31 Days, 31 Lists: 2024 Nonfiction Picture Books

We’re down to the big final lists of the year now. If you’ve been following this series this month then you’ve seen me me talk about a lot of nonfiction picture books until now. This list takes the best of them, as well as a couple titles that don’t slot neatly into categories. I consider these the best of the best. The ones you cannot miss. See if you can find one you missed before now.

Would you like a PDF of today’s list? You can find one here!

Interested in previous years’ Nonfiction Picture Book titles? Try these:

• 2023
• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016

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2024 Nonfiction Picture Books

Are You Big? by Mo Willems

Are You Small? by Mo Willems

Are you big or are you small? To a cloud, our moon, the sun, or even a galaxy cluster you might be small, but as a little bug at the end reminds us, to an insect you’re big! A book on relative size brought by the man who created The Pigeon, Elephant & Piggie, and more. Mo Willems is trying his hand at nonfiction for our younger readers these days. Feels like that should be a bigger story (a lot bigger than the Pigeon getting a book about graduating anyway). I kind of had to calculate what the moment was where I was on board with these books. For me, I think it was when I was reading Are You Big? and Australia walked on, bold as brass, grinning widely. I’ve a natural affection for books that go to extremes, and any title for younger readers where a galaxy cluster gets to gather on a page like showgirls in a Vegas stage is going to have my attention. Part of what I like so much about these books is that they put impossible measurements into a child’s head and then explain how everything in this life is relative. You may be tiny but to some creatures you’re enormous. You may be large but there’s a galaxy out there that’s bigger. It’s kind of what Jason Chin’s been doing in some of his recent titles, but in a method that a Kindergartner might grasp. Whatever his reason for making these books, I like it! Previously on the Simple List.

The Bee Mother by Hetxw’ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson), ill. Natasha Donovan

It’s spring once again and Nox Ap, the bee mother, emerges to become nature’s gardener once more. The bumblebee, the honeybee, and the yellow jacket all get their moment in the sun in this stirring examination of insects in the Xsan ecosystem. Personally, I shall not rest until the world is just as baffled and fascinated by the life cycle of bumblebees as myself. I mean, what other creature restarts its entire colony from scratch each spring? Seems like a terrible plan, but that’s how the bumblebee rolls. This book is the seventh in the “Mothers of Xsan” series. The series focuses on the animals in the Xsan ecosystem, and tends to balance both the facts about the animals as well as their direct connection to the Gitxsan Nation. And I should clarify that this book doesn’t focus solely on bumblebees, but an array of mother bees in nature. Add in the art of Natasha Donovan (who can resist it?) and you have yourself a winner. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

Call Me Roberto! Roberto Clemente Goes to Bat for Latinos / Llámenme Roberto! Roberto Clemente Alza La Voz Por Los Latinos by Nathalie Alonso, ill. Rudy Gutierrez

The highs and lows of one of the greatest baseball players of all time is told here with a special focus on how Clemente fought racism throughout his whole career. A bio of a hero. Also available in Spanish! I’m always on the lookout for good sports books for kids and the fact that this is illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez is just the icing on the cake. Ms. Alonso takes a slightly different tactic with this Clemente book than, say, all the other Clemente picture book bios that have come out over the years. She doesn’t skimp on the fun baseball details, but at the same time she balances them out expertly with what the man had to go through as a Black Latinx professional ball player living through Jim Crow times. Great writing, beautiful art, and the backmatter is to die for. Previously seen on the Biography List and the Bilingual Books List.

City of Leafcutter Ants: A Sustainable Society of Millions by Amy Hevron

Ah ha! The FOURTH ant book I encountered in 2024 (following Philip Bunting’s The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants , There Are No Ants in This Book by Rosemary Mosco, and Jay Hosler’s Ant Story), but the first leafcutter ant book I’ve seen in a long while. Hevron is the kind of nonfiction picture book author who likes to look closely at very specific areas. Tonally, this probably has the most in common with her previous title The Tide Pool Waits, even though the author on that one was Candace Fleming. Here, Hevron was inspired by a trip to Costa Rica. I envy her the fact that she got to see these little guys working in the wild like this. The book keeps its text fairly simple, with a nice big font that won’t scare off some of the younger readers. And, naturally, the way to any librarian’s heart is if it can include at least one fact that an adult reading this might not have encountered before. For me, it was some of the jobs that the ants separate into. For example, in one section “tiny inspectors clean and process leaf cuttings” while in another, “small pharmacists use antibiotics produced from their bodies to keep the city free of disease.” I just had to sit there and read that one over a couple of times before it truly sank in. Hevron does a great job of showing the size differences between the ants, even when they’re from the same species. Sometimes a librarian’s job is to instill a sense of wonder in kids. These ants? They make the job easy. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

Club Microbe by Elise Gravel

Do germs get a bad rap? Maybe some of them, but Elise Gravel is here to give you the down and dirty on all sorts of microbes. The very good, the very bad and the very strange as well. You just say the magic words “Elise Gravel” and instantly I am interested in what you have to say. Gravel has a very distinctive style. Honestly, she pairs beautifully with Philip Bunting and Maxwell Eaton III. Like Bunting she likes to slap eyeballs on everything and like Eaton she loves doing deep dives into nature with funny jokes on the side. Here she really breaks down beautifully all the different kinds of microbes out there, from viruses to bacteria and beyond. Good and (weirdly enough) never too gross (which is why it never appeared on the Gross List). Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

Comet Chaser: The True Cinderella Story of Caroline Herschel by Pamela S. Turner, ill. Vivian Mildenberger

Was Caroline Herschel going to be doomed to be her mother’s servant for the rest of her life? Find out how this 18th century woman became the world’s first professional female astronomer in this scintillating tale. This is not the first picture book bio of Caroline Herschel I’ve ever seen, but it may well be the best. I thought the subtitle “The True Cinderella Story” was a bit cheeky, but it’s not actually all that far from the truth. Caroline was pretty much destined for a mostly sucky life, had it not been for her brother’s fondness for her. And not only did she get out of her mom’s clutches, but she managed to become a major scientist in her own right. Turner leans way into the drama of the situation, but you never feel like she’s sensationalizing Caroline’s life. The art’s gorgeous, the backmatter beautifully extensive, and Turner just clinches it all with that final line: “Let whatever shines be noted.” Top notch work! Previously seen on the Biography List.

The Doll Test: Choosing Equality by Carole Boston Weatherford, ill. David Elmo Cooper

I legitimately wonder sometimes if many of the children’s nonfiction picture books out there are written with one eye on kids and the other eye on the caregivers who are most certainly going to learn a thing or two from the history or science or math or what have you involved. I had the vaguest memory myself of The Doll Test, dating back to some classes I took in college. Weatherford does something here that I think is so deft and difficult that few would even attempt it. Put simply, she presents the work by pioneering Black psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark and the landmark court case Brown vs. Board of Education and how the doll test study was integral towards declaring school segregation illegal. Psychologists don’t show up in a lot of picture books, by and large (they tend to write them, and poorly too). Weatherford has honed her writing talents to the point where she can say a lot with very little. She also makes the complexity of the doll test so simple that a kid can instantly understand why it was a problem. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, this was a test where Black children were presented with a white baby doll and a Black baby doll and asked questions like “Show me the doll that looks bad” or “Show me the doll that is the nice doll.” Part of why this book stands out too is the art of David Elmo Cooper. He does amazing things with halftone screens, which are sort of dot matrix looking photographs of the dolls, set against illustrations of the kids and psychologists. Or, as he puts it, “I then intertwined my illustrations with warped collages of the dolls.” It gives the dolls a strange otherworldly quality. Oh. And the backmatter? WHAT backmatter! Glorious, amazing, gorgeous backmatter. This one’s a keeper. 

Ernö Rubik and His Magic Cube by Kerry Aradhya, ill. Kara Kramer

A fan of puzzles, Ernö Rubik wondered if he could build a big cube made of smaller cubes that moved around and stayed connected. The true story behind one of our favorite, brain-bending toys. Y’all know that I’ve a weakness for any book that integrates math in a fun way, and I’d say this supremely fascinating book about the guy who came up with the Rubik’s Cube fits the bill. Part of what makes this book so interesting is the concept of someone trying to come up with something that’s never existed before, but that anyone could play with. I’m still a little fuzzy on how precisely a Rubik’s Cube actually, physically works but this book does a good job of explaining it as best as it possibly can. And I absolutely love that Ernö hadn’t really considered the idea of “solving” the cube when he first came up with it. If kids are looking for biographies of people who are still alive today, consider this one of the very few math-related bios of such a subject. Fun and strange. Previously seen on the Math List.

The Ever-Changing Earth by Grahame Baker-Smith

How are all living things connected? How has the Earth changed and changed and changed again? Big questions are coupled with even bigger art in this awe-inspiring encapsulation of our world. While I love Baker-Smith’s art, his nonfiction has always been sadly bereft of backmatter (he’s European, so there ya go). I may make an exception for this particular book (and you may disagree) if only because I think he’s doing a really good job of clarifying some of the concepts that I’ve been trying to explain to my 9-year-old lately. Stuff like the fact that it wasn’t just the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs but the volcanoes and tsunamis as well. Or that ice may have come to Earth in asteroids. Or the sheer weirdness of life on earth before all those other extinctions (I do wish this explained that there were multiple extinctions on Earth before, but that’s a different Baker-Smith book). This book is just amazing because it puts everything we learn in dry textbooks into context and ties it all together nicely. Plus he just nails that ending. 

Evidence! How Dr. John Snow Solved the Mystery of Cholera by Deborah Hopkinson, ill. Nik Henderson

It’s 1854 and people are dying. Can Dr. John Snow discover the origins of cholera before more lives are lost? A gripping medical mystery brought to life. Ooo. Yes, this is what we’ve been looking for. A book that sets up Dr. Snow’s discovering of cholera’s origins as a mystery in need of solving with lives on the line. Excellent! Hopkinson basically already wrote a longer version of this book for kids when she wrote The Great Trouble back in the day. This is incredible in both its brevity and its ability to get to the heart of the matter. It’s also just a great story about a hero. I’m in awe of Hopkinson’s ability to pull out both pertinent and interesting details. Add in the art by Nik Henderson, which somehow manages to be both sepia-toned and NOT boring (an almost impossible feat) and we have a clear winner. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

The Fastest Drummer: Clap Your Hands for Viola Smith by Dean Robbins, ill. Susanna Chapman

Born into the family band, Viola Smith was a drummer from the start. Watch and see how for a century she broke barriers and drummed her heart out in this energetic book full of voom and pizzazz! Susanna Chapman is apparently channeling Steven Solerno with this book, and I am here for it. You know, we get a LOT of picture book bios in a given year, so I’m always on the lookout for, quite frankly, the fun ones. The ones that you’d not only enjoy reading, you’d enjoy reading them out loud. I can just imagine a music teacher in an elementary school reading this to a class in some way, and really getting into it. It doesn’t hurt matters that Viola Smith (someone I’d never really heard of before) was amazing. I mean, here we have a lady who was still beating on the drums until she was literally 100 (she lived to be 107). This book (as the cover clearly shows) is also a hoot. It acknowledges the prejudice she faced without lingering on it. And it just seems to be so much fun to have put together. I suspect more than one kid (particularly those who identify as girls) will want to pick up some sticks after reading through this. And extra points for showing how she wasn’t this instant genius but had to learn from other people and work at it. Previously seen on the Biography List.

Fighting With Love: The Legacy of John Lewis by Lesa Cline-Ransome, ill. James E. Ransome

Born into love, raised to do what is right, this biography focuses on the young life of the beloved Civil Rights leader and shows where he got his strength of purpose. A beautiful new telling. I think I like the Ransomes best when they work together rather than separately. This book is a pretty darn great example of what they can accomplish when they work together. It’s an interesting change to James Ransome’s usual style. I always think of him more in terms of paints, but here he’s using “found, painted, and purchased papers with pencil drawing,” which makes for an interesting cut-paper look and feel. There was something about it that felt really nice to me. James dedicates the book to Jerry Pinkney, and I almost feel like he’s doing his own variation on Pinkney’s style with this bio. As for Lesa, she is so good at writing these bios. I think this might be my favorite John Lewis picture book bio yet (and there are a LOT to choose between). It’s really interesting watching her end with that walk over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, mere moment before getting his skull cracked by the waiting police, but it works, man, it works. Love the backmatter too. A great new take on a familiar subject. Previously seen on the Biography List.

Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller by Breanna J. McDaniel, ill. April Harrison

There’s something unique about the experience of reading a book about someone you’ve heard about in the past but never had a clear picture of before. When I worked for New York Public Library the name “Augusta Baker” was legendary. She’d retired long before my day (I started in 2003 and she passed away in 1998) but her name was everywhere. We all knew her to be the first Black coordinator of children’s services for New York Public Library. What they didn’t tell us was the sheer amount of good things she got behind. Fortunately we have Breanna J. McDaniel to put all the pieces together, and April Harrison to bring them to life. I mean just look at the cover of this book. This is what I wish we saw a bit more of in our children’s book biographies. A little more creativity and visual metaphors at work. In fact, Harrison is pulling out all the stops on this book. I feel like she was given the go ahead to really lean into her natural inclinations towards gorgeous mixed media. Additionally, if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Gee, I’d really like to see what April Harrison’s version of Ernie and Bert looked like” your somewhat bizarre wishes have been granted. As a former NYPL employee I also geeked out over a map that appears at one point in the book showing a map of NYC and distinguishing between NYPL, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library (I won’t be that person who checks to see if the branches seen are accurate to the time period, though I suspect that they are). And I would be amiss in not hat tipping to McDaniel’s form of storytelling as well. This book covers all its bases but doesn’t load you down with details you don’t need. It’s quick, succinct, and smart. Just like Augusta Baker herself, I suppose. Previously seen on the Biography List.

The Great Lakes: Our Freshwater Treasure by Barb Rosenstock, ill. Jamey Christoph

A deep dive (literally!) into the Great Lakes, their history, present, and future. Learn everything you ever wanted to know about their six quadrillion gallons of freshwater and how vital they are to the world. There are fish that can grow seven feet long and live more than one hundred years in our Great Lakes and I’m only hearing about them now?!? Feels like this should be a bigger story. Yeah, this is great, and not just because I live next to Lake Michigan and all. Rosenstock is the perfect person to write this, seeing as how she’s local to the Chicago area and knows how to pen a great nonfiction book. I adored this breakdown of the lakes, particularly the “Great Lakes in Profile” section where you get to see how far down they all go (woo-hoo to Lake Michigan being the second deepest!). Plus that two page spread of all the water in the world shown as bottles and only one of them being freshwater? That really stuck with me. VERY happy to see a message from Kathleen Smith of the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (enrolled member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community) at the end. This is top notch work. Previously seen on the Blueberry List.

Hello, I’m a Pangolin / Hello, I’m a Quokka / Hello, I’m a Sloth by Hayley & John Rocco

Meet three of nature’s most interesting animals. Simple text and big beautiful pictures combine to introduce children to the lives, and challenges, of these incredible creatures. I saw the sloth and quokka books in this series first and was fairly certain early on that the Roccos were just focusing on the smiling animals of the natural world. Thank goodness they went with a pangolin next (though they are doing an axolotl book next year). Rocco has been on an environmental tear this year, traveling the world and even working on a David Attenborough picture book biography. I’d argue that these books are my personal favorites, however. Apart from the near photo realistic covers, the Roccos do a really nice job of using really simple sentences and art to introduce kids to the lives of these three animals. I think they balance out the environmental concerns alongside the purely interesting nature of these animals well. They’re interesting takes and a clever little series that is bound to be popular. Worth looking at closely! Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

I Am Gravity by Henry Herz, ill. Mercè López

“You feel me, but cannot see me. I reach everywhere, touching everything…” Meet gravity. A lyrical introduction to a complicated science told with wit, fervor, and accompanied by breathtaking art. Some of you may recall the rather remarkable I Am Smoke from a couple years ago. Well, I am here to tell you that as good a book as that was, gravity here is better. It was as if that first book was just a running start for this one. What we have here is a complex force made not simply comprehensible to kids but exciting and new! Hertz, meanwhile, is just in top form with this writing. I love how he can talk about gravity controlling the puff of a dandelion on the one hand, and then show how it “warps the path of light around stars and planets” on the other. My favorite science books are the ones that can feel dreamy and gargantuan all at once. This book fits that description. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

I See Color: An Affirmation and Celebration of Our Diverse World by Valerie Bolling and Kailei Pew, ill. Laylie Frazier

“You say you ‘don’t see color’? “Do you not see me?” A celebration of people and the vast array of colors they represent, celebrated in this collected picture book biography of over thirty incredible leaders. This one’s interesting. It had me mulling a bit. The danger of a book of this kind (a kind of quickie collected biography for kids) is that it might seem to just blend in with a lot of other books. But Bolling and Pew do something interesting from the title onward. They take that old outdated phrase “I don’t see color” and turn it entirely on its head. It then describes, with great lyricism, the color of each person in this book by their skin tone. From “rich sepia” and “powdered oak” to “smoky quartz” and “radiant bronze.” I thought the art and text worked in close tandem at every step. I don’t usually like collected bios of this sort, but I like this one. I think it has some interesting things to say and makes a complicated, and usually adult, issue comprehensible to kids (and, let’s face it, their caregivers as well).

If I Were a Fungus by Gaia Stella, translated by Nanette McGuinness

If you were a fungus you wouldn’t be an animal or a plant, but something very special. A strange and wonderful book about a strange and wonderful species. Surely I’m not the only person who sees this title and starts singing an old Tim Hardin song (and I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one I mean). I admit that we’ve seen a LOT of fungus books in the last few years. We have also seen a lot of fungus-with-eyeballs books (a genre that I didn’t expect to come across, but here we are). Even so, I do feel like this comes across as an ideal companion to last year’s Philip Bunting book The Gentle Genius of Trees. Here we’re entirely fungus based, though trees do get a mention. And there are all kinds of facts explained simply and beautifully in this book. It’s an excellent example of how you can take the same subject and explain it a host of different ways, depending on the book’s creator. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

The Iguanodon’s Horn by Sean Rubin

What did the iguanodon really look like? Follow its discovery and the different ways humans have pictured it over the centuries in this magnificently illustrated deep dive into how we’ve changed our minds about dinos. Great first page right from the start. “The iguanodon died a long time ago. A really long time ago. Bit of a bummer way to start a story, but hang on.” From there, Rubin does this marvelous job of not only showing not simply the various interpretations of what an iguanodon might look at, but he takes care to draw those wildly inaccurate images over and over again, improving them slightly each time. The end result is that you’re left not only understanding how science allows for change over time, but also the different ways we’ve viewed dinosaurs over the course of the centuries. But even better than this is the fact that when you get to the end you realize that we may STILL not really know what the iguanodon looks like even now. It gives kids the understanding that there’s always something new to discover. I love that. The technicolor dinos with “baggy bits and saggy bits” are worth the price of admission alone. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall by Lynn Brunelle, ill. Jason Chin

Death for one whale means life for an entire ecosystem of creatures. Take a deep dive into the fascinating science behind a single whale’s contribution to ocean life. I KNEW it! I knew that there would be a really good whale fall book out for kids one of these days! No shade on other whale fall titles, but after reading this one you’ll see how it really was showing just the tip of the iceberg. Brunelle is going to give you a deep dive (forgive me) into not just a whale’s death, but some really fascinating facts about the same whale during life (did you know that you can tell how old a whale is by the rings of earwax it has?). It’s kind of unfair to bring Jason Chin into all of this too. I mean, the man’s a ringer. Once he’s on board you may as well throw in the towel and declare the book a winner. Full of facts that I can guarantee you’ve never heard before, and a wonderful circle-of-life type of storyline as well. But the real reason I was so delighted by this book? Zombie worms, baby! Adequate zombie worm usage! So gross! So wonderful. Previously seen on the Gross List and the Science and Nature List.

Marina Abramović Turned Herself Into Art and Wasn’t Sorry by Fausto Gilberti

What happens when you turn yourself into your own art project? View the many performances of Marina Abramović, an artist unafraid to try anything. I adore Gilberti’s books and this is his best since his Banksy bio. I guess I’d heard of various projects by Abramović in the past, but I never connected them to her and I never really knew her name. At the same time, the ding dang book is written in the first person. It’s a literary technique and it doesn’t say anything that Abramović herself didn’t think or say. So I’m willing to give it a pass, since it truly is unique (and I adore that photograph of her at the end). Hardly any backmatter though. *sigh* Previously seen on the Biography List.

My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story by George Takei, ill. Michelle Lee

What would it feel like if your country went to war and then imprisoned you for no reason? A kid’s-eye-view of living through the Japanese internment camps. I really shouldn’t be surprised that this is good, but I admit that I kind of am. Actors write picture books all the time and only the smallest smidgen of them are decent. Yet Takei had been telling this story already to adults and then later in graphic novel form to teens. I guess it was just a matter of time before he’d make it into a picture book, but I sort of imagined it would be so-so. Instead, he does this really interesting thing where he explains everything in a very kid-friendly manner. You understand this from his very young point of view every step of the way, and I found it extraordinarily effective. Previously seen on the Biography List.

Narwhal: Unicorn of the Arctic by Candace Fleming, ill. Deena So’oteh

Join a male narwhal in this deep dive into the lives of these incredible creatures. Dodging polar bears, finding air, using echolocation, you’ll never look at them the same way again. Fleming specializes in a lot of different types of nonfiction (including the much older Enigma Girls, also out this year) but who amongst us can forget her incredible Honeybee from a couple years ago. Narwhal is in the same vein and by gum you are going to learn a lot about them by the time this book is done. It helps that they’re funky looking. So’oteh does an incredible job and this is clearly a case where the backmatter isn’t more interesting than the frontmatter but is STILL engrossing (three words: collapsible rib cages). In a field of animal picture books, this is the one to beat. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

The Noisy Puddle: A Vernal Pool Through the Seasons by Linda Booth Sweeney, ill. Miki Sato

“LOOK! LOOK! Look over there… / a noisy puddle, cold and clear.” Gentle rhyming text talks about a vernal pool and all the critters that rely upon it. Very cool. A great example of how the best books of a given year have wonderful writing paired with stellar art. Sweeney takes the idea of a vernal pool (which we’ve seen done in picture books before) and really expands it and makes it knowable. She answers all the questions a kid might have about it, and has a keen writing style that would work particularly well in a readaloud. I also just adored how artist Miki Sato used clear plastic wrap to look like water. It gives the cut paper art this 3-D quality that you wouldn’t be able to get any other way (how come more books don’t do this?). So cool. Previously seen on the Rhyming Picture Book List and the Blueberry List.

Nothing: John Cage and 4’33” by Nicholas Day, ill. Chris Raschka

On August 29, 1952, pianist David Turdor sat down at a piano and played… nothing. How can nothing be something? A deep dive into one of John Cage’s best pieces of music, and why it was so important. Oh ho ho! From the man who brought us last year’s The Mona Lisa Vanishes comes a picture book that zeroes in on the most infamous John Cage piece of all time. This is one of those situations where I remember hearing about this piece as a young adult and automatically pooh-poohed it as stupid artists being stupid. So Day has a natural sense of the dramatic to him, and he couches the storyline within the parameters of the first time that it was ever “played”. He then makes it perfectly clear why this piece is important. We actually saw a rather good explanation of this in last year’s picture book biography of John Cage, Beautiful Noise by Lisa Rogers. This takes that story and just fleshes it out a bit more. The two would make for a marvelous pairing, actually. As for Chris Raschka, he loves doing books on musicians, so hat tip to the editorial genius who realized that this would be his bag. A successful explanation of something I never quite understood before.

By the way, I’ve never mentioned this before, but part of the reason I adore this cover of the book so much is that Chris Raschka included this woman in the upper left-hand corner and she amuses me greatly:

She is Just. So. Shocked.

Octopus Acrobatics by Sue Fliess illustrated by Gareth Lukas

I wasn’t kidding when I said you’d see more octopuses today. Behold the incredible octopus! Think you’ve heard everything there is to know about these creatures? You’re bound to learn something new thanks to the gentle rhyming text. The rhymes themselves (which are difficult to write in the first place) are very well done. Best of all, this not only covering all the octopus facts I wanted to see (brains in arms, moms die protecting babies, etc.) it included a couple I’d never heard of before (how have I never heard of octopuses riding jellyfish before?!?). I mean, this is great stuff. Previously seen on the Rhyming List and the the Science and Nature List.

The Painter and the President: Gilbert Stuart’s Brush with George Washington by Sarah Albee, ill. Stacy Innerst

As one of the leading painters of his day, everyone loved posing for Gilbert Stuart. Everyone, that is, except for George Washington. The true story of what happened when Stuart was asked to paint Washington’s most famous portrait. An author (not the author of this book) sent me this PDF because she thought it would be right up my alley and darned if she wasn’t right. Now right at the opening the book scared me, because it looked like it was leaning heavily on dialogue and I wasn’t sure if it was real. Happily, as an author Albee more than backs up every single direct quote to grace these pages. No fake dialogue here. Whew! The story isn’t one I’d really heard of before, and while this is one of those historical picture books that I’d say wasn’t “plot forward” (if you know what I mean) it gives a lot of context to a time period that too often comes across as unattainable. It’s also just a fun study in personality clashes. Previously seen on the Biography List.

Parrotfish Has a Superpower by Jill Esbaum, ill. Bob Shea

I just can’t stress enough how grateful I am to these animal nonfiction books that aren’t just funny, they’re also chock full of legitimately fascinating info. I feel like this Esbaum/Shea collaboration that began with Stinkbird Has a Superpower is like a younger version of the Superpower Field Guide series by Rachel Poliquin, illustrated by Nicholas John Frith. But see, the thing is, if you’re going to brag about the fact that an animal has a “superpower” you better be ready to put your money where your mouth is. Stinkbird paid off in dividends but what about the parrotfish? Turns out, Esbaum seems to have a keen sense of which creatures and critters are best suited to her unique scrutiny. And to be perfectly frank, she’s dead right about the parrotfish. I guess I’d heard about its superpower before, but this book makes it just how bizarre, strange, and wonderful it truly is. And you know what? I’m not gonna give it away. Just know that this book is hilarious (thanks in no small part to the illustrious and very funny Bob Shea, doing the art) and fascinating. If you read it aloud, expect to be asked for an encore. Previously seen on the Funny Picture Books List and the Science and Nature List.

Planting Hope: A Portrait of Photographer Sebastião Salgado by Philip Hoelzel, ill. Renato Alarcão

This story of the boy who grew up in the forests of Brazil, and who went on to photograph the lives and destruction of his fellow humans, shows how his art and his passion for environmentalism came together at last. A gorgeous telling of a life. It would be exceedingly difficult to write a picture book biography about someone like Salgado. How the heck do you write a story about a man who took photographs of people dying of famine and war and not turn it into some kind of white savior story? I think the trick lies in Hoelzel and Alarcão being aligned in their vision of the book. Hoelzel keeps his text respectful and that first photograph Alarcão shows is an image of joy. The story’s interesting too because it does this remarkable shift from the first half of Salgado’s work into the environmental second half. Again, not easy to pull off, but without front-ending it with all that information about his childhood, it wouldn’t work at all. And where the heck has Renato Alarcão been all these years? This art is gorgeous but also really adept. If he’s been making other picture books, please tell me about them. I want to see more of this in the future. Previously seen on the Biography List.

Space: The Final Pooping Frontier by Annabeth Bondor-Stone and Connor White, ill. Lars Kenseth

Waste in space is the focus of this hilarious deep dive into number two amongst the stars. Think we’ve always had this problem figured out? Think again. It is a simple fact of nature that if a book is written for children about pooping in space, I am going to want to read that book. And if that book is honest and somehow manages to almost rarely show any poop in the images? Oh man. I am in love. Ever since I learned years ago about the trials and tribulations of space toilets and all that they entail, I’ve been fascinated with this particular type of science. What I love so much about this title is that Space makes it perfectly clear that we STILL are not done when it comes to figuring all this stuff out. As the book itself says, “Scientists are always working to improve conditions for astronauts, whether related to their experience on the toilet or otherwise.” Try to read this and not be horribly enthralled. Previously seen on the Gross List.

This Is My Brain: A Book on Neurodiversity by Elise Gravel

My brain isn’t like your brain and your brain isn’t like mine. Find out how to make them happy and what it is that they can and can’t do. It’s the War of the Gravels! Which will you enjoy more? Her book on microbes or this one on differences between brains? Personally, I’d throw my hat into the ring with this little number. Gravel’s superpower is her ability to take complex ideas that kids need to learn early (fake news, mushrooms, microbes, etc.) and make it understandable AND fun for younger children. This neurodiversity number is no exception. She seems to have a preternatural ability to determine just how much information to give younger children, and where to cut things off. If they’re interested in learning more, they certainly can, but this is definitely Brain Science 101. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

A Tree Is a Community by David L. Harrison, ill. Kate Cosgrove

A poet-biologist takes a deep dive into the many critters, insects, animals, and more than live in a simply hackberry tree. Boy, you just can never tell with a book sometimes, right? I looked at this title and cover and figured it was just one of the millions and millions of A Tree Is Nice types of books we’d already seen. Should I already know who David L. Harrison is? According to his bio in the back, he has an elementary school named after him, so that’s not nothing. And fair play to Cosgrove, the art really is lovely in this story, but this is 100% down to Harrison’s wordplay. I don’t usually do this, but listen to this: “That busy tree has MORE tree business. That tree she CATCHES dust in the air and SAVES water with her deep, strong roots. She HOLDS the soil from WASHING away and makes us feel COOLER when the sun, it LICKS all over with its HOT tongue.” I dunno. This is just a hugely engaging bit of writing on a familiar topic, rendering it new. Previously seen on the Blueberry List.

Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains by Anita Yasuda, ill. Yuko Shimizu

The incredible true story of a woman who never stopped moving. Whether she was scaling mountains or trying to save the environment, Junko Tabei is a hero for our times. I’m peeved I didn’t get a chance to see this before we settled on my library’s 101 Great Books for Kids list because I would have fought HARD for this one (alas, Harper Collins sends relatively few print galleys). First off, I haven’t seen much of Yuko Shimizu’s work since that incredible book The Cat Man of Aleppo. This feels like her triumphant return. The art in this book is thoroughly stunning and the life of Junko Tabei?!? How are there not thirty picture book bios of her instead of just one? It’s like the woman couldn’t stop working! By the time you learn that she climbed a mountain just three months before her death (at the age of 77, thank you very much) you begin to wonder what ELSE she could have done if she’d lived a little longer. This book is a thrilling homage to an incredible person and the environmentalist focus is absolutely fantastic. We don’t hear a lot about how mountain climbers pollute while they’re there (I literally had never heard of the whole poop problem until this book) so this is eye-opening on a number of levels. Previously seen on the Biography List.

The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants by Philip Bunting

Are you ready for some ant facts? Are you ready to laugh out loud? Are you ready to learn more than you ever thought you’d be able to about these tiny little workers? Get ready for factual hilarity that’ll give you a newfound respect for our tiny friends. Why should bees have all the fun? The more I dove deep into this book, the more I realized how little it is that I actually know about them. Bunting once again is doing amazing stuff with topics that others have done before. He just does ‘em better. The sheer amount of information he’s able to cram into a kid’s brain using funny stuff cannot be overstated. I’m just so grateful we get to live in an era that has Philip Bunting in it. Previously seen on the Science and Nature List.

World More Beautiful: The Life and Art of Barbara Cooney, by Angela Burke Kunkel, ill. Becca Stadtlander

A lyrical, remarkable examination of what it means to live the life of an artist and how (and when) to make your own rules. When you find a picture book biography of a children’s book author/illustrator you have to be careful not to love it simply because you loved its subject. But I’m not someone who was ever very familiar with Cooney above and beyond Miss Rumphius, and I thought this a stellar title. The writing is downright lyrical, and the art astounding. Somehow, Stadtlander has managed to evoke Cooney without duplicating her work. I’m also highly amused that both Kunkel and Stadtlander worked on different Robert McCloskey picture book bios before they came together on this. Apparently they have a thing for children’s book creators from Maine! Previously seen on the Biography List.

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So with all that in mind, here are the other lists for 2024:

December 1 – Great Board Books

December 2 – Picture Book Readalouds

December 3 – Simple Picture Book Texts

December 4 – Transcendent Holiday Picture Books

December 5 – Rhyming Picture Books

December 6 – Funny Picture Books

December 7 – CaldeNotts

December 8 – Picture Book Reprints

December 9 – Bilingual Books for Kids

December 10 – Math Books for Kids

December 11 – Books with a Message / Social Emotional Learning

December 12 – Fabulous Photography

December 13 – Translated Picture Books

December 14 – Fairy Tales / Folktales / Religious Tales

December 15 – Wordless Picture Books

December 16 – Poetry Books

December 17 – Unconventional Children’s Books

December 18 – Easy Books & Early Chapter Books

December 19 – Comics & Graphic Novels

December 20 – Older Funny Books

December 21 – Science Fiction Books

December 22 – Fantasy Books

December 23 – Informational Fiction

December 24 – Gross Books

December 25 – Science & Nature Books

December 26 – Unique Biographies

December 27 – Blueberry Award Contenders (Celebrating the Environment)

December 28 – Nonfiction Picture Books

December 29 – Nonfiction Books for Older Readers

December 30 – Middle Grade Novels

December 31 – Picture Books

Filed under: 31 Days 31 Lists, Best Books, Best Books of 2024