The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown


Mac Barnett - 2019
    Illustrated with sumptuous art by rising star Sarah Jacoby, this is essential reading for children's book lovers of every age.

Through the Wardrobe: How C. S. Lewis Created Narnia


Lina Maslo - 2020
    S. Lewis, the beloved author of the Chronicles of Narnia—from Free as a Bird author-illustrator Lina Maslo. As a child, Clive Staples Lewis imagined many things . . .heroic animalsand knights in armorand a faraway land called Boxen.He even thought of a new name for himself—at four years old, he decided he was more of a Jack.As he grew up, though, Jack found that the real world was not as just as the one in his imagination. No magic could heal the sick or stop a war, and a bully’s words could pierce as sharply as a sword. So Jack withdrew into books and eventually became a well-known author for adults.But he never forgot the epic tales of his boyhood, and one day a young girl’s question about an old family wardrobe inspired him to write a children’s story about a world hidden beyond its fur coats . . . a world of fauns and queens and a lion named Aslan. A world of battles between good and evil, where people learned courage and love and forgiveness.A magical realm called Narnia.And the books he would write about this kingdom would change his life and that of children the world over.

Bravo!: Poems About Amazing Hispanics


Margarita Engle - 2017
    Celebrate their accomplishments and their contributions to a collective history and a community that continues to evolve and thrive today!Biographical poems include: Aida de Acosta, Arnold Rojas, Baruj Benacerraf, César Chávez, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, Félix Varela, George Meléndez, José Martí, Juan de Miralles, Juana Briones, Julia de Burgos, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Paulina Pedroso, Pura Belpré, Roberto Clemente, Tito Puente, Ynes Mexia, Tomás Rivera

We Are Still Here!: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know


Traci Sorell - 2021
    This companion book to the award-winning We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga offers readers everything they never learned in school about Native American people's past, present, and future. Precise, lyrical writing presents topics including: forced assimilation (such as boarding schools), land allotment and Native tribal reorganization, termination (the US government not recognizing tribes as nations), Native urban relocation (from reservations), self-determination (tribal self-empowerment), Native civil rights, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), religious freedom, economic development (including casino development), Native language revival efforts, cultural persistence, and nationhood.

For the Right to Learn: Malala Yousafzai's Story


Rebecca Langston-George - 2015
    But Malala Yousafzai refused to be silent. She defied the Taliban's rules, spoke out for education for every girl, and was almost killed for her beliefs. This powerful true story of how one brave girl named Malala changed the world proves that one person really can make a difference.

Revolutionary Friends: General George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette


Selene Castrovilla - 2013
    Lafayette has come to America to offer his services to the patriotic cause. Inexperienced but dedicated, he is a much-needed ally and not only earns a military position with the Continental Army but also Washington’s respect and admiration. This lively picture book presents the human side of history, revealing the bond between two famous Revolutionary figures. Both the author and illustrator worked with experts and primary sources to represent both patriots and the war accurately and fairly.

I Am Not a Number


Jenny Kay Dupuis - 2016
    She tries to remember who she is and where she came from, despite the efforts of the nuns who are in charge at the school and who tell her that she is not to use her own name but instead use the number they have assigned to her. When she goes home for summer holidays, Irene's parents decide never to send her and her brothers away again. But where will they hide? And what will happen when her parents disobey the law? Based on the life of co-author Jenny Kay Dupuis’ grandmother, I Am Not a Number is a hugely necessary book that brings a terrible part of Canada’s history to light in a way that children can learn from and relate to.

Who Was Sacagawea?


Judith Bloom Fradin - 2002
    Through this engaging book, kids will understand the reasons that today, 200 years later, she is still remembered and immortalized on a golden dollar coin.

Alice Across America: The Story of the First All-Girl American Road Trip


Sarah Glenn Marsh - 2020
    As she grew up, more people were driving cars. From the moment Alice slid behind the wheel, she was crazy about cars. So when the Maxwell-Briscoe Company challenged her to drive one of their new cars across the country as a promotional ploy to prove that even a lady could do it, Alice daringly accepted. With several women by her side, these brazen drivers sustained many hardships over the course of a remarkable two-month journey and far surpassed all expectations.With a clever blend of women's history, technological history, and American roading geography, this is a celebration of unstoppable women making strides in twentieth-century America.Christy Ottaviano Books

If You Traveled West In A Covered Wagon


Ellen Levine - 1986
    If you traveled west in a covered wagon--Would you ride in the wagon for the whole trip?--How would you cross rivers when there were no bridges?--Without road signs, how would you know where you were?This book tells you what it was like to be a pioneer and travel west to Oregon in the 1840s.

Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story


Paula Yoo - 2005
    The inspirational true story of Sammy Lee, a Korean American who overcame discrimination to realize both his father's desire that he become a doctor and his own dream of becoming an Olympic champion diver.

The Undefeated


Kwame Alexander - 2019
    It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes. The text is also peppered with references to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, offering deeper insights into the accomplishments of the past, while bringing attention to the endurance and spirit of those surviving and thriving in the present.

Cézanne and the Apple Boy


Laurence Anholt - 2009
    The elder Cézanne had been away from home for so long that the boy has difficulty recognizing his father when he joins him on a painting expedition in the mountains of southern France. They quickly become fast friends, and the artist takes great pleasure in painting a portrait of his apple-cheeked son. Most of his paintings, however, are landscapes of the mountain country where they are camping, although the people who live nearby often laugh at the artist's pictures, which they think are poor. But young Paul admires his father's work and he is not alone. A picture dealer from Paris happens to be in the region, and when he sees Cézanne's paintings, he thinks they are wonderful. Before long, Cézanne becomes famous and wealthy. The story, enhanced with Laurence Anholt's illustrations on every page, include several that are reproductions of Cézanne's famous paintings.

The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity: A Tale of the Genius Ramanujan


Amy Alznauer - 2020
    . . is just one thing. But if I chop it in two, then chop the half in two, and keep on chopping, I get more and more bits, on and on, endlessly, to an infinity I could never ever reach.In 1887 in India, a boy named Ramanujan is born with a passion for numbers. He sees numbers in the squares of light pricking his thatched roof and in the beasts dancing on the temple tower. He writes mathematics with his finger in the sand, across the pages of his notebooks, and with chalk on the temple floor. "What is small?" he wonders. "What is big?" Head in the clouds, Ramanujan struggles in school -- but his mother knows that her son and his ideas have a purpose. As he grows up, Ramanujan reinvents much of modern mathematics, but where in the world could he find someone to understand what he has conceived?Author Amy Alznauer gently introduces young readers to math concepts while Daniel Miyares's illustrations bring the wonder of Ramanujan's world to life in the inspiring real-life story of a boy who changed mathematics and science forever. Back matter includes a bibliography and an author's note recounting more of Ramanujan's life and accomplishments, as well as the author's father's remarkable discovery of Ramanujan's Lost Notebook.

She Made a Monster: How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein


Lynn Fulton - 2018
    She longed to follow the path her own mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, had started down, but young Mary Shelley had yet to be inspired.As the night wore on, Mary grew more anxious. The next day was the deadline that her friend, the poet Lord Byron, had set for writing the best ghost story. After much talk of science and the secrets of life, Mary had gone to bed exhausted and frustrated that nothing she could think of was scary enough. But as she drifted off to sleep, she dreamed of a man that was not a man. He was a monster.This fascinating story gives readers insight into the tale behind one of the world's most celebrated novels and the creation of an indelible figure that is recognizable to readers of all ages.