When I’m on the hunt for a nonfiction picture book topic, I’m drawn to the transcendent, to the tranformative…to the hero. I think most picture book writers are! But Greg Pizzoli seems to be making his mark in the nonfiction picture book world by writing about anti-heroes. In Tricky Vic, he profiled a con-man. In The Quest […]
José Martí was an activist for Cuban independence in the late nineteenth century, but because of his political activities in Cuba, he was exiled. He ended up spending many years in the United States. Martí’s Song for Freedom tells the story of his life but also captures that duality of his movement between Cuba and the United […]
Lot of recent books about female scientists! An eighteenth century astronomer. a marine biologist, a computer programmer. And today, a female member of the moon launch team is profiled in Margaret and the Moon. I loved the voice of the book, and its quick pace. The book starts, “Margaret Hamilton loved to solve problems. She came […]
Grace Hopper Queen of Computer Code celebrates the life of one of the pioneers of computer programming. The book is structured like a pearl necklace–it’s made up of a series of discrete anecdotes, strung together in roughly chronological order. Each anecdote tells us a bit about Grace Hopper’s character, but each basically also stands on […]