MORE 'NONFICTION-PICTURE-BOOKS' POSTS
I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all to suggest that this book pretty much has it all. For the animal lovers, a cute and smart colt. For the mystery lovers, a true tale that lays out the clues, the detectives, and the surprising solution. And for lovers of science, this is a superb recounting of how people learn more about the natural world around them.
Great writing for kids, when you encounter it, reminds you that there is always a new way to look at this old, familiar world of ours. If you buy only one bee book for the rest of your life, make it this one.
Here it is! My standouts! My stalwarts! The books that I just can't get out of my mind, that have been swimming around in my cranium all year. The great works of picture book nonfiction of 2019!
If there is an art to rendering expository facts with a narrative feel, then Meghan McCarthy is this type of book’s Vincent Van Gogh. Never sacrificing beauty, never skimping on reality, she provides the perfect balance while also managing to come up with books that kids will really really enjoy reading. A treat to eye and ear and a blessing to parents of the firefighting obsessed nationwide. The best at what it aims to be.
When a book is as funny, smart, beautiful, and interesting as Monument Maker, you have a chance to remember that old adage about judging a book by its cover.
Magic Ramen: The Story of Momofuku Ando looks like a simple tale about the man who invented instant ramen, but look closer and you’ll see that what the book truly is is a paean to the necessity of failure, the beauty of persistence, and the pleasure that comes after messing up 99 times only to get it right on the 100th.
Appealing to older and younger readers alike, Portis has outdone herself with the book’s design and art. A book for everybody. After all, who doesn’t like water? Hey, Portis! You made a really good book.
The ideal use of great writing without cheating. Filled with facts and backmatter, it also makes the subject interesting to kids. It’s beautiful to look at and while I would have made some changes, it stands as a pretty darn good look at a man, a plan, a crayon. Crayola.
We think about aliens all the time and what they might be like. Imagine actually finding other planets where they might live. That’s what Just Right does. It allows for the scope of possibility, even as its very message about the difficulty in finding planets like our own reinforces the fact that this place is pretty special.
At last! It's finally time to list the last Top Five lists of the year. This is the first of the biggies, my friends. These are the picture book nonfiction titles that truly stole my heart in 2018. The cream of the crop. The apples of my eye. The metaphors in my aphorisms.