In Be the Change, one of Gandhi’s grandchildren reminisces about his experiences with his famous grandfather, learning to understand his teaching that wastefulness leads to violence. This is no walk-to-the-sea story but instead the memory of a grandpa being disappointed when his grandson throws away the nub of a pencil. He makes the boy search until […]
Can I Eat That? is a clever nonfiction picture book for very young readers. Yes, it’s partly about what counts as food and what doesn’t. But it is every bit as much about wordplay and verbal gymnastics. The book is structured around questions: “Can I eat a potato?…a tomato?…a tornado?” With the page turn, we […]
At last, Ada Byron Lovelace is getting some recognition. Last year, Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine came out to critical acclaim. This year Ada’s Ideas: The Story of Ada Lovelace, the World’s First Computer Programmer was published by Abrams. Both books cover some of the same basic facts about Lovelace: her parents were a poet […]
Picture book readers are young. Very, very young. Their entire lives they’ve had a black president. They’ve never known a world without smart phones. September 11, 2001 is ancient history to them–it happened long, long before they were born. So when you’re writing a nonfiction picture book, how do you provide context without making most […]