MORE 'NONFICTION' POSTS
There’s been a lot of talk about accuracy in children’s nonfiction recently (which is just a fancy way of saying that there’s been a lot of talk on this particular blog). Everything from invented dialogue to series that are nonfiction-ish. One element we haven’t discussed in any way, shape, or form though is the notion […]
At Home in Her Tomb: Lady Dai and the Ancient Chinese Treasures of Mawangdui By Christine Liu-Perkins Charlesbridge $19.95 978-1-58089-370-1 Ages 9-12 On shelves now When I say the word “mummy” what springs into your mind? Movies starring Brendan Fraser? Egypt and scarabs and rolls of crumbling papyrus? Absolutely. But what if I told you […]
Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation By Duncan Tonatiuh Harry N. Abrams $18.95 ISBN: 978-1419710544 Ages 7-12 On shelves now If I blame my childhood education for anything I suppose it would be for instilling in me the belief that the history worth learning consisted of a set of […]
My Country, ‘Tis of Thee: How One Song Reveals the History of Civil Rights By Claire Rudolf Murphy Illustrated by Bryan Collier Henry Holt and Company (an imprint of Macmillan) $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-8050-8226-5 Ages 7 and up On shelves June 3rd It doesn’t matter how long you’ve worked as a children’s librarian. It doesn’t matter […]
Grandfather Gandhi Arun Gandhi and Bethany Hegedus Illustrated by Evan Turk Atheneum (an imprint of Simon and Schuster) $17.99 ISBN: 978-1-4424-2365-X Ages 4-8 On shelves now. Are you familiar with the concept of booktalking? It’s a technique librarians developed to get people interested in books they might otherwise not pick up. The whole concept is […]
Jumping Penguins by Jesse Goossens Illustrated by Marije Tolman Lemniscaat $19.95 ISBN: 9781935954323 Ages 6-11 On shelves now. Here’s a puzzler for you. See what you think. There’s been a lot of talk lately about nonfiction for kids and the importance of highlighting those books that adhere strictly to the truth. That means no invented […]
Rotten Pumpkin By David M. Schwartz Photos by Dwight Kuhn Creston Books $16.99 ISNB: 978-1-939547-03-3 Ages 4-8 On shelves now. Every October you walk into your bookstores and your libraries and you see the overwhelming swath of seasonal fare pelt you from every side. Apples and pumpkins, scarecrows and black cats. You begin to wonder […]
Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table By Jacqueline Briggs Martin Illustrated by Eric-Shabazz Larkin Readers to Eaters Books ISBN: 978-0-9836615-3-5 $17.95 Ages 4-8 On shelves September 10th It shouldn’t be this hard. You walk to a biography section of a children’s room, any children’s room, and you start searching for biographies of living people […]
If you had told me as recently as a year ago that I was doomed to become The Nonfiction Dialogue Stickler of Doom (copyright pending) I would have said . . . . well, honestly I would have asked where you came up with that term. Then, once you’d defined it (Nonfiction Dialogue Stickler of […]
Native Americans: A Visual Exploration By S.N. Paleja Intro by Kevin Loring Annick Press $19.95 ISBN: 978-1-55451-485-4 Ages 9-12 On shelves now Nonfiction trends in children’s literature are oddities. For all that children make up such a large swath of the American population, relatively few people specialize solely in creating works of nonfiction for them […]