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6May

Making Their Voices Heard

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Cover of Making Their Voices Heard shows illustration of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe together

Two icons of the mid-twentieth century: Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald. Who knew that they were friends? The picture book biography Making Their Voices Heard tells the story of how they met and how they supported each other.

About the story

Both Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe were famous, but both faced discrimination. Ella was banned from some venues because of her race. She was sometimes sidelined because she was overweight and wasn’t considered a beauty. Marilyn was passed over for serious roles because she was considered too beautiful to be smart. She struggled to have a say in which movies she would appear.

But then Marilyn listened to recordings of Ella to prepare for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The movie became a big hit, and Marilyn became a star. She used her star power to arrange a meeting with her idol, Ella.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes gave Marilyn power in the movie industry. She could finally choose her scripts and directors. When she found out that a famous Hollywood club blocked Ella from appearing,, Marilyn used her star power again to change the club owner’s mind. The back matter reports that Ella said that after her friend intervened, “I never had to play a small jazz club again.”

About the book

I love how author Vivian Kirkfield uses page turns to show the similarities between the two women. One spread details Ella Fitzgerald’s background. The page turn reveals the very same design but details Marilyn Monroe’s background. On some spreads, Marilyn is on one side of the spread, Ella on the other.

The art by Alleanna Harris is beautiful. She gives each woman glamor and humanity. My favorite image is the final one, where Marilyn and Ella face each other across the book’s gutter. Their separation is shattered, however, by a hand reaching across the gutter, uniting the two of them.

The back matter has a luminous photo of the two women together and gives more detail about their relationship.

Where to go for more

Marilyn Monroe talks about her childhood.

Short video biography of Ella Fitzgerald.

A review of another nonfiction picture book by Vivian Kirkfield.

Making Their Voices Heard: the Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe by Vivian Kirkfield, illustrated by Alleanna Harris. (little bee: 2020).

Image shows a tree growing from a book and reads Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge 2020
Visit Kid Lit Frenzy for more great children’s nonfiction.

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1Apr

Nabi Ali

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Interview
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This is a big year for illustrator Nabi Ali. My book All the Way to the Top was his debut picture book. His second picture book, The Fighting Infantryman, comes out in June. I loved the way Nabi captured emotions in the illustrations for my book. I wanted to talk to him about his life as an illustrator of nonfiction. Here’s our interview.

Portrait of Nabi Ali with art in background.

How did you come to illustration? 

The story is, I actually began college wanting to be a lawyer, and I was an international studies major, but I realized I was spending more time drawing than doing my homework! So, I transferred to an art school and into an animation major, but I didn’t really quite enjoy animating per se; I was way more interested in designing characters and doing story art, and during my free time, I made a lot of personal pieces involving original characters and their lives. Eventually, I began to get a few freelance opportunities for illustration and visdev in animation.

What’s visdev?

It’s the pre-work that goes into animated content, such as drawing explorations of backgrounds, characters, props, etc.

Eventually I was noticed and recruited by The Bright Agency to work in kidlit! 

How do you choose the projects you’ll work on? Was there anything that particularly drew you to All the Way to the Top or The Fighting Infantryman? 

When I joined Bright, my agent asked me if I had any particular preferences for projects, and I mentioned that minority representation–especially in relation to my identities and of the people I grew up around–is a subject that’s very important to me.

When I was offered to work on All the Way to the Top, I immediately signed on because I saw such few books about disabled people as the protagonists of their own stories; as a disabled person myself, All the Way to the Top was something I could really resonate with.

Cover of book shows a young girl crawling up the steps of the US Capitol.

That astounds me! We had searched very hard for an artist with disabilities without any success. We eventually went with you, happy because we loved your art but sad to miss out on the chance of own-voices visual representation. What a wonderful surprise that we did end up with an own-voices artist!

That’s a pretty amazing coincidence. I’m autistic, and I also have a congenital and degenerative joint syndrome. I will eventually need a walker and/or wheelchair, probably around my 30s. So I was glad to work on All the Way to the Top, with its wheelchair-using protagonist!

Cover of book shows a soldier next to flags.

The Fighting Infantryman spoke to me because as a transgender man, I’m often told that my identity is something new–it’s almost treated like a modern invention–while the reality is that trans people have always existed. The story of Albert D.J. Cashier is evidence of that historical transgender presence. 

Illustrating nonfiction picture books has its own particular set of challenges. What do you like most about it? What is hardest or trickiest?

What I enjoy about illustrating nonfiction is that the story is already all laid out, and my work is to depict it in a new light rather than to construct how the world of the narrative will look from scratch. I think the trickiest thing about it, however, is that I sometimes struggle with getting people’s likenesses down. There’s a fine balance between stylization and recognizability that I have to mindful of whenever I draw the characters. 


What are you working on now? What is your dream project?

Right now I’m working on illustrating two books. One is by Kari Lavelle called We Move The World for Harper Collins, and it’s about the ways children play and grow and the interconnectedness of these things with how people can change the world.

The second one is for the Kokila imprint of Penguin Young Readers, and it’s called Laxmi’s Mooch, writtenby my dear friend Shelly Anand. It’s about a young Indian American girl who is embarrassed by her fuzziness–especially by her mustache–and the story follows how she comes to accept herself for who she is. 

Portrait of Nabi Ali


My dream project (something I’ve juuuust started working on) is to write and illustrate my own book. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say what it’s about, other than that it revolves around a small Muslim community in the U.S. I also want to eventually be a character designer for animation.

You can see more of Nabi’s art here and here.

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).

The Fighting Infantryman: The Story of Albert D. J. Cashier, Transgender Civil War Soldier by Rob Sanders, illustrated by Nabi Ali (little bee: 2020).

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

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31Oct

Polka Dot Parade

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Uncategorized
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Cover of book shows a photographer pointing his camera directly at the reader.Halloween to me means dressing up. It’s all about choosing the exact right outfit. Polka Dot Parade is a picture book biography that celebrates that urge to dress up, but in everyday life, not just the exceptional holiday.

Polka Dot Parade tells the story of Bill Cunningham, a ground-breaking fashion photographer who pioneered the use of candid street shots. He was fascinated by what people choose to wear and traveled around New York City on his bicycle, snapping photos of fabulous outfits, regardless of who was wearing it and where they were. His focus was squarely on clothes and fashion. In one instance, related in the book, he discovered that he had taken a candid photo of Greta Garbo. He hadn’t realized he was snapping a photo of someone famous, just that he wanted a picture of her fantastic outfit.

The book talks about how Cunningham approached his art and his tendency to shun publicity.

The art, watercolors by Masha D’yans, focuses, just as Cunningham would have, on the fabulous fashion rather than on the people wearing it. It’s a beautiful book to look at.

Polka Dot Parade: A Book about Bill Cunningham by Deborah Blumenthal, illustrated by Masha D’yans. little bee books: 2018.

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!

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14Jun

Fancy Party Gowns

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

African American woman stands proudly in front of fancy party gowns.In Fancy Party Gowns I loved learning about one of those fascinating people from the corner of history–someone who changed a little bit of the world but who isn’t widely known. This is a book about a fashion designer, Ann Cole Lewis, who created a career for herself out of designing and producing high end dresses. She made the gown that Olivia de Haviland wore to receive her Oscar in 1947 and the wedding dress that Jacqueline Bouvier wore in 1953 when she married John Kennedy. Ann managed her career while, at the same time, managing anti-African American sentiment that tripped her up time and again.

I loved the way Deborah Blumenthal used refrains in the text of the book. When Ann faces challenges, like the death of her mother or the disastrous destruction of her work, “Ann thought about what she could do not what she couldn’t change.” When she faces discrimination, it’s “because she was African American. And life wasn’t fair.”

My heart sang at Ann’s triumphs over adversity and mean-spiritedness. And the book made me want to sit down with some fabric and a needle, too.End papers show many fancy party gowns.

The art is wonderful. Not surprisingly, there are wonderful fabric colors, textures, and patterns on every page. It dwells lovingly on tiny details related to sewing, like the handful of buttons strewn across the bottom of one page. I especially love the endpapers, which show some of the dresses Ann designed.

This is a book to read with The Hundred Dresses! One is fiction but this nonfiction story will give context and power to the idea of designing dresses.

Fancy Party Gowns: the Story of Fashion Designer Ann Cole Lewis, by Deborah Blumenthal, illustrated by Laura Freeman. little bee: 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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