to her after the trip. There’s a full page of bibliographic material and more than a full page of source attribution for the quotes–all in type just as big as that used in the rest of the book!

I especially loved the photos in the back matter. That, combined with Raul Colon’s pencil illustrations, made the book feel alive. You can get a glimpse of the photos and the illustrations together in this one minute long trailer. 

Fearless Flyer: Ruth Law and Her Flying Machine by Heather Lang, pictures by Raul Colon. Calkins Creek: 2016

Tags:
27Jan

Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton

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

Cover of Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton shows George Moses Horton rapturously holding a newspaper in which his first poem has been printedPoet: 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 what kinds of stories about enslaved people can be told in picture books. After A Fine Dessert and A Birthday Cake for George Washington, what topics can nonfiction picture books cover? I think it’s clear that right now it isn’t possible to write about slavery tangentially. If a nonfiction book is going to tell the story of an enslaved person, it had better deal directly with the issue of slavery itself. I feel wistful for those stories that aren’t being told. But I also think it’s fair to argue that we haven’t told the story of enslavement well enough or often enough to our picture book audience. That terrible story needs to be told before other kinds of stories about enslaved people can be heard.

Poet is a great example of what can be done in a picture book. It deals with the horrors of enslavement without losing the wonder and beauty of what Horton managed within the confines of slavery. Tate tells the inspiring story of Horton learning to read and to write and then finding a way to make a living out of poetry. But he doesn’t whitewash the injustice or horror of slavery, either.

I don’t think, though, that Tate was suggesting that we ONLY tell stories about enslaved African Americans.  I totally agree with him that we need lots, lots more nonfiction picture books about African Americans. And about Chinese Americans and Mexican Americans and Indian Americans. We need to hear the stories we haven’t heard yet to remind us of what makes us who we are.

Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton by Don Tate. Peachtree: 2015.

Tags:
6Jan

Swan

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

Girl in a ballet pose.Years ago my sister gave me a picture book by someone she had  met at a social function. It had one of the best titles ever, Baxter, the Pig who Wanted to be Kosher. The book is hilarious. So I was excited when I saw another book by the same author, Laurel Snyder.

I love this book just as much as Baxter–no, probably more–but it couldn’t be more different in tone. This haunting, lyrical biography of ballerina Anna Pavlova is a dream to read aloud. It opens with her first time to see a ballet: “Her feet wake up! Her skin prickles. there is a song, suddenly, inside her.” We follow her as she tries to enter a ballet school, is rejected, and finally succeeds, becoming a world-famous ballerina.

I was fascinated at how much of the story Snyder conveys elliptically, without actually telling us what’s going on. We figure it out from the rhythm of the words, from the punctuation, and from the art. So when Anna Pavlova is rejected from ballet school (a fact you can confirm if you dip into Snyder’s excellent back matter), we read only: “At last Mama nods, and out of her house Anna goes, into the world of people. Tall people.” The illustration shows Anna entering a building where we see ballet students, in silhouette, practicing. On the next page, we see Anna leaving the building, head bowed, while the students continue to practice. The words say, “And oh? Oh.” The economy of language staggers. But the story is never lost.

I love the lyricism and rhythm of the language in the book. While Anna is waiting to get into ballet school, we see her dancing as she hangs up laundry, and the writing explains, “Anna stretches, bides her time. Shirt, shirt, laundry. Shirt, shirt laundry.”

The book lingers over Anna Pavlova’s death–three full spreads are devoted to her deathbed–but the effect is not macabre. Instead, it’s gentle and celebratory. Much like a velvet curtain swishing closed.

The art, by Julie Morstad, is simple but sophisticated, based on a palette of black and white and red or pink. The endpapers are some of my favorite from the entire year.

This is a book to read, curled up next to a child you love, while the snow falls outside your window.

A video clip of Anna Pavlova dancing.

Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova, by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by Julie Morstad. (Chronicle: 2015)

I’m happy to join Alyson Beecher of KidLit Frenzy in her 2016 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge!

 

 

 

Tags:
25Nov

Fab Four Friends

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

Cover of book showing the Beatles performing togetherThis 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 to make music with.

Reich has woven wonderful quotations throughout the book. For example, Lennon’s aunt, whom he lived with, told him, “The guitar’s all right for a hobby, John, but you’ll never make a living at it.” And Richard Starkey, before he became Ringo Starr, told his family, “Drums are my life.”

Biographers always face the difficult question of how to frame the story they’re telling. This is a particularly difficult problem for a group like the Beatles with such a dramatic and famous trajectory. Reich chooses to end this biography with the formation of the Beatles, as we know it, and their triumphant year of touring in the United Kingdom. It’s a great craft choice, since the stories she has told are all about why and how these musicians looked for each other. Ending here, with a successful musical band, gives a satisfying close to the narrative arc.

In her author’s note, Reich tells about how she got interested in the subject and talks about the difficulty she faced in compressing so much material into a picture book format.

Adam Gustavson’s illustrations add a wonderful layer to the story. He’s a great portraitist. The Macmillan website is highlighting 8 of his paintings from the book. Younger readers will love the pictures, but the text is definitely written to older kids.

Fab Four Friends: The Boys Who Became the BEATLES by Susanna Reich, illustrated by Adam Gustavson. (Henry Holt: 2015)

 

Tags:
18Nov

Mock Siberts, Part 1

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

frenzyKidLitFrenzy 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!

But some of my favorite reads won’t make it to my Sibert list. Here’s why:

Not American

holtei

I’m a sucker for family history stories, and this import from Germany has fantastically detailed illustrations, too, that keep you looking and looking and looking. As far as I can tell, the author did her own translation, but the book was originally published in Germany, so it’s ineligible for the Sibert. It’s definitely worth reading, though, especially if you have a kid who likes Richard Scarry books or other heavily-illustrated texts.

I also loved the whimsy of both the text and the potato print illustrations of The Potato King. It was also A potato wearing a crown.originally published in Germany, but it probably would have been ineligible anyway since it’s a retelling of an unsubstantiated historical story (though the back matter does a great job talking about its status as a legend).

Not Quite Nonfiction

As a rule, I don’t like made-up “non”fiction. Why invent conversations and events for Benjamin Franklin when there’s so much documentation for his life?

But every year I fall hard for a few books where the authors make clear-eyed, hard choices to include fictional elements in order to tell a nonfiction story properly. One of my favorite nonfiction picture books this year gingerbreadis Gingerbread for Liberty, about a German immigrant, Christopher Ludwick who, at great personal cost, cooked for General Washington and the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. The author, Mara Rockliff, has a good bibliography–she used a history by one of Ludwick’s contemporaries as well as more recent scholarship as her sources. But when you’re writing about a mostly-unknown person who lived 250 years ago, you quickly run out of reliable sources where you can pull quotes. Rockliff invents dialogue to tell this story, including something she has Ludwick say over and over again: “No empty bellies here. Not in my America.” Is there any evidence that Ludwick actually said this? Not a shred. But this refrain encapsulates his life’s work in eight well-chosen words.

Maybe every now and then there’s a place for invented dialogue in nonfiction! But I’m struggling enough with this issue (in my own writing projects too!) that I’ve removed Gingerbread from my mock Sibert stack. What do you think? I especially wonder about the perspective of librarians and teachers. Am I being unfairly demanding? Can a great informational book have invented dialogue when quotations simply don’t exist in the sources? Or do we move this book to the stack of really, really great historical fiction and let it live happily there?

Unattributed Quotations

Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, holding pistols, face each other, ready to duel.Finally, I loved both Aaron and Alexander: The Most Famous Duel in American History and Game Changer: John McLendon and the Secret Game. Both books had great pacing, lively language, and accessible quotations skillfully woven into the text. But neither of them had source attributions for any of their quotations.Cover of book titled Game Changer shows two basketball players, one leaping toward the basket with the ball in his hand.

As an author, I know that the publisher usually ends up having the decisive say in how much  material goes into the back matter. I’m certain that both those authors could cough up source references without any trouble. But in these cases those references didn’t make it into the back matter, which seems a shame for an informational book. I love rich, detailed back matters, including source references for quotations, so I’m reluctantly cutting these two books from consideration.

But I still hope they get read lots and lots!

Next week, some of the books that stayed in my Sibert stack.

Tags:
4Nov

Firebird: Ballerina Misty Copeland Shows a Young Girl How to Dance Like the Firebird

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

Cover of book Firebird: Ballerina Misty Copeland Shows a Young Girl How to Dance Like the Firebird In this lyrical autobiography, ballerina Misty Copeland speaks to a young, uncertain dancer, encouraging her to prepare, to practice, and mostly to believe in her ability to dance. The text has none of the dates or places of the birth-to-death biography but is instead a spiritual account of the internal process needed to succeed in ballet.

You won’t hear from this book that Copeland is one of the great modern ballerinas or that she was born in poverty or that she became, just a few months ago, the first female African American principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater. The book’s language is lovely, but it will have even more meaning if you first dig into Copeland’s life a bit–perhaps at her website or by watching the new movie about her life. Copeland includes a letter to the reader at the back of the book, but it talks more about why she wrote the book than about where she came from. I would have loved a much longer, more detail-oriented back essay here. But luckily there are other resources to fill the gap.

Teachers might think about comparing this autobiography to Yuyi Morales’ biography of Frida Kahlo, Viva Frida.  Both use lyricism and imagery to describe artists.

Firebird: Ballerina Misty Copeland shows a Young Girl How to Dance Like the Firebird by Misty Copeland, illustrated  by Christopher Myers. G. P. Putnam’s: 2014.

Tags:
14Sep

Marvelous Cornelius

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

CorneliusSometimes everyday people are the true heroes of history. Here’s a book that celebrates one of those heroes.

Cornelius Washington was a New Orleans trash collector. After Hurricane Katrina, despite the devastation and discouragement, he stayed in his job. Trash collectors like Cornelius were vital to making it possible for others, people from New Orleans and all around the country, to clear out the debris left in the wake of the storm and start a new life.

Phil Bildner makes Cornelius into a folk hero–one who piled bags into “perfect pyramids” and who danced in the streets while he picked up trash–who inspires everyone to work together. The language is infectiously bouncy, full of alliteration (“The barbers, bead twirlers and beignet bakers bounded behind the one-man parade” of  Cornelius) and onomatopoeia (“Hootie Hoo!”) and fun to read aloud.

The back matter carefully draws a line between the invention that is in the story and the nonfiction basis of that invention:

…while Cornelius was certainly a showman, he may not have twirled lids like tops or clapped them like cymbals. He had signals and calls, but they weren’t the exact ones described here. The garbage bags he threw into his hopper probably didn’t land in perfect pyramids….And though he was celebrated and beloved in his neighborhoods, he was not called Marvelous Cornelius.

But he deserves to be.

This book reminded me of the beauty of a life well-lived and of the power we have as individuals to lift others, even when the problems we face are enormous.

Marvelous Cornelius: Hurricane  Katrina and the Spirit of New Orleans, by Phil Bildner, illustrated by John Parra. Chronicle Books: 2015.

Tags:
8Jun

One Plastic Bag

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

plasticThis is the inspiring true story of how a Gambian woman finds a way to recycle plastic shopping bags. In the process, she earns money, creates bonds with the women working with her, improves the health of her community, and makes her village more beautiful.

I especially loved that the refrain fit so seamlessly with the themes in the book:

“One…then two, then ten, then a hundred.”

It’s fun to read–as every refrain should be!–but it also reiterates the main themes of the book. Problems start out small and become big. Solutions to those problems can also start out small and become big. And, of course, one person’s actions can inspire many others to act, too.

The back matter has maps, snapshots of the actual people, and an interesting note that tells how the author became interested in this topic. And don’t miss the wonderful endpapers–a collage of plastic shopping bags.

A trailer for the book.

One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia, by Miranda Paul and illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon. Millbrook Press: 2015.

Tags:
1Jun

In Mary’s Garden

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

mary garden This book is a lyrical tribut to the artist behind the quirky garden art at a Wisconsin beach home. The back matter tackles the community controversy the art created, but the main text of the book is a gentle celebration of the quiet, persistent vision of someone who didn’t see the world like everyone else did. The story is told simply boiled down to the bare essentials of how Mary Nohl came to create the fantastical creatures that surround her home. It’s a story that joyfully affirms the beauty that can happen when people quietly follow their own path.

 

A great trailer for the book.

In Mary’s Garden, by Tina and Carson Kugler. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 2015.

Tags:
5May

The Mangrove Tree: Planting Trees to Feed Families

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

rothThis inspiring book works at lots of different levels for lots of different readers. First, it’s a simple cumulative story for preschoolers, like “This is the house that Jack Built”:

“This is the tree, a mangrove tree.

These are the trees, mangrove trees, that were planted by the sea.”

And so on, we hear the story of mangrove trees being planted to reclaim marginal land.

This first, simple level, works as a read-aloud. But the authors also include on every page a sidebar that tells in more detail about the initiative to reclaim land in Eritrea to fight against famine. Parents and older kids would gobble up these details.

And finally, the back matter (8 pages of text and photos!) tells the story of the American scientist, Gordon Sato, who dreamt up the idea of relieving hunger by planting these trees and about how his experiences in an internment camp during World War II led to this idea. I felt inspired and uplifted by his vision and his tenacity.

The Mangrove Tree: Planting Trees to Feed Families, by Susan L. Roth and Cindy Trumbore. Lee & Low: 2011.

 

 

Tags:
24Feb

Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence

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

mumbet

 

 

 

 

 

This inspiring book tells the story of how an eighteenth century slave used the legal system to gain freedom for herself and many others. The narrative uses the word “owned” in many different contexts to explore the ideas of freedom and slavery: we read about people owning property, owning slaves, owning a sharp tongue. In the story, Mumbet realizes that she herself owns her thoughts, thoughts that lead her to  a brave act which no one else has yet attempted.  The narrative voice is direct, impassioned, and triumphant–just like the story!

The “Author’s Note” in the back is fascinating to read. It tells where the information the book is based on came from, since Mumbet didn’t leave any writing–couldn’t write! It talks about things we don’t know about Mumbet, about the law that prompted her to act, and about her legacy today.

The paintings illustrating the book are beautiful. A beautiful book to read anytime of year, not just in February!

Mumbet’s Declaration of Indpendence by Gretchen Woelfle, illustrated by Alix Delinois. Carolrhoda: 2014.

Tags:
19Feb

President Taft is Stuck in the Bath

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

 

taft

 

 

 

 

Too bad I didn’t read this book until after President’s Day. For one thing, in it, the President of the United States Never. Wears. Clothes. Not once.

The story is a tall tale, slightly reminiscent of King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub, but I was impressed by all the good nonfiction research that went into this frankly fictional piece. The back matter explores the history of the rumor that Taft got stuck in a bathtub (as well as the blatant lie he told, saying he had never installed extra large bathtubs for himself). Barnett dug up a great black and white photo of four burly workmen sitting in Taft’s new bathtub before it’s installed.

And even within the story itself, Barnett and VanDusen take pains to get things right. The book opens with an accurate list of Taft’s real accomplishments. The right titles are given for the members of the cabinet who get involved in helping the president out of the bathtub. Barnett has the name of the vice president of the time, even down to his unlikely middle name–James Schoolcraft Sherman.

But most wonderful of all, VanDusen has taken pains to fit his caricactures to real people. Taft is obvious. But here’s Vice-President Sherman in real life:

sherman cropped

 

 

 

 

And here is VanDusen’s illustration:

vandusensherman

 

 

 

 

Here’s the First Lady, Nellie Taft:

nellie

 

 

 

 

 

And here is VanDusen’s illustration:

Nellie cropped

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderful!

President Taft is Stuck in the Bath by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Chris VanDusen. Candlewick:2014

Tags:
4Feb

Electrical Wizard

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

tesla

The story of Nikola Tesla’s life told here is pretty engrossing and the illustrations are good, but the back matter is fantastic! There’s an essay showing ways Tesla was ahead of his time, a bit about the rivalry between Edison and Tesla, and “Scientific Notes” giving scientific explanations for concepts mentioned in the book. All that besides the normal stuff–primary sources used, films about Tesla, what to read if you’re looking for more.

My advice: read the book, enjoy the pictures, and then dive into the back matter!

Electrical Wizard: How Nikola Tesla Lit Up the World, by Elizabeth Rusch, illustrated by Oliver Dominguez. Candlewick:2013.

Tags:
19Jan

Friends for Freedom

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

friends 2

Who knew that two icons of the fights for civil rights, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, were dear friends? This inspiring book tells the story of how they defied social conventions to become friends, joined forces to fight for what the believed in, and weathered the storms when their opinions differed about the way things should be.

The author includes extensive back matter: an “Author’s Note,” that gives more detail on events mentioned in the book, an “Author’s Research note” that tells about how she got interested in the topic and how she researched it, an “Illustrator’s Note,” “Source Notes” showing not only where all the quotes in the book came from but also all the source of all the other factual statements, a “Selected Bibliography,” and a “Timeline.”

The author acknowledges, “This story is based on true events, but I had to use my imagination to fill in details when no facts could be found. For example, when Susan and her father went to Frederick’s house on Alexander Street, no one knows for sure who drove the buggy.” I especially appreciate the respect that notes like these show for the reader. They draw clear lines between what was invented and what comes from historical documents.

It’s an inspiring book to pick up today, when we’re remembering the man who had a dream that “one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”

Friends for Freedom: The Story of Susan B. Anthony & Frederick Douglass, by Suzanne Slade, illustrated by Nicole Tadgell. Charlesbridge: 2014.

Tags:
14Jan

If You Spent a Day with Thoreau at Walden Pond

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

thoreauMany nonfiction picture books are written in the third person–he did this or she said that. A few are written in the first person–I did this. But it is the rare case to find one written in the second person.

By using second person narration, Robert Burleigh makes the reader a character in the book. Wendell Minor includes a child representing the reader in every illustration:

“If you spent a day with Henry David Thoreau,, you would knock on the door of Henry’s tiny house on the shore of Walden Pond. Hello, Henry!”

We spend the day doing simple things that a child might really do–drinking water or walking in the woods, or watching animals–and listening to Thoreau’s comments about the world. Putting the reading in the books is an ingenious strategy; it makes a philosopher’s musings accessible to a child reader.

My only frustration with the book was that I couldn’t tell if the things Thoreau says in the text are actual quotes or not. I tried to research them and quickly grew frustrated trying to figure out whether they were exact quotes (probably not, but I’m not sure) or paraphrases (possibly) or simple inventions based on Thoreau’s philosophies. I heartily wished for source notes in the back matter.

The back matter, though, does include more details about Thoreau’s life (along with more unreferenced quotes).

If You Spent a Day with Thoreau at Walden Pond, by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Wendell Minor. Henry Holt: 2012.

Tags:
12Jan

Ben Franklin’s Big Splash

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

Ben Franklin  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 book is a buoyant read. Every page is filled with “s” alliteration in lists of verbs telling what Franklin did to develop his invention:

speculated…stared…sprinted away

sketched…snapped up…shaped…sanded…strung on…strapped on

sprinted…stood…stripped off…strapped…stuck…spread…stomped…splashed in…sunk

And this is just the beginning of the “s” lists! Many of the verbs are helpfully highlighted, which would make this book a dream to teach in a lesson on alliteration.

Ben’s invention doesn’t really work that well. In fact, you could say it was a belly flop. But Rosenstock’s text leaves us with a shiver of giddiness rather than a feeling of defeat.

It’s a fun story about the process of invention, the scientific method, and one of America’s founding father. What’s not to like?

Ben Franklin’s Big Splash: The Mostly True Story of His First Invention by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by S.D. Schindler. Calkins Creek: 2014

Tags:
5Jan

Star Stuff

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

Sagan  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 and years before they were born, clear back in 1996.

This playful biography uses surprising turns of language and the charming refrain, “Wowie!” to capture Sagan’s zest for explaining astrophysics to a lay audience. The book starts with  Sagan’s childhood fascinations and moves on to his college studies and then his professional career.

I loved the way the book used page turns to surprise and delight. In the first example, the child Sagan is testing the limits of his imagination:

His favorite character, John Carter could stand with his arms outstretched and wish himself to Mars…[page turn] But nothing happened.

Later, the page turn manages to encapsulate years and years of adult work:

He studied life and space and became…[page turn]…Dr. Carl Sagan.

The illustrations are cartoony and fun (and require you at one point to turn the book on its side and open a gatefold). The back matter tells about how the author got interested in the topic and gives a great “Notes” section where the sources for the book’s contents are given page by page. Wowie!

Star Stuff: Carl Sagan and the Mysteries of the Cosmos by Stephanie Roth Sisson. Roaring Brook Press: 2014.

Tags:
15Dec

Edward Hopper Paints His World

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

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 be able to paint?

But how?

But who cares?

…was Edward satisfied at last?

The paintings reimagine iconic Hopper paintings in interesting ways. I was especially glad to have thumbnails of the source paintings in the back matter so I could look at how the illustrator transformed them to work as illustrations for the book. The back matter bulges with helpful essays and quotes and dates and information for further study. It’s a wonderful book to look at and just as satisfying to read.

Edward Hopper Paints His World by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Wendell Minor. Christy Ottaviano Books: 2014.

 

Tags:
3Dec

Separate is Never Equal

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

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 in the back matter, He writes:

The dialogue in the trial scene comes directly from court transcripts. i shortened and edited it for clarity and pacing. The dialogue in the rest of the book is inspired by conversations i had with Sylvia Mendez in October 2012 and April 2013.

The narrative voice shifts between Spanish and English. It’s clear and plain-spoken, with few poetic devices, as if the right outcome of this case is so obvious that it doesn’t need rhetorical flourishes.

Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh. Abrams: 2014.

Tags:
20Oct

Review: Feathers, Not Just for Flying

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

[booknet booknumber=”9781580894302″] “Birds and feathers go together, like trees and leaves, like stars and the sky.”

Melissa Stewart’s lyrical voice makes this information-packed book a great read aloud. The layered text structure is elegantly simple. Each spread compares a function of feathers to something in a child’s frame of reference–“Feathers can shade out sun like an umbrella”–and then smaller print (the second layer of text) explains that sweeping generalization in greater detail.

The first layer of text is very short–only about 175 words–but it provides a perfect framework for understanding all the information packed more densely in the second layer of text.

In the back matter, Stewart talks about the scholarly articles about feathers that first piqued her interest and about her struggle to find the right structure for this information.

Feathers: Not Just for Flying, by Melissa Stewart, illustrated by Sarah S. Brannen. Charlesbridge: 2014.

Tags:
17Oct

Lifetime The Amazing Numbers in Animal Lives

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

 

This is not your everyday counting book! No 1-2-3 or babyish illustrations here. Instead, Lola Schaefer attacks the idea of averages for middle grade readers. The mathematics are sophisticated but she keeps the text simple and clear. Brevity and consistency are the heart of the book. Every spread has a sentence in exactly the same format:

In one lifetime, this [animal] will [verb] [number] [item].

For example:

In one lifetime, this alpaca will grow 20 different fleeces.

The consistency of the text and the consistently increasing numbers provide all the structure this book needs.

Extensive back matter not only gives more detail about each featured animal but also walks the reader through the author’s calculations. Other sections explain mathematical averages and challenge the reader to solve math problems.

[booknet booknumber=9781452107141]

A great book for anyone who thinks he’s outgrown counting books!

Lifetime: The Amazing Numbers in Animal Lives by Lola M. Schaefer, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal. Chronicle Books: 2013.

 

Tags: