Book picks similar to
The Forbidden Schoolhouse: The True and Dramatic Story of Prudence Crandall and Her Students by Suzanne Tripp Jurmain
non-fiction
nonfiction
history
biography
Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
Candace Fleming - 2011
With photos, maps, and handwritten notes from Amelia herself—plus informative sidebars tackling everything from the history of flight to what Amelia liked to eat while flying (tomato soup).
While I Was Away
Waka T. Brown - 2021
Brown, who takes readers on a journey to Japan, where she was sent as a child in the 1980s to reconnect to her family’s roots.When twelve-year-old Waka’s parents suspect she can’t understand basic Japanese, they make the drastic decision to send her to Tokyo to live for several months with her strict grandmother. Forced to say goodbye to her friends and what would have been her summer vacation, Waka is plucked from her straight-A-student life in rural Kansas and flown across the globe, where she faces the culture shock of a lifetime.In Japan, Waka struggles with reading and writing in kanji, doesn’t quite mesh with her complicated and distant Obaasama, and gets made fun of by the students in her Japanese public-school classes. Even though this is the country her parents came from, Waka has never felt more like an outsider.If she’s always been the “smart Japanese girl” in America but is now the “dumb foreigner” in Japan, where is home? And who will Waka be when she finds it?
A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin
Jen Bryant - 2013
He loved looking at something in the room and making it come alive again in front of him. He drew pictures for his sisters, his classmates, his co-workers. Even during WWI, Horace filled his notebooks with drawings from the trenches . . . until he was shot. Upon his return home, Horace couldn't lift his right arm, and couldn't make any art. Slowly, with lots of practice, he regained use of his arm, until once again, he was able to paint--and paint, and paint! Soon, people—including the famous painter N. C. Wyeth—started noticing Horace's art, and before long, his paintings were displayed in galleries and museums across the country.
The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science
Joyce Sidman - 2018
Bugs, of all kinds, were considered to be “born of mud” and to be “beasts of the devil.” Why would anyone, let alone a girl, want to study and observe them? One of the first naturalists to observe live insects directly, Maria Sibylla Merian was also one of the first to document the metamorphosis of the butterfly. In this nonfiction biography, illustrated throughout with full-color original paintings by Merian herself, author Joyce Sidman paints her own picture of one of the first female entomologists and a woman who flouted convention in the pursuit of knowledge and her passion for insects.
Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes - 2006
Edited by the two leading experts on Hughes’s work, and illustrated by the brilliant Benny Andrews, this very special volume is one to treasure forever. A much-requested book that was years in the making…and well worth the wait. One of the central figures in the Harlem Renaissance—the flowering of black culture that took place in the 1920s and 30s—Langston Hughes captured the soul of his people, and gave voice to their concerns about race and social justice. His magnificent and powerful words still resonate today: that’s why it’s so important for young people to have access to his poems. Now they do, in a splendid volume edited and illustrated by a top-caliber team who are simply the best in their fields. The introduction, biography, and annotations come from Arnold Rampersad, a Professor and Dean at Stanford University, who has written The Life of Langston Hughes, and David Roessel, co-editor with Professor Rampersad of The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes and editor of the Langston Hughes collection in Knopf’s Everyman series. Benny Andrews—a painter, printmaker, and arts advocate whose work is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian, among others—has created gallery-quality illustrations that pulse with energy and add rich dimension to the poems. Among the anthologized poems are Hughes’s best-known and most loved works: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”; “Aunt Sue’s Stories”; “Danse Africaine”; “Mother to Son”; “My People”; “Words Like Freedom”; “Harlem”; and “I, Too”—his sharp, pointed response to Walt Whitman’s earlier “I Hear America Singing.” Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes is a publishing event for all to celebrate.A Selection of the Scholastic Book Club.
Who Was Walt Disney?
Whitney Stewart - 2009
Often it got him into trouble. Once he painted pictures with tar on the side of his family's white house. His family was poor, and the happiest time of his childhood was spent living on a farm in Missouri. His affection for small-town life is reflected in Disneyland Main Streets around the world. With black-and-white illustrations throughout, this biography reveals the man behind the magic.This book is not authorized, licensed or endorsed by the Walt Disney Company or any affiliate.
Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson
Katherine G. Johnson - 2019
In school she quickly skipped ahead several grades and was soon studying complex equations with the support of a professor who saw great promise in her. But ability and opportunity did not always go hand in hand. As an African American and a girl growing up in an era of brutal racism and sexism, Katherine faced daily challenges. Still, she lived her life with her father’s words in mind: “You are no better than anyone else, and nobody else is better than you.” In the early 1950s, Katherine was thrilled to join the organization that would become NASA. She worked on many of NASA’s biggest projects including the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first men on the moon. Katherine Johnson’s story was made famous in the bestselling book and Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Now in Reaching for the Moon she tells her own story for the first time, in a lively autobiography that will inspire young readers everywhere.
Red Scarf Girl
Ji-li Jiang - 1997
But it's also the year that China's leader, Mao Ze-dong, launches the Cultural Revolution—and Ji-li's world begins to fall apart. Over the next few years, people who were once her friends and neighbors turn on her and her family, forcing them to live in constant terror of arrest. And when Ji-li's father is finally imprisoned, she faces the most difficult dilemma of her life.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People
Debbie Reese - 2019
Spanning more than 400 years, this classic bottom-up history examines the legacy of Indigenous peoples' resistance, resilience, and steadfast fight against imperialism.Going beyond the story of America as a country "discovered" by a few brave men in the "New World," Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity.The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.
"The President Has Been Shot!": The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
James L. Swanson - 2013
As he did in his bestselling Scholastic YA book, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER, Swanson will deploy his signature "you are there" style -- a riveting, ticking-clock pace, with an unprecedented eye for dramatic details and impeccable historical accuracy -- to tell the story of the JFK assassination as it has never been told before.
A Ride to Remember: A Civil Rights Story
Sharon Langley - 2020
When Sharon Langley was born in the early 1960s, many amusement parks were segregated, and African-American families were not allowed entry. This book reveals how in the summer of 1963, due to demonstrations and public protests, the Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland became desegregated and opened to all for the first time. Co-author Sharon Langley was the first African-American child to ride the carousel. This was on the same day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Langley’s ride to remember demonstrated the possibilities of King’s dream. This book includes photos of Sharon on the carousel, authors’ notes, a timeline, and a bibliography.
A Day for Rememberin': The First Memorial Day
Leah Henderson - 2020
Eli knows it’s important if he’s allowed to miss one second of school, his “hard-earned right.”Inspired by true events and told through the eyes of a young boy, this is the deeply moving story about what is regarded as the first Memorial Day on May 1, 1865. Eli dresses up in his best clothes, Mama gathers the mayflowers, Papa straightens his hat, and together they join the crowds filling the streets of Charleston, South Carolina, with bouquets, crosses, and wreaths. Abolitionists, missionaries, teachers, military officers, and a sea of faces Black, Brown, and White, they march as one and sing for all those who gave their lives fighting for freedom during the Civil War.With poignant prose and celebratory, powerful illustrations, A Day for Rememberin’ shines light on the little-known history of this important holiday and reminds us never to forget the people who put their lives on the line for their country. The book is illustrated by award-winning illustrator Floyd Cooper and includes archival photos in the back matter, as well as an author’s note, bibliography, timeline, and index.
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness
Anastasia Higginbotham - 2018
Upset, he asks his mother why; she deflects, assuring him that he is safe. Later, they visit an aunt and uncle, where the TV, always on, shows a rally in response to the police shooting. The child glimpses a moving press conference with the victim’s family while his aunt claims she simply “can’t watch the news.”The book’s narrator accompanies the child as he faces history and himself. The activities section urges kids to grow justice (“like a bean sprout in a milk carton”) inside of themselves, seek out and listen to the truth about racism and white supremacy, and prepare to be changed, heartbroken, and liberated by this experience.Part history lesson, part compassionate primer to assist children (and parents) past defensiveness, Not My Idea is a tangible tool for necessary conversations.
All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team
Christina Soontornvat - 2020
But when they turn to leave, rising floodwaters block their path out. The boys are trapped! Before long, news of the missing team spreads, launching a seventeen-day rescue operation involving thousands of rescuers from around the globe. As the world sits vigil, people begin to wonder: how long can a group of ordinary kids survive in complete darkness, with no food or clean water? Combining firsthand interviews of rescue workers with in-depth science and details of the region's culture and religion, author Christina Soontornvat--shows how both the complex engineering operation above ground and the mental struggles of the thirteen young people below proved critical in the life-or-death mission.
Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women
Catherine Thimmesh - 2000
Their creations are some of the most enduring (the windshield wiper) and best loved (the chocolate chip cookie). What inspired these women, and just how did they turn their ideas into realities?Features women inventors Ruth Wakefield, Mary Anderson, Stephanie Kwolek, Bette Nesmith Graham, Patsy O. Sherman, Ann Moore, Grace Murray Hopper, Margaret E. Knight, Jeanne Lee Crews, and Valerie L. Thomas, as well as young inventors ten-year-old Becky Schroeder and eleven-year-old Alexia Abernathy. Illustrated in vibrant collage by Caldecott Honor artist Melissa Sweet.