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Biographies

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Narrative Nonfiction

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Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla

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Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla [Applegate, Katherine, Karas, Mr. G. Brian] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla

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See What a Seal Can Do (Read and Wonder)

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See What a Seal Can Do (Read and Wonder) [Butterworth, Christine, Nelms, Kate] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. See What a Seal Can Do (Read and Wonder)

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Part of a genre set about turtles

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One Tiny Turtle: Read and Wonder [Davies, Nicola, Chapman, Jane] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. One Tiny Turtle: Read and Wonder

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Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean's Most Fearless Scientist (Women in Science Books, Marine Biology for Kids, Shark Gifts)

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Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean's Most Fearless Scientist (Women in Science Books, Marine Biology for Kids, Shark Gifts) [Keating, Jess, Álvarez Miguéns, Marta] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.

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Part of a genre set about penquins

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Over and Under the Snow - Kindle edition by Messner, Kate, Neal, Christopher Silas. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Over and Under the Snow.

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A Seed Is Sleepy: (Nature Books for Kids, Environmental Science for Kids)

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A Seed Is Sleepy: (Nature Books for Kids, Environmental Science for Kids) [Aston, Dianna, Long, Sylvia] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A Seed Is Sleepy: (Nature Books for Kids, Environmental Science for Kids)

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early learning / early learning concepts

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / zoology

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juvenile nonfiction/science & nature - zoology

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egg; quite; yoke; white; hard; boiled; sunny; side; up; scramble; over; easy; yellow; long; aston; bird; chicken; lay; warm; hatch; chick; peep; mother; goose; rooster; ostrich; parent; child; read; fish; ecosystem; lifestyle; foodchain; insect; ocean; nest; chronicle; reading

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / zoology

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juvenile nonfiction/science & nature - zoology

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early learning / early learning concepts

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An Egg Is Quiet: (Picture Book, Kids Book about Eggs) (Nature Books)

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An Egg Is Quiet: (Picture Book, Kids Book about Eggs) (Nature Books) [Aston, Dianna Hutts, Long, Sylvia] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. An Egg Is Quiet: (Picture Book, Kids Book about Eggs) (Nature Books)

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Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt: (Nature Book for Kids, Gardening and Vegetable Planting, Outdoor Nature Book)

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Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt: (Nature Book for Kids, Gardening and Vegetable Planting, Outdoor Nature Book) [Messner, Kate, Neal, Christopher Silas] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.

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grandma elephant's in charge (read and wonder)

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juvenile nonfiction / animals / elephants

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juvenile nonfiction / family / multigenerational

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / zoology

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juvenile nonfiction/science & nature - zoology

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elephants; animal books; animal books for kids ages 6-8; books for kids 5-7; kindergarten books; preschool books; childrens books by age 5-8; kids books ages 4 8; science for kids; books for 8 year old girls; books for 8 year old boys; books for 7 year old girls; books for 6 year old boys; books for 7 year old boys; books for 6 year old girls; science books for kids; books for 5 year old boys; books for 4 year old boys; books for 5 year old girls; kids books ages 6-8; books for 4 year old girls

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family;kindergarten books;childrens books by age 5-8;books for kids 5-7;elephants;preschool books;books for 5 year old girls;kids books ages 4 8;grandma;animal books;science for kids;books for 8 year old girls;grandpa;books for 8 year old boys;kids books ages 6-8;books for 7 year old girls;books for 5 year old boys;books for 7 year old boys;books for 6 year old boys;books for 6 year old girls;books for 4 year old boys;books for 4 year old girls;science books for kids;grandparents

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juvenile nonfiction / animals / elephants

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juvenile nonfiction / family / multigenerational

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / zoology

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juvenile nonfiction/science & nature - zoology

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Grandma Elephant's in Charge (Read and Wonder)

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An entertaining, educational look at the everyday life of a family of elephants - who never forget who's in charge.Elephants are the biggest animals on land, and they live in big families, too. So who can possibly keep them in line? Grandma! After all, she's been around long enough to...

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children's & young adult fiction & true stories

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On a tiny island off the coast of Iceland, Halla and her friends wait with anticipation. Every spring, millions of puffins, the clowns of the sea, return to nest, lay eggs, and raise their chicks to pufflings. That means Halla and her friends will be busy in August when the pufflings venture out ...

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children's / teenage general interest: history & the past

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children's / teenage general interest: places & peoples

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history & the past: general interest (children's / teenage)

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / general

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Every summer the salmon return to spawn in the streams of Kodiak Island, Alaska, and nine-year-old Alex, a native Aleut, comes here to fish with his family as his ancestors did. The abundant salmon are a source of food for the bears, eagles, foxes, magpies, gulls, and best of all, Alex's family.

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tiny creatures: the world of microbes (read and wonder)

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science & nature - environmental science & ecosystems

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juvenile nonfiction / health & daily living / diseases

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / biology

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / environmental science & ecosystems

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juvenile nonfiction/science & nature - biology

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juvenile nonfiction/science & nature - environmental science & ecosystems

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childrens book;childrens lit;nonfiction;nonfiction picture book;science;microbes;biology;nature;natural world;bacteria;germs;microorganisms;books for kids 5-7;childrens books by age 5-8;kids books ages 4 8;science for kids;books for 8 year old girls;books for 8 year old boys;books for 7 year old girls;books for 6 year old boys;books for 7 year old boys;books for 6 year old girls;science books for kids;books for 5 year old boys;books for 5 year old girls;kids books ages 6-8

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juvenile nonfiction / health & daily living / diseases

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / biology

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / environmental science & ecosystems

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juvenile nonfiction/science & nature - biology

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juvenile nonfiction/science & nature - environmental science & ecosystems

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Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes (Read and Wonder)

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"Sutton's large-scale illustrations help children to visualize microorganisms and processes that are too small to see. . . . A handsome and rewarding picture book." - Booklist (starred review)All around the world-in the sea, in the soil, in the air, and in your body&...

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juvenile nonfiction / animals / farm animals

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juvenile nonfiction / lifestyles / farm & ranch life

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juvenile fiction / animals / farm animals

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juvenile fiction / lifestyles / farm & ranch life

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This is a book about farm animals, and what happens during one year on a farm. In January, the cows stay in the barnyard, and the chickens don't lay many eggs. By March, you can tell spring is coming: the barn is filled with baby animals.

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wings of light: the migration of the yellow butterfly

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juvenile nonfiction / animals / butterflies

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juvenile nonfiction / curiosities & wonders

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / general

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Wings of Light: The Migration of the Yellow Butterfly

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The yellow butterfly's journey begins in the Yucatan rain forest. From there it wings its way across the sea to reach the shores of North America. This butterfly, whose common name is cloudless sulphur, may travel as far as New England, a distance of more than 2,000 miles. The journey is hard.

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In clear and eloquent language, Gary Paulsen pays tribute to a cycle of life--from seed to plant to tortilla. Workers till the black soil, operate the clanking machinery of the factory, and drive the trucks that deliver the tortillas back into the hands that will plant the yellow seeds. With Ruth...

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kate & pippin: an unlikely love story (my readers)

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Kate & Pippin: An Unlikely Love Story (My Readers)

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When Pippin, a fawn abandoned by her mother, cries out for help, she is found by author Isobel Springett. After carrying the tiny fawn back to her home, Isobel places Pippin next to Kate, a Great Dane who has never had puppies of her own.What follows is a remarkable and unlikely friendship.

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Just Like Abraham Lincoln [bernard waber] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. .

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painters - mexico - biography - juvenile literature.

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art: general interest (children's / teenage)

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children's / teenage general interest: art & artists

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juvenile fiction / people & places / general

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / art

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / general

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / mexico

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painters - mexico - biography - juvenile literature.

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juvenile fiction / people & places / general

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / art

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / general

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / mexico

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art: general interest (children's / teenage)

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children's / teenage general interest: art & artists

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When her mother was worn out from caring for her five sisters, her father gave her lessons in brushwork and color. When polio kept her bedridden for nine months, drawing saved her from boredom. When a bus accident left her in unimaginable agony, her paintings expressed her pain and depression - a...

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The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (CALDECOTT MEDAL BOOK)

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In 1974, French aerialist Philippe Petit threw a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center and spent an hour walking, dancing, and performing high-wire tricks a quarter mile in the sky. This picture book captures the poetry and magic of the event with a poetry of its own: lyrical...

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Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman

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Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman

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dolphin's first day: the story of a bottlenose dolphin - a smithsonian oceanic collection book

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juvenile fiction / animals / marine life

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juvenile fiction / social themes / new experience

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Dolphin's First Day: The Story of a Bottlenose Dolphin - a Smithsonian Oceanic Collection Book

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Little Dolphin learns to speak, hunt mullet and frolic with seaweed, but can this bottlenose baby fend off a shark attack? Children can find out as this thrilling story unfolds! Reviewed by the Smithsonian Institution for accuracy, Dolphin's First Day is a fun and informative story with detailed ...

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Part of a genre set about bats

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Bat Loves the Night: Read and Wonder [Davies, Nicola, Fox-Davies, Sarah] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Bat Loves the Night: Read and Wonder

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science & nature - earth sciences - water (oceans

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biography & autobiography - science & technology

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children's / teenage general interest: swimming & water sports

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children's / teenage: true stories told as fiction

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / historical

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / science & technology

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juvenile nonfiction / history / exploration & discovery

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / earth sciences / water (oceans

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swimming & water sports (children's / teenage)

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biography;  picture book;  inspire;  ocean;  scuba;  oceanography;  oceanographer;  waves;  underwater;  poetry;  poetic;  illustrated

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biography; picture book; inspire; ocean; scuba; oceanography; oceanographer; waves; underwater; poetry; poetic; illustrated

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biography & autobiography - science & technology

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / historical

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / science & technology

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juvenile nonfiction / history / exploration & discovery

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juvenile nonfiction / science & nature / earth sciences / water (oceans

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children's / teenage general interest: swimming & water sports

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children's / teenage: true stories told as fiction

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swimming & water sports (children's / teenage)

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Once upon a time in France, a baby was born under the summer sun. His parents named him Jacques. As he grew, Jacques fell in love with the sea. He dreamed of breathing beneath the waves and swimming as gracefully as a fish. In fact, he longed to become a manfish.

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What Is Hanukkah? (A Lift-the-Flap Story)

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What Is Hanukkah? (A Lift-the-Flap Story) [Ziefert, Harriet, Brown, Rick] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. What Is Hanukkah? (A Lift-the-Flap Story)

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Sky Tree: Seeing Science Through Art [Thomas Locker, Candace Christiansen, Thomas Locker] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Sky Tree: Seeing Science Through Art

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Otters Love to Play (Read and Wonder) [London, Jonathan, So, Meilo] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Otters Love to Play (Read and Wonder)

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owen & mzee: the true story of a remarkable friendship

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juvenile nonfiction / curiosities & wonders

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juvenile nonfiction / social topics / friendship

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juvenile nonfiction/animals - reptiles & amphibians

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juvenile nonfiction / curiosities & wonders

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juvenile nonfiction / social topics / friendship

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juvenile nonfiction/animals - reptiles & amphibians

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Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship

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The amazing true story of the orphaned baby hippo and 130-year-old giant turtle whose remarkable friendship touched millions around the world.The inspiring true story of two great friends, a baby hippo named Owen and a 130-yr-old giant tortoise named Mzee (Mm-ZAY). When Owen was stranded after th...

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a splash of red: the life and art of horace pippin (schneider family book awards - young children's book winner)

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people & places - united states - african american

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / art

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / united states / african american

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / united states / general

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juvenile nonfiction/people & places - united states

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people & places - united states - african american

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african american children's books;diverse books;multicultural children's books;african american;diversity;horace pippin;childrens books by age 3-5;childrens books by age 5-8;books for kids 5-7;kids books ages 4-8;preschool books;picture books;kindergarten books;books for 5 year old boys;books for 5 year old girls;books for 6 year old boys;books for 6 year old girls;biographies for kids;2nd grade books;books for 4 year olds;kids books ages 4 8;painting;geography for kids

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juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / art

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / united states / african american

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / united states / general

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juvenile nonfiction/people & places - united states

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A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin (Schneider Family Book Awards - Young Children's Book Winner)

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A Robert F. Sibert Honor BookWinner of the Schneider Family Book AwardAn ALA-ALSC Notable Children's BookWinner of the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for ChildrenAs a child in the late 1800s, Horace Pippin loved to draw: He loved the feel of the charcoal as it slid across the ...

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A moving story of a three-legged stray dog who finds a loving boy to call his own--illustrated by Caldecott Honor Book artist E.B. Lewis. Based on a true story.Trouper ran with a mob of mutts who tripped over trash cans and pawed the cold streets for bones.

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children's / teenage general interest: wildlife & habitats

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juvenile nonfiction / animals / kangaroos

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / australia & oceania

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juvenile nonfiction/people & places - australia & oceania

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animal books; animal books for kids ages 6-8; nonfiction books for kids 6-8; non fiction books for kids age 5-8; books for kids 5-7; childrens books by age 5-8; kids books ages 4 8; books for 8 year old girls; books for 8 year old boys; books for 7 year old girls; books for 6 year old boys; books for 7 year old boys; books for 6 year old girls; books for 5 year old boys; books for 5 year old girls; kids books ages 6-8; history for kids; kangaroos; picture books; animals; geography for kids; bees; nature; early reader

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childrens books by age 5-8;books for kids 5-7;kids books ages 4 8;animal books;geography for kids;books for 8 year old girls;books for 8 year old boys;kids books ages 6-8;books for 7 year old girls;books for 5 year old boys;books for 7 year old boys;books for 6 year old boys;books for 6 year old girls;books for 5 year old girls;animal books for kids ages 6-8;history for kids;nonfiction books for kids 6-8;non fiction books for kids age 5-8;kangaroos;picture books;animals;nature;early reader;bees

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juvenile nonfiction / animals / kangaroos

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juvenile nonfiction / people & places / australia & oceania

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juvenile nonfiction/people & places - australia & oceania

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children's / teenage general interest: wildlife & habitats

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Follow a dominant male kangaroo as he leads his mob in search of food-and holds his own against other males who vie for his role.In the center of Australia, the sun is setting over the baked earth, and Red Kangaroo stirs from his rest. It's breakfast time, and Red must lead his mob of kanga...

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See What a Seal Can Do (Read and Wonder)

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See What a Seal Can Do (Read and Wonder) [Butterworth, Christine, Nelms, Kate] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. See What a Seal Can Do (Read and Wonder)

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Adele has been a youth services librarian in public libraries for 20 years. She received her MLIS from the University of Texas-Austin.

What Is Narrative Nonfiction?

Most of us are familiar with what is called "expository nonfiction." These are the texts that explain the "Bill of Rights" or describe the planets of the solar system.

But what exactly is narrative nonfiction? Simply put, it's a text that gets factual information across in a form that uses many of the elements of storytelling. An author of narrative nonfiction will typically introduce an actual character (perhaps a baseball player or a baby polar bear at the zoo) and narrate some sort of experience or journey that character has taken, all the while teaching kids a thing or two about history or zoology along the way.

By using a narrative structure (first this happened, then that, and that, and that), writers can relate nonfiction material using many of the techniques of the storyteller: characterization, dramatic tensions, foreshadowing, etc.

Narrative nonfiction provides kids with information in a format that is interesting to them.

Narrative Nonfiction for Kids in Primary School (Grades K-3)

1. Animal BFFs

2. The Marvelous Thing That Came From a Spring

3. Pedal Power: How One Community Became the Bicycle Capital of the World

4. She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton

5. Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay

6. One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia

7. Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla

8. Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh

9. The Streak: How Joe DiMaggio Became America's Hero

10. Kali's Story: An Orphaned Polar Bear Rescue

11. Kate Warne: Pinkerton Detective

12. Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation

13. The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever

14. Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman

15. Long May She Wave

16. Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade

17. Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team

18. Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship

19. The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto

20. Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World

21. Leo the Snow Leopard

22. The Camping Trip That Changed America: Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and Our National Parks

1. Animal BFFs

AR 4.8. 155 pages. Published in 2016.

The tone and writing in this book remind me of those nature shows that Disney used to do. It is lighthearted with a little bit of anthropomorphizing along the way.

Much of the space is taken up with large and adorable photographs of the animals playing with each other or their toys.

This will be attractive to reluctant readers because the text is broken into smaller chunks.

Even though the reading level comes in at an AR level of 4.8, it uses fairly short sentences and is simpler to read than a comparable fiction chapter book.

Most of the animals meet in zoos or other restricted spaces. We have all kinds of combinations of animals: a giraffe and a goat, a dog and some dolphins, a fawn and a rabbit (named Bambi and Ben respectively), and a kitten and a turtle, among others.

Each segment tells the story of how the animals got together, how they interacted, and ways in which they've helped each other.

Along the way, we find out a little bit of scientific information about the animals and their behavior, but the emphasis is mostly on the relationships and - let's face it - the cuteness factor.

2. The Marvelous Thing That Came From a Spring

Grades K-3. 40 pages. Published in 2016.

The Slinky was a toy that took the U.S. by storm in 1945, but, like many other inventions, it started as somewhat of an accident. Back in 1943, Richard James had been assigned to invent something that would keep the Navy's fragile equipment from vibrating in rough seas. He was working with springs, and one day, when he knocked a torsion spring off a shelf, it seemed to "walk" instead of fall. He took it home to his son who was able to walk the spring down from the top of the stairs. Richard and his wife Betty decided it would make a great toy.

Anyone who's been in the business world knows it's not as simple as having a good idea. The author, Gilbert Ford, does a nice job of showing the next steps in the process. Betty searched the dictionary trying to find just the right name for their new toy. (Can you see a companion activity for the kids? Developing toys and then looking for just the right name?)

Richard went to the bank to get a loan to have 400 Slinkys made. Then, Richard went on the road to try to sell his idea, but toy sellers were skeptical. Finally, he persuaded the manager at the Gimbels department store to let him demonstrate it during the holiday season. The Slinky walked down the ramp and the store sold out of all 400 units that night.

When the postwar boom happened, the toy's popularity skyrocketed. Ford lets us know a little more about how Richard and Betty managed the business. Richard invented a machine that could manufacture their toy much faster, and Betty kept the phones and paperwork humming. The author's note at the end includes some more interesting tidbits. For example, it was launched into space on Discovery and has inspired a magician.

We also find out a little about what happened to Richard and Betty. He went to do missionary work in Bolivia, and she took over the business, which was nearly bankrupt by that time, and built it again into a thriving concern.

I love Ford's illustrations - a blend of paper cut-outs and actual objects that portray the period and the tone perfectly.

This picture-book account of the "marvelous thing that came from a spring" will be one that children will love choosing for their narrative nonfiction assignment.

5. Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay

The story follows a girl, Ada Rios, who "grew up in a town made of trash." The people of the town eke out a living by searching the landfill and scavenging items to sell. In her "Author's Note," Hood tells us that the people there work 14-hour days, and most of them live on less than two dollars per day.

Enter Favio Chavez, an environmental engineer who went to teach the people safer practices for working in the garbage. When he saw the children who worked there alongside their parents, he decided to offer music lessons. Ada, along with nine other children, were among the first to attend the class, but Chavez only had three guitars and two violins (not enough for the children to take home and practice). And even if they each had an instrument, it wouldn't be safe to carry around something that was worth more than their houses.

So Chavez hit on the idea of making instruments from the trash around them. He and some of the fellows in the neighborhood fiddled around with materials until they had workable instruments.

I love the author's use of language: "They transformed oil drums into cellos, water pipes into flutes, and packing crates into guitars!"

After lots of practice, the children had an orchestra that traveled around the world to play.

I can see music teachers, as well as classroom teachers, finding a place for this in their lessons.

It would also lend itself well to a unit on designing instruments from found objects.

The "Author's Note" contains a wealth of additional information as well as a list of websites and videos, including a 60 Minutes piece and footage of their performance opening with the band Metallica.

The collage illustrations give a real sense of life in the town and help readers see what the instruments were like.

8. Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh

Grades K-3. 32 pages. Published in 2015.

The book tells the story of the original Winnie, a bear who accompanied Canadian veterinary surgeon Harry Colebourne to military training in England during World War I.

The book has delightful illustrations reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting, and they show the little bear, named after the city of Winnipeg, searching for biscuits in Henry's pockets, sleeping under his bunk, and attempting to climb the tent pole.

When Henry had to go to the battlefield in France, he decided that Winnie should stay in the new bear habitat at the London Zoo.

Winnie was so gentle that the zoo allowed children to ride him and feed him.

One little boy was so entranced that he talked about Winnie all the way home. That boy went by the name of Christopher Robin Milne. When he snuggled with his teddy that night, he insisted that the stuffed bear needed to be renamed. And thus was born the books about the hundred-acre wood.

The story is in picture-book format with one or two paragraphs per page.

10. Kali's Story: An Orphaned Polar Bear Rescue

AR 4.2. Grades K-3. 32 pages. Published in 2014.

There is nothing quite so cute as a baby polar bear, and children get to see little Kali drinking from his bottle, playing with his stuffed animal, and taking naps in the snow.

The text is very brief - only a line or two on many of the pages.

There is quite a bit of information about polar bears in the back, which is useful for a short report on polar bears.

13. The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever

AR 4.8. Grades K-3. 32 pages. Published in 2013.

Kate Sessions started out as a teacher when she arrived in San Diego in 1883, but she soon turned to horticulture. She searched for a variety of drought-resistant plants and encouraged the locals to plant trees.

This book tells the story of how she went from scientifically-minded young girl to the "Mother of Balboa Park," the lush city center that hosted the Panama-California Exposition in 1915.

Jill McElmurry's full-page illustrations are charming, and the short blocks of text will entice young or reluctant readers.

14. Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman

AR 5.8. Grades K-3. 32 pages. Published in 2008.

Superman is such a mainstay in our culture that it's hard to imagine what a unique and appealing character he was when he first appeared.

The types of stories that captured these boys' attention involved men who lived in different times and places (Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers).

The story of writer Jerry Sigel is especially poignant. His father died of heart failure while his clothing store was being robbed. No wonder young Jerry dreamed of a man with super powers who could chase away the bad guys.

Comic book fans will enjoy the large-format retro artwork.

The afterword tells the story of Siegel and artist Joe Shuster's legal battles to get credit for their work and a share in their profits. Being young and sensing that they were lucky to even have anyone interested in their story, the boys sold the rights to Superman for $150.

Fortunately, the courts have restored credit to them, and they seem to be on a path to allow the boys' estates a portion of the profit from the franchise.

16. Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade

AR 5.4. Grades K-3. 36 pages. Published in 2011.

This book is a loving and whimsical overview of Tony Sarg's idea to use giant helium balloons as a form of "reverse marionette" for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - a parade that was so popular, it became an annual tradition.

The picture-book format supports Sweet's delightful watercolor/collage illustrations, and children who have seen the parade (on TV or in person) will love getting an inside view of one of its most iconic traditions.

18. Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship

AR 5.4. Grade PreS-3. 40 pages. Published in 2006.

This photo essay tells the story of a baby hippo (Owen) who was displaced by the 2004 tsunami and the giant tortoise (Mzee) who formed a bond with him in a Kenyan nature preserve.

The format is generally one or two paragraphs on a page with large photos on the facing page.

22. The Camping Trip That Changed America: Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and Our National Parks

AR 5.0. Grades 1-3. 32 pages. Published in 2013.

Gerstein's colorful illustrations serve to convey the grandeur of the California landscape. I was especially impressed with the double-page spread that shows Muir and Roosevelt among the redwoods.

It's a picture-book format that has only one or two paragraphs per page.

Because there is no official record of the two men's conversations, Rosenstock wrote an imagined dialogue and tried to stay true to the spirit of the letters between the two men and contemporary newspaper accounts.

Narrative Nonfiction for Kids in Grades 2-6

1. Crow Smarts

2. Soldier Song: A True Story of the Civil War

3. National Geographic Kids Animal Stories: Heartwarming True Tales From the Animal Kingdom

4. Margaret and the Moon

5. Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France

6. Those Rebels, John & Tom

7. I Survived: Five Epic Disasters

8. Mumbet's Declaration of Independence

9. Handle With Care: An Unusual Butterfly Journey

10. The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer's Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors

11. He Has Shot the President!: The Day John Wilkes Booth Killed President Lincoln

12. Fab Four Friends: The Boys Who Became the Beatles

13. The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found

14. Motor Girls: How Women Took the Wheel and Drove Boldly Into the Twentieth Century

15. Stubby the War Dog: The True Story of World War I's Bravest Dog

16. We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

3. National Geographic Kids Animal Stories: Heartwarming True Tales From the Animal Kingdom

Grades 3-8. 160 pages. Published in 2014.

This book, National Geographic Kids Animal Stories, contains 19 short vignettes about notable animals, including several animals that kids have probably heard of, such as Balto and Smokey Bear.

Within these pages, they will also find true accounts of elephants who danced ballet, a chimp who lived with a human family, and a daring WWI carrier pigeon hero.

This would be a good book for children who need a short piece to read because each story is only six to ten pages in picture-book format.

6. I Survived: Five Epic Disasters

AR 6.3. Grades 2-5. 143 pages. Published in 2014.

Tarshis' historical fiction about some of the world's biggest disasters has taken beginning chapter book readers by storm, and now she has come out with a narrative nonfiction collection of true stories that will rivet these young readers.

It's a fascinating read for children and is written in chapter-book format.

10. He Has Shot the President!: The Day John Wilkes Booth Killed President Lincoln

AR 5.8. Grade 3-6. 64 pages. Published in 2014.

No matter how well I know a subject, I always learn a little bit more from Don Brown's books. In this recounting of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the subsequent manhunt, I learned that John Wilkes Booth stowed a board in Lincoln's box, which he used to jam the door to keep out Lincoln's valet, Charles Forbes.

I also found out that by the time Lincoln's body reached his home in Springfield, one in four Americans had viewed the body and paid their respects.

The book is formatted as a large chapter book with no more than two short paragraphs per page.

Brown's muted watercolors illustrate the text. The content in necessarily grim with lots of illustrations showing men with knives and guns.

The story ends up with the killing of Booth and the hanging of his conspirators.

Despite the violent depictions, it is not bloody or gratuitous.

This book is for a child who is interested in history and is not disturbed by the violent aspects of the story.

11. Fab Four Friends: The Boys Who Became the Beatles

AR 5.3. Grades 4-7. 40 pages. Published in 2015.

Amazingly enough, many kids still recognize Beatles tunes, and Fab Four Friends tells the story each of the boys in the band as they were growing up in war-torn Liverpool.

The author, Susannah Reich, starts with John Lennon, a boy who was sent to live with his aunt and uncle after his parents split up. His aunt and uncle were loving. Uncle George would read young John nursery rhymes and say, "Give me squeaker," (meaning a noisy kiss on the cheek). But his mother was the one who really understood his love for music. When he was a teen, he'd wear his drainpipes (tight, skinny jeans) and play in his band, The Quarrymen.

After a few pages, we move onto Paul, a boy who'd lost his mum and turned to music to fill the void. Paul's dad was a music lover and pointed out harmony and instruments when the two of them listened to music. After meeting John, Paul joined The Quarrymen and a legendary pair was formed.

George was a friend of Paul, and he was a kid whose mischievous grin and big ears belied how serious he was about learning the guitar. "George was out to conquer it," said one of his friends.

The story then moves to the Hamburg concerts where the band found a drummer named Ringo Starr. Ringo was a good-natured boy who took a long hospitalization in stride. Playing in the hospital band inspired his love for the drums.

What really impressed me in this book was the artwork. There were a lot of full-page pictures capturing the youth and energy, but also the wistfulness of the boys in the band.

This book only takes us up to the point when the Beatles became a smash. In the "Author's Note," Reich says that she wanted to show how four ordinary boys found music to be a life-saving force in their lives.

She's done a nice job of finding memorable details and quotes for each of the four boys. She also did an excellent job of bringing them down to earth and making them relatable to children.

13. Motor Girls: How Women Took the Wheel and Drove Boldly Into the Twentieth Century

Motor Girls provides a fast-paced and intriguing history of women who took up driving when it was thought to be improper for women to do.

Children in the target age group will likely be surprised that most people back then didn't think women were suited to drive motor cars.

One of my favorite stories in the book is about a man who thought women would be no good at driving because they didn't play baseball. He believed (rightly) that a driver needed to be able to think of two or more things at once. He believed (wrongly) that women couldn't multi-task. His reasoning was that men played baseball and learned to keep track of several bases at once, and women just didn't have that capability (even though women prepared several dishes at once, all while taking care of at least one child.)

The science has borne out, of course, that women are better at multi-tasking than men, and they can indeed drive cars just as well.

Why Narrative Nonfiction for Kids?

When I was in elementary school, the teachers emphasized reading fiction books, and I ate it all up, starting with the exploits of Dick and Jane and moving on to novels like Johnny Tremain and Charlotte's Web.

On the other hand, when my husband was a boy, he disdained the lady who wanted him to read about a mouse riding a motorcycle and instead chose to read nonfiction books about Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants or an informational book called Fish Do the Strangest Things.

Back then, the teachers prized my kind of reading and tolerated my husband's nonfiction. Today, the tables are turned.

The new Common Core State Standards for our nation's schools emphasizes reading nonfiction - especially narrative nonfiction - in order to develop a student's skills in understanding and analyzing informative texts.

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A Review of the 37 Best Narrative Nonfiction Books for Kids

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Adele has been a youth services librarian in public libraries for 20 years. She received her MLIS from the University of Texas-Austin. Most of us are familiar with what is called "expository nonfiction." These are the texts that explain the "Bill of Rights" or describe the planets of the solar system.

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Pioneers and Westward Expansion (Narrative Nonfiction)

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Historical Fiction

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In 1843, fourteen-year-old Hanson Gregory left his family home in Rockport, Maine, and set sail as a cabin boy on the schooner Achorn, looking for high-stakes adventure on the high seas. Little did he know that a boatload of hungry sailors, coupled with his knack for creative problem-solving, wou...

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Diana Hopkins lived in a white house. THE White House.World War II is in full force across the seas. It's 1943, President Roosevelt is in office, and Diana's father, Harry Hopkins, is his chief advisor. And Diana wants to be part of the war effort. After some well-intentioned missteps (her quaran...

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World-renowned swimmer and bestselling author Lynne Cox and Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Brian Floca team up to bring us this inspiring story of an elephant seal who knew exactly where she belonged. Here is the incredible story of Elizabeth, a real-life elephant seal who made her home in t...

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What Is Narrative Nonfiction?

In a nutshell, narrative nonfiction describes a text that imparts factual information in a format that uses many of the techniques of storytelling. An author of narrative nonfiction will typically introduce an actual character (perhaps a kid inventor or a sea otter) and narrate some sort of journey or experience, all the while teaching kids some facts about topics like science or zoology along the way.

By using a narrative structure (beginning, middle, and end), writers can relate facts using many of the techniques that storytellers use: characterization, dramatic tension, foreshadowing, etc.

Narrative nonfiction provides kids with information in a story format that is interesting to them.

A Note About Reading Levels

When a reading level is available, I have included it with the description. The Accelerated Reader book leve l roughly corresponds to the grade level of the book, though you will find that children will be able to read at a variety of levels, especially if they are interested in a topic. (Please don't keep a 1st-grader from reading something with a 3.2 reading level if the child is interested in the topic!) Nonfiction usually scores at a higher level than fiction, but remember that the text is usually broken up into smaller chunks, which makes it less daunting for readers.

When I wasn't able to find the AR Reading Level, I looked for another readability formula called Lexile.

For some of the titles, readability data was not available.

Books Reviewed in This Article

1. The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons by Natascha Biebow

2. A Sea Otter to the Rescue by Thea Feldman

3. Little Libraries, Big Heroes by Miranda Paul

4. The Lost Forest by Phyllis Root

5. My Journey to the Stars by Scott Kelly

6. Kids Who Are Changing the World by Sheila Sweeny Higginson

7. Look Up with Me: Neil DeGrasse Tyson: a Life Among the Stars by Jennifer Berne

8. Turning Pages: My Life Story by Sonia Sotomayor

9. Daring Dozen: The Twelve Who Walked on the Moon by Suzanne Slade

10. Liberty Arrives! How America's Grandest Statue Found Her Home by Robert Byrd

11. Borrowing Bunnies: A Surprising True Tale of Fostering Rabbits by Cynthia Lord

12. Samuel Morse, That's Who! by Tracey Nelson Maurer

13. Away With Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird by Lori Mortensen

14. Our House is on Fire: Greta Thunberg's Call to Save the Planet by Jeanette Winter

15. Hello, Crochet Friends by Jonah Larson

The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons by Natascha Biebow

AR Reading Level 5.1, Grades 1-4, 40 pages

It would be fun to introduce this book by showing children the kinds of things children used for drawing implements before the invention of Crayola crayons: chalk, bits of colored clay. They would see that it's pretty hard to get a colorful, detailed picture with these kinds of materials.

The Crayola version of crayons been around for long and they have been so popular that it seems that they have always existed, but as The Crayon Man tells us, they actually had to be invented. In picture book format, Natascha Biebow tells us the story of Edwin Binney , a man who started out making a product called carbon black, a pigment used in printing inks, street lamps and shoe polish.

Crayons existed before Binney came along, but they were made from colored clay. They only made fat lines, broke easily, and were too expensive for most people to afford for their children. Also, some of them were poisonous, a pretty big drawback when it came to using them with children.

Binney's wife, a schoolteacher, was among those to tell him that children needed some sort of drawing tools that were better, cheaper, and preferably not poisonous. So he got to work inventing, melting paraffin (you can show the children a piece of wax so they have an idea what paraffin is like) on the stove and adding powdered colors to them.

He developed non-toxic colors and designed a stick that would be easy for children to hold. His wife coined the word Crayola, and they were off. It didn't hurt that companies had figured out how to make inexpensive paper so that children had something to draw on, rather than the slates they had been using for school. Binney took his creations to the World's Fair and they caught on right away.

Children will be interested in learning that the company solicited children's ideas for naming certain shades. Those names include "tropical rain forest," "tickle me pink," and, my favorite, "macaroni and cheese." A fun follow up activity would be to take some shades of crayons and come up with new names for them.

Steve Salerno's drawings are bright, lively, and-of course-colorful. The back matter has a section that shows how crayons are made today, along with s more information about Edwin Binney, and a selected bibliography.

A Sea Otter to the Rescue by Thea Feldman

AR Reading Level 3.5, Grades 1-3, 32 pages

The thing about sea otters is that they are so darn cute, little mustachioed creatures that hold each other's paws and rub their little faces. We're naturally attracted to all this adorableness, and they provide an enjoyable way to look deeper into the reasons behind animal behaviors. Before sharing this book with youngsters, have them take a look at this video "Decoding Cute Sea Otter Behaviour" from the Vancouver Aquarium.

A Sea Otter to the Rescue tells the story of a full-grown sea otter named Toola who was brought into a California aquarium because she had become ill from cat litter that had made its way into the ocean. Soon after, staff brought in a rescued sea otter pup which had been orphaned. "In the past," author Thea Feldman tells us, "some of the aquarium staff had raised sea otters. The humans had become parents for the orphaned pups." After they were grown, they were released into the wild, but not many of them lived very long there. "Maybe it was because they had spent too much time with humans. This time, the staff had an idea. What if they gave the new orphaned pup to Toola? She was old enough to be a mother."

It worked! In the next few pages, we read how Toola taught the pup to swim and open clamshells and keep its fur groomed, all skills needed for living in the wild. She was so successful that the staff brought her 12 other pups to raise.

The full-page illustrations are clear and simple, showing scenes that help convey the story. The back matter includes more facts about sea otters (they have around one million hairs per square inch, the most of any animal), and tips on how kids can help sea otters.

Here are a couple more videos that features Toola and her 11 th pup, who is called "501."
Toola, Surrogate Otter Mom Toola Feeds 501
Little Libraries, Big Heroes by Miranda Paul

AR Reading Level 4.3, Grades K-3, 34 pages

Little Libraries, Big Heroes is about the genesis of Little Free Libraries, which children may have seen around their neighborhood. If they haven't, you could show them the Little Free Library website or show them a few photos on an internet image search.

If you are looking for a group project for children, they could arrange to place one of these little libraries, or they may want to help people who already have them keep them stocked.

I had always wondered how they got started, and I was pleased to see this new book which tells the story of a "pretty ordinary" man, Todd, and the community library movement he started. We start when Todd was a boy who loved superheroes, but had some challenges at school. Author Miranda Paul tells us, "Even though his mother had been a teacher who loved books, reading was difficult for him. He was often scolded for asking too many questions, and was told that he wasn't a good student. Fortunately, Todd's mom disagreed. She told him he was gifted and had something big to offer the world."

Fast forward to Todd's adulthood. He had graduated from school and gotten a job and discovered he liked to help others. The text tells us briefly that Todd's mother died, and he needed some help getting through sad times. Remembering how his mom had taught kids in the neighborhood to read, he got the idea of making a little library out of an old door that he cut up and hammered together. He put in some books and attached a sign that said they were free for the taking. At first, not many people came by, but when he had a rummage sale, people noticed the library and started gathering in that spot.

Then his friend Rick came along and helped him broaden the idea. Now there are thousands of them all over the world, including the US, Uganda, Ireland, Pakistan, South Korea, and South Sudan. The book ends by saying, "And tomorrow--who knows? Tomorrow might bring another hero story, written by YOU...and shared with the whole wide book-loving world."

The illustrations are joyful, colorful, and have a folk-art feel to them. Back matter includes an author's note that gives more information about Little Free Libraries and a list of book and web resources.

The Lost Forest by Phyllis Root

Grades 1-3. 40 pages

The Lost Forest tells a story unlike any I've ever heard. Back in 1882, a surveyor and his crew went out to survey three townships in the wilderness of Minnesota. In among all the trees, they made a mistake and marked a plot of trees as a lake.

The reason it makes a difference is that the timber companies and developers never bought the land or logged it because they though it was all water. While just about all the trees in the rest of Minnesota were cut down at the time, the "lost" trees in that plot continued to grow undisturbed. Some time in 1958 someone noticed the mistake, but by then the surrounding area was National Forest. And this 114-acre plot that had been mis-marked became a place where "you can go today and walk under trees so tall you have to crane your neck to see their tops. You can try to wrap your arms around a white pine tree that is 350 years old. You can walk through time and see the woods as it used to be and still is in the Lost (and found) Forest."

This is a book that has dozens of uses for children who are learning about science or nature. The text is formatted like poetry, and author Phyllis Root's writing draws the reader in. "How do you lose a forest?" she begins. "First you need a forest to lose./A forest like the red pines and white pines/ that once towered in Minnesota/ trees that had never been logged." The text is relatively short, with only two or three sentences per page

Betsy Bowen's spare and textured illustrations convey the feel of a sturdy forest. She also includes sections that look like pages from journals. Children could start their own nature journals and record things like tree circumference, or make drawings of the plants and animals they see.

Root also includes a bit of history with the text. She explains why the US government sent surveyors out to the land and describes how surveyors worked. She also includes a list of what they brought with them into the wilderness: canvas tents, flour, pork and beans, dried apples, nails for mending boots, wool hats, coats with waterproof pockets, and--as anyone who has been to Minnesota knows--you need a large silk handkerchief to keep flies, gnats, and mosquitoes off of your neck and ears.

She also includes a wealth of material in the back matter: a description of an old growth forest, a list of places to see them in Minnesota, a list of the plants and animals which are most common (along with short descriptions and drawings of each), a more detailed description of how surveying worked, a section on surveyor jargon called "How to talk like a surveyor" and section on clothing called "How to dress like a surveyor"), and a couple of photos of surveyors and loggers.

My Journey to the Stars by Scott Kelly

AR Reading Level 3.9, Grades 1-4, 48 pages

What's better than a book written by a real live astronaut? A book written by a real live astronaut who has a twin brother who was also an astronaut.

When children read Scott Kelly's My Journey to the Stars, they will learn all kinds of cool things about being an astronaut. More importantly, they will learn that he was an ordinary kid, much like them, and that he worked hard to realize his dream. By telling his story in picture book format and using fairly simple sentences, Kelly makes his biography relatable to even young elementary children.

He pulls them right in, essentially starting at the end of his space journey, "It's been 340 days since I set foot on Earth. I've spent almost a full year living and working on the International Space Station (ISS). It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I miss fresh air and the feel of rain on my face."

Throughout the book, he intersperses photos with drawings, and on the second page, we see how tightly he is packed in with the other astronauts who are traveling home. As he describes it, "The spaceship is so small my knees are folded against my chest. My two Russian crewmates sit so close to me, our elbows touch."

One the next page, he flashes back to when he and his twin brother, Mark, were small. We see them doing things like building a snowman or showing off the fish they'd caught. In the flowing pages, he relates some of the things he remembered most about their childhoods, like the time his brother was hit by a car. (He was injured, but healed OK.) He also briefly talks about how his parents would argue and how it made the boys feel scared. He said the experience turned him and his brothers into peacemakers who learned to stay calm through tough times.

He also spends some time describing how his mother became a police officer in the 1970's, just as police departments were starting to let women join the force. We see how the whole family pitched in to help her, acting as practice dummies for her to rescue and building her an obstacle course in the back yard. She became one of the first policewomen on the force, and he says "Her success showed Mark and me that if we had a plan, with small steps we could turn a big dream into something real."

At first, Kelly had trouble coming up with a dream He didn't like to sit still in school. He and his brother joined a volunteer ambulance unit and he thought of going to med school, but didn't want to think about sitting through all those classes. Then, (in a story that will warm teacher's hearts everywhere) he happened to pick up a copy of Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff, and he says "That book change my life forever. " He knew he wanted to be a test pilot and found the will to get through college and join the Navy.

From there, we see photos of him and his brother in the astronaut program. NASA was interested in having twin brothers so that they could send one to space and have the other back on earth and study them to see what kinds of things changed when a person was in space. We see photos of him on the space station and he explains things the children will be curious about, like how they sleep in space, and of course, how they go to the bathroom.

At the end, when Kelly is back on earth, we see him jump into his pool at home with all his clothes on. "AHHHHHH..." he says. "What an amazing journey!"

Andre Ceolin's simple illustrations do a nice job of supplementing the photos. For anyone interested in learning more about Scott Kelly's life and his time on the ISS, I highly recommend his book Endurance which gives the reader a great sense of daily life in space. It's written for adults, but children might like hearing selected stories from the book.

Kids Who Are Changing the World by Sheila Sweeny Higginson

Grades 1-3, 48 pages

Kids Who Are Changing the World is geared to elementary-aged children who have advanced beyond the very beginning reader stage and are starting to get comfortable with more text, longer sentences and a higher level vocabulary. It is still in early reader format, which means that the letters are a relatively large font (around 14 pt), the space between lines is bigger than in normal print, and there are still only about 4-6 sentences per page. The book also includes quite a few illustrations to break up the text.

Even though it is short, this book does a good job of introducing us to four children who came up with ideas to make the world better. Eight-year-old Jahkil Naeem Jackson started a charity that makes "blessing bags" which contain things like tissues, soap, and deodorant for the homeless. Seventh-grader Natalie Hampton developed an app called Sit With Us which helps children avoid isolation by finding other kids to sit with at lunch. Gitanjali Rao built a device that is able to detect lead in water more quickly and accurately than other methods. And Joris Hutchinson organized a fundraiser to pay for tracking collars that help with cheetah conservation.

Each of these stories can serve as a springboard for children to brainstorm ideas for helping with a problem they see in the world.

The back matter includes quite a few supplementary materials. The section "Young Inventors in History" briefly tells the stories of a teenaged Louis Braille improving and developing the raised dots that became the Braille system and 12-year-old Margaret Knight who invented a device to keep children from being injured in mill machines, as well as the folded paper bag we use in grocery stores today.

Another page has a section in "The Science of Kindness" which explains how giving can make us happier. The next few pages have tips on being kind and on conservation. The last page is a quiz which covers some of the facts in the book.

Look Up with Me: Neil DeGrasse Tyson: a Life Among the Stars by Jennifer Berne

Grades K-3, 40 pages

This would be a great book to read to a group before visiting the planetarium. It also ties in with units on space, the solar system, or Black History Month.

It's rather charming to picture astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a young boy, lying in his bedroom, looking up at the glow-in-the dark stars he attached to his ceiling--arranging them in the form of constellations, of course. In Look Up with Me illustrator Lorraine Nam does just that, showing Tyson as a cute young boy in tweed shorts as he pursues his interest in the universe above him.

As the story begins, we see that Tyson was inspired by a trip to Hayden Planetarium in New York City. As author Jennifer Berne tells it, "Projected on the huge dome above his head was the night sky with countless thousands of stars. A gigantic, spectacular, beautiful cosmos Neil never knew existed. And in that moment, his life was changed forever." For two years he walked dogs for fifty cents a walk until he could buy a telescope. One of my favorite 2-page spreads shows him running his dog-walking business, holding the leashes of a variety of dogs.

When he was just 15, he gave his first astronomy lecture and was paid fifty dollars for it, an occurrence that made him realize that perhaps he could make a living by talking about the wonders of the universe. We follow him through college and the start of his teaching, writing and researching career. His life came full circle when he became director of Hayden Planetarium, the very place which had inspired him years ago.

The book ends by showing how much Tyson is "fascinated by the mysteries and the unknowns...All the mind-blowing secrets that will be explored by the next generation of scientists and the next. Perhaps by you."

The illustrations are bright and colorful Each page has 2-5 sentences, making it perfect for a read-aloud in one sitting. The back matter includes a glossary and a list of additional resources about Tyson and about the universe in general.

Turning Pages: My Life Story by Sonia Sotomayor

AR Reading Level 5.2, Grades 3-6, 36 pages

Here is a picture book biography that introduces children to an accomplished Latina and shows how helpful reading can be throughout all our lives, even in overcoming our fears.

In Turning Pages Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor describes for children how important books have been to her. She starts, "My story is a story about books-of poems and comics, of law and mystery, of science and science fiction-written in both Spanish and English....Reading was like lighting candles, each book a flame that lit up the world around me."

As the book begins, we see her with her mother, visiting the market and bodega in New York City where the family lived. Turn the page, and she tells us how her grandmother would recite poems about Puerto Rico at family gatherings. "I didn't know how to read yet," she says, "but written words, I discovered, were electrical currents that jolted feelings to life."

She also relates some of her early struggles. She was diagnosed with diabetes when she was seven years old, and she was so afraid of the needles that she ran out of the hospital and hid under a parked car. She, of course, had to get over this fear because she required shots every day. She says "I found my courage in an unlikely place--comic books. After reading stories of regular people who had secret superpowers that could save the world, I imagined being as brave and powerful as they were. Then I learned how to give myself the shots, and in time I got used to it."

She goes on to talk about how much the library meant to her as a child and how excited she and her brother were when they received a set of encyclopedias in the mail. She also reminisces about a few specific books she read when she was young. Nancy Drew inspired her, Lord of the Flies showed her why why need rules and laws to flourish, and the Bible taught her how to treat her neighbors, especially not to judge them. She kept her love of books and libraries all through her studies at Princeton, her law career, and her current position on the Supreme Court.

Illustrator Lulu Delacre does a wonderful job of bringing Sotomayer's story to life, especially by using printed pages as a motif to echo the justice's love of books. My favorite illustration shows her sailing in a paper boat made from a book page, library card tucked in the stern.

The end papers are decorated with actual snapshots of Sotomayor's childhood and then some important occasions in her adult life. The publisher included a brief timeline of her life in the back of the book.

Daring Dozen: The Twelve Who Walked on the Moon by Suzanne Slade

Grades 1-4, 48 pages

Before picking up this book, I hadn't realized that the US has sent exactly a dozen men to walk on the moon.Daring Dozen serves as a good brief introduction to all the moon landings, covering each with a few paragraphs and 2-5 full-page illustrations. It would be perfect for starting a unit on space exploration - and the Apollo program in particular.

Children can learn a few interesting facts about each mission and decide if they want to find a more in-depth book to learn about them.

With its evocative illustrations and text, this book is more about getting across the feeling of being in space. I'm reminded of Buzz Aldrin's description of the moon as "magnificent desolation." For instance, on the first page we see a night peppered with stars. In the lower left corner, we see a small bit of the earth, and on the facing page we see the small moon glowing in the night. The text reads, "On the still, silent moon, no wind blows. No water flows. No life grows. Year after year the moon circles the earth. All alone."

Turn the page, and we see the lunar landing module reaching out towards the moon which now takes up almost the whole page. The text reads "Until one day a spacecraft zooms by. Closer. And closer. Its long legs reach down. Finally it touches the ground." On the next page, we see the iconic image of Neil Armstrong in his space suit climbing down the ladder, about to step on the moon.

On the next page we see him with Buzz Aldrin as they do a "jog-hop moon walk" in the low gravity. But, just like that, their time is up and they leave as the dust flies.

I always like it when I learn something new, and with Apollo 12, I learned they landed in a group of craters called the Snowman. Pilot Pete Conrad's goal was "to land inside the snowman's belly button." That mission was notable because they were able to guide their craft precisely, meaning that other NASA missions could choose different landing sites for their missions.

As we read about each mission, we learn a little more about the geology of the moon and we see another iconic scene: that of Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball. Once we are done reading about each of the missions in this picture book format, we find quite a lot of information in the back matter. There is an afterword by Alan Bean who talks about what it was like to walk on the moon, We have a timeline and some more information, with pictures, of each of the vehicles: Saturn V, Command Module, Lunar Module, and the Lunar Roving Vehicle.Then, we have even more information on each of the missions, a full page being given over to description of the mission and pictures of the crew.

Finally, the author includes suggestions for further reading and a selected bibliography that also includes websites.

Liberty Arrives! How America's Grandest Statue Found Her Home by Robert Byrd

AR Reading Level 6.1, Grades 1-4, 40 pages

Here's a good way to introduce Liberty Arrives! to children: show them a photo of the Statue of Liberty, just in case they haven't seen it before. Then show them the graphic at the back of the book that shows how big she is. Her mouth alone is three feet wide. Bring out a yardstick and let them imagine a face that has a mouth that big. Then, tell them that we were able to have her in America because a lot of kids gave a little bunch of money each, and it was enough to pay for the pedestal she stands on.

Author Robert Byrd is mostly known for illustrations, and they don't disappoint in this book. We have several full-page drawings and lots of smaller ones throughout which serve to demonstrate to the reader things like the the enormous scale of the statue, the intricacy of the supporting structure, or the homes of the everyday folks who contributed to the fund to erect it on the island in New York harbor.

In his introduction, Byrd discusses how the French people admired the US and wanted to make us a gift for our 100 th birthday. "Big ideas are not small things to accomplish," he says. Many people helped: a sculptor, a bridge engineer, and "the American people-immigrants, working folks, and even school children" donated the money for it. Then, to keep us reading, he throws in a little teaser. "This is the story of a most marvelous gift and the people who made it happen-and how Lady Liberty almost didn't come to stand in America at all."

He starts by telling us a little about a Frenchman named Bartholdi and how his love of Egyptian monuments like the Great Sphinx inspired him. He also tells us about a man named Laboulaye wanted to honor the US, especially after it abolished slavery. Bartholdi had an idea for a statue modeled on the Roman goddess Liberty. Brimming with confidence, they started on the momentous statue without having the funding in place.

Their plan was to collect donations from the French people for the statue itself. The American would collect donations for the pedestal. Bartholdi made the hand holding the torch and sent it across the sea to inspire the Americans. The head was finished and displayed in France. Fundraising went well in France and soon they had about half of what they needed.

The going was much slower in America. I have to admit I felt embarrassed for the US. Here we were, going to get this marvelous statue if only we could build a place for it to be. But people weren't too enthused. As Byrd tells it, a group of millionaires debated it for hours, then decided they would donate just twenty dollars to the cause. He explains "Philanthropy, the idea of giving generously to a worthy cause, just didn't happen then as it does now. Except for feeling good about themselves, the wealthy had little incentive to donate."

At least one person "was digusted with the greedy millionaires" and decided to do something about it. He was Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant who served in the Union Army and became a newspaper publisher. While he was working on convincing the American people, Bartholdi had built the whole thing and sent it over to the US, waiting in crates until there was a place to put it.

Finally, Pulitzer came up with an idea. "Let us not wait for the millionaires to give this money. It is not the gift from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of America, but a gift of the whole people of France to the whole people of America...Give something, however little. Let us hear from the people." He also promised to print the name of every person who gave something, no matter how small the amount. School children loved seeing their name in the paper, and they sent their pennies, nickels, dimes. They would write notes to send with the money, and Pulitzer would print them as well. Byrd has included several of these notes, and made illustrated pictures to go with them.

Finally, this "crowdfunding" brought in $102,000 from 121,000 people. Lady Liberty was finally raised over the harbor.

And that, boys and girls, is how the kids did more for Lady Liberty that all the millionaires in the land.

The back matter includes the graphic of Liberty's size, as I mentioned before. It also has a timeline, more facts on the story, and a bibliography for adults as well as children.

Borrowing Bunnies: A Surprising True Tale of Fostering Rabbits by Cynthia Lord

Grades K-2, 40 pages

From this book, I learned that when a bunny is happy, it "leaps in the air and twists," a movement that is called a "binky." How cute is that?

Borrowing Bunnies, a book about fostering pet bunnies by the award-winning author Cynthia Lord, is full of adorable, high-quality photos of some of the baby bunnies Lord and her family have taken care of over the years.

She starts by explaining what it means to foster bunnies for an animal rescue "...we take care of the bunnies at our home for a few months until they're ready to be adopted by another family. Some bunnies we foster have never lived in a home or been loved. It's our job to teach them how to be good pets for their new family."

The story for this books starts with a pair of Netherland Dwarf bunnies who had lived in less-than ideal conditions. Besides feeding and caring for them, Lord's family also needed to show them "that people could be kind." The two rabbits were names Benjamin and Peggoty, after Charles Dickens characters. The two were kept in separate pens because "Benjamin was a boy and Peggotty was a girl." The author doesn't give any more explanation than that, so it's up to you if you want to explain more whey they didn't want to put males and females together.

Separate pens notwithstanding, Peggoty had a few surprises in store, and anyone who has taken home a female pet of unknown origin can guess what they were. Yes, Peggoty had brought four more little bunnies into the world. The book has full-page photos of the newborn bunnies nestling together, and Lord comments "They looked like miniature hippos!" They do indeed, with their pudgy bodies and wispy fur.

Lord's family named the new babies after other Dickens characters and tried their best to care for them, but sadly, two of the babies died. In her text, Lord handles their deaths briefly but sensitively. She tells us they "were not born well and strong." When they died, she says "My heart was broken." She describes that she felt happy when the two surviving bunnies grew and developed, but she was sad that the others hadn't had the chance to grow up, too. In the space of a couple of pages, she prepares the children for what happened, described her feelings (and gives children permission to have those feelings, too), and describes the bittersweet feeling we get when happiness is mixed with sadness.

After this, we get to watch the other two bunnies play and explore, first with toys insde and then outside witht he breeze and the grass and the sounds of hammers and dogs and birds in the neighborhood. During each experience, she tells us, they were first shy, then brave. She held them every day and invited others to hold them so they wouldn't be afraid of new people. She tells us she had mixed feelings when it was time for the bunnies to go to a new home, and she sent them off to new families with their favorite things.

It's a sweet book that could serve as an introduction to growth and development, pet care, family formation, and sensitivity to others. The text is relatively brief, with 2- 5 sentences per page. Sprinkled throughout are charming illustrations which illustrate some of the behaviors and things she mentions in the text.

Samuel Morse, That's Who! by Tracey Nelson Maurer

AR Reading Level 4.1, Grades K-3, 40 pages

I had never thought of the telegraph as the first instant message, but when you consider how long it used to take for news to travel through the mail, you realize that the telegraph revolutionized the spread of news.

And in Samuel Morse, That's Who! we find out that the man who invented the telegraph machine originally aspired to be a painter, not an inventor.

In this brief, picture-book format biography, Tracey Nelson Maurer starts by describing the world of Morse's boyhood, "In the early 1800s, nothing traveled long distances fast. So, who would dream of instant messages?" Turn the page, and we see a full-page illustration of Morse as a young man holding his schoolbook as the text declares "Samuel Morse, that's who!"

We find out that he tinkered with a few unsuccessful inventions when he was young, but his real passion was to bring a love of painting to the American people. However, that endeavor wasn't going too well, either, as his paintings "earned little attention and even less money."

In 1829 he went to Europe to study the Old World masters and while he was in France, he learned about the workings of an optical telegraph which helped to keep military men informed during wartime. As long as they had a clear view, they could send codes for up to 10,000 message. The problem was that if it was foggy or dark, the military could not use the system.

In her catchy refrain, Maurer asks, "Who could think of a better system?" Turn the page: "Samuel Morse, that's who."

When the fellows on the ship started talking about whether this new-fangled idea of electricity could ever be helpful, Morse started thinking he could use electric pulses to transmit codes between machines. And a system that relied on electricity wouldn't be rendered inoperable by darkness or bad weather.

In the next few pages, Maurer describes the process Morse went through to test his device and demonstrate it to the public, overcoming setbacks along the way. Finally, the machines worked, and we see a map of how telegraph lines spread across the US and Europe.

Ramon's spare and angular, yet friendly, illustrations capture the times and the sense of possibility, complementing the text perfectly. The end matter includes a photo of Morse, a time line, more facts about telegraph history, and a bibliography. With only a few short sentences per page, it would make a perfect read-aloud introduction to Morse, telegraphy, and the start of our communication revolution.

Away With Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird by Lori Mortensen

Lexile Reading Level 750, Grades K-4, 36 pages

Away With Words would be a perfect introduction to a unit on Women's History Month, or anything about travel, geography, or resiliency. I live in Colorado and have often heard of Isabella Bird and her travels here, but I didn't realize she had traveled and adventured so widely, which was unique for women of her time.

Her feats were all the more amazing because she was a withdrawn child, prone to aches, pains, and melancholy. In this picture book biography author Lori Mortensen starts out poetically, "Isabella Bird was like a wild vine stuck in a too-small pot. She needed more room. She had to get out. She had to explore. But petite Isabella, pale Isabella, proper Isabella was an unlikely candidate for adventure."

As the story continues, we learn that this 19th-century girl became much more animated once her father took her for a ride in the countryside, the novel sights prompting her interest and lots of questions. She learned the names of the flowers, animals, and crops she saw. "Question by question," Mortensen tells us, "Isabella bloomed."

As she grew older, she was inspired by letters from relatives in India and from missions in Africa. Yet, she still found herself constrained by the attitudes of the time, that young women wore dresses and stayed home. We learn that "Some days, Isabella felt so low that she couldn't even stir from the couch."

Finally, when she was 22 years old, a doctor suggested she take an ocean voyage, and Isabella was hooked. In a series of panels reminsiscent of graphic novels, we learn that she traveled to America where she ate johnnycakes and buffalo with the westerners, steamed down the Mississippi with traders and trappers and rode horseback in the canyons. When she came back, her father encouraged her to write a book about her adventures.

Bird enjoyed her experiences so much, she traveled again with the intention of writing another book, but when she arrived home, her father fell ill and died a month later. Once again, the pull of propriety drew her in and she decided to stay at home, believing she had failed the part of being the dutiful daughter.

Over the following years, her aches and pains and despair once again threatened to overtake her and her friend told her she had to follow her dreams. Once again, she set out, and we see her riding mules and camels and elephants, traveling across five of the continents. She rode up the slopes of a volcano and across "the numbing, windswept desert at the roof of the world [emphasis in book]." She continued writing books, and by 1892, she became the first woman to be a member of London's Royal Geographic Society. In the author's note at the end, we learn that Bird suffered from back pain on her travels, but she found that lying around on a sofa made it feel much worse. I appreciated the quote that was included "No man now ever says of any difficult thing that I could not do it!"

The story, which has only 4 or 5 sentences on each page, would make a good read-aloud for a group, and the large illustrations will give children plenty to talk about. The book could inspire lots of hands-on enrichment activities such as identifying plants and animals, learning how people lived in the Old West or researching the kinds of foods served in the countries she visited.

The end matter includes a timeline, citations, and a bibliography.

Our House is on Fire: Greta Thunberg's Call to Save the Planet by Jeanette Winter

Lexile Reading Level: 680 L, Grades K-4, 40 pages

Our House is on Fire would serve as a good introduction to a unit on ecology or climate, not only because it tells the story of Greta Thunberg, but because it also ends with a question which is a springboard to discussion and a number of projects the children could do.

Children may know Thunberg as a famous climate activist, but this book goes back to the time when Greta was a quiet girl leading a quiet life in Stockholm. The illustration shows her standing alone, a young girl amongst grownups "All my life I've been invisible....the invisible girl in the back who doesn't say anything."

One day, her teacher talked about the effects of climate change, prompting her to spend hours and hours researching what was happening to our world. Author Jeanette Winter tells us, "Greta could think about one thing for a long, long time," a nod to the autism and OCD diagnosis which led her to study the subject more than some other children would. We see her watching videos that show icebergs melting, storms, bleaching coral reefs, floods, and fires.

Winter specializes in telling stories which take place during calamities. Among her titles are The Librarian of Basra which is about a woman who saved a library's holdings during wartime and Mama, the story of a baby hippo swept away in the 2004 tsunami who found a new home. In this story, we see Greta become distressed at what she is seeing until she looks at us wide-eyed across the page from a large sign reading "Our House is on Fire." The muted colors of the illustrations, the scenes on the videos, and the expression on Greta's face convey the seriousness of the topic, and rightly so since climate change is an actual existential threat for our children. Still, parents and teachers might want to preview the book to judge whether it might frighten the children they are sharing it with.

To continue with the story, at first Greta fell into a deep sadness, but then she started painting signs and sitting on strike at the Parliament building every Friday. At first, no one noticed her, but after a while, news of her strike spread through cyberspace and children started striking all over the world.

Soon, we are seeing Greta address the United Nations and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Winter tells us, "Greta's protest, all alone, sparked a worldwide children's march. Her quiet voice, joined by thousands of voices, became a roar." Another full-page poster asks, "Can you hear us?" Turn the page and we see children with protest signs. Turn the page again, and a two-page spread asks the reader, "What Will You Do?'

Children could brainstorm what kinds of things they could do, both personally and to influence policy regarding the earth's climate.

Hello, Crochet Friends by Jonah Larson

Grades K-5, 48 pages

My library puts Hello, Crochet Friends! in the section about learning to crochet, but it's really the story of a young Ethiopian boy who was adopted by American parents and became intrigued with crochet when he was five years old. It can serve as an introduction to the many heritages and cultures which American children identify with. My own daughter was adopted from China, and I appreciate the sensitive way this book portrays adoptive families. It's also an interesting story of how a boy learned to control his "rascally" thoughts in school and become a more focused student.

Jonah starts his story at the beginning, from the time of his birth. He mentions that he doesn't remember his birth mother or the orphanage that took him in, but he says he knows his story because "My parents have told it to me for as long as I can remember. It goes like this: My birth mother left me wrapped in a banana leaf under a tree, protected from the sun, near a water trail where she knew I would be found." A woman who walked along the way heard the baby and took him to an orphanage.

When he was just a baby, his parents adopted him and took him to their home in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. A year after, they adopted a girl from the same orphanage.

Jonah was a quick learner and was able to read when he was three and do advanced math quite early as well. But, there were some problems. As he tells it, "I wasn't quite so good at being a 'friend,' which is what my daycare called the children. I'm not very proud of it now, but I got kicked out of not one, not two, but three daycare centers."

Children who get antsy at school will be able to relate to some of his behaviors. He explains that the classroom was kind of boring for him, and after he finished his work, he wanted to find something to entertain himself. He would take the blankets off of other children who were trying to nap. As he grew older in school he would tear up his classmates' work, throw his shoes, or pour paint on the floor and slide through it. One year, he got 57 behavior slips until his parents suggested the school stop sending them home. because they suspected he was making a collection of them. "I was!" he says. Children will also recognize how he felt when he says "I didn't want to act up, but I did."

The solution to his problem is surprising, though maybe you're not surprised since he mentions crochet in the title. When his aunt dropped off some leftover yarn for them to use for art projects, he became fascinated by a crochet hook he found. His mother found some beginning crochet videos on the internet, and the rest is history.

Jonah is an insightful child, and he points out that when he discovered crochet at the age of 5, he wasn't hampered by the ideas that boys didn't do things like crochet. While he was crocheting, he also noticed that he didn't feel as jittery, and a teacher suggested he bring his crochet to school. To their credit, his classmates didn't tease him, but rather became interested in what he was doing. In a humorous aside, he reflects that perhaps the children were just happy he wasn't tearing up their work.

Now, since he started to crochet in school, his parents haven't had to pick him up early for misbehavior. It reminds me of the "fidgets" that teachers sometimes give out to kids to keep their hands busy so they won't feel so out of control and restless. Jonah says that crocheting calms him and gives him focus. He's also completed hundred of projects and has started his own business called Jonah's Hands. You can learn more about him in this video: Jonah's Hands: Meet the 11-year-old Crochet Prodigy

He has his own YouTube channel and a large social media following and has connected with charities to help children in other countries.

The last third of the book is given over to showing crochet projects, explaining a little how it's done and includes a pattern for a dish cloth that sports the colors of the Ethiopian flag. One especially striking feature is a world map which shows the 136 countries in which Jonah has connected with crochet friends. He remarks, "It's almost as though all of our crochet hooks are working to stitch us all closer together."
© 2020 Adele Jeunette
Liz Westwood from UK on April 09, 2020:

This is a very interesting collection of books and makes a useful reading list for parents of children during lockdown.

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15 Best New Narrative Nonfiction Books for Kids in Grades K-3

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In a nutshell, narrative nonfiction describes a text that imparts factual information in a format that uses many of the techniques of storytelling. An author of narrative nonfiction will typically introduce an actual character (perhaps a kid inventor or a sea otter) and narrate some sort of journey or experience, all the while teaching kids some facts about topics like science or zoology along the way.

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What Is Narrative Nonfiction?

Narrative nonfiction is way of writing that conveys factual information using a format that uses many of the techniques of storytelling. An author of narrative nonfiction will typically introduce an actual character (the following books have scientists, toymakers, and even a baboon!) and narrate some sort of experience or journey, all the while teaching kids pertinent concepts about topics like science or zoology along the way.

By using a narrative structure (beginning, middle, and end), writers can discuss a true event using many of the techniques which storytellers use: characterization, dramatic tensions, foreshadowing, etc.

Narrative nonfiction is a type of writing that provides kids with information in a story format that is interesting to them.

A Note About Reading Levels

When a reading level is available, I have included it before the review of the book. One of the leveling systems is called Accelerated Reader, which gives a number that roughly corresponds to the grade level of the book, though you will find that children will be able to read at a variety of levels, especially if they are interested in a topic. (Please don't keep a 3 rd-grader from reading something with a 5.0 reading level if the child is interested in the topic!) Nonfiction usually scores at a higher level than fiction, but remember that the text is usually broken up into smaller chunks, which makes it less daunting for readers.

When I wasn't able to find the AR Reading Level, I looked for another readability formula called Lexile.

If there is no readability number, it's because that information is not currently available.

Books Reviewed in This Article

1. From an Idea to Lego: The Building Bricks Behind the World's Largest Toy Company by Lowey Bundy Sichol

2. 125 Animals That Changed the World by Brenna Maloney

3. Railway Jack: The True Story of an Amazing Baboon by KT Johnston

4. Elizabeth Started All the Trouble by Doreen Rappaport

5. Captain Sully's River Landing: The Hudson Hero of Flight 1549 by Steven Otfinoski

6. When Sue Found Sue by Toni Buzzeo

7. Guitar Genius by Kim Tomsic

8. The Only Woman in the Photo: Frances Perkins and Her New Deal for America by Kathleen Krull

9. When Bill Gates Memorized an Encyclopedia by Mark Weakland

10. Caught! Nabbing History's Most Wanted by Georgia A. Bragg

11. Eclipse Chaser by Ilima Loomis

12. The House That Cleaned Itself: The True Story of Frances Gabe's (Mostly) Marvelous Invention by Laura Dershewitz and Susan Romberg

13. Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children by Jonah Winter

14. Let 'Er Buck: George Fletcher, the People's Champion by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

15. The Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in Our Food and Drugs by Gail Jarrow

16. Soldier for Equality: Jose de la Luz Saenz and the Great War by Duncan Tonatiuh

17. Karl's New Beak: 3-D Printing Builds a Bird a Better Life by Lela Nargi

18. Close Calls: How Eleven US Presidents Escaped from the Brink of Death by Michael P Spradlin

From an Idea to Lego: The Building Bricks Behind the World's Largest Toy Company by Lowey Bundy Sichol

Grades 3-6, 128 pages

From an Idea to Lego is part of a series that reminds me of the Magic Tree House Fact Tracker books. They look like short chapter books with fairly large print and lots of black and white illustrations, and they tell the story of a factual occurrence, in this case, the history of the LEGO toy company. As of publication, I haven't been able to find a reading level for this book, but the same series has one on the Disney Company that has an AR reading level of 7.0. It stands to reason this one may be similar, making it a perfect book for a child who is ready to step into a little more challenging reading but would feel more comfortable reading a book like this that splits the text into manageable chunks.

LEGOSs have been around for several decades, and it may seem to children they have always existed, but I'm betting they'll be intrigued by this book that relates the history in an engaging way.

The story starts back in the early 1900's with a young Danish carpenter, Ole Kirk Christiansen. He had built a shop that made furniture and such, but suffered a number of hardships: fire, the Great Depression, the death of his wife. At some point, he hit on the idea of making wooden toys, which did well, and in 1934, he came up with a brand name that combined the Danish words leg and godt (which mean "play well" in English) to come up with LEGO.

Christiansen needed one more innovation to pave the way for his most successful toy: plastic. When he came across a machine that would mold plastic, he knew it would make his toys less expensive and easier to clean. Here's a surprise: he didn't come up with the idea of interlocking bricks himself. The plastic molding machine he bought came with a sample of self-locking bricks. He liked the bricks and had his team modify them to a toy they could manufacture and sell. One of the big insights the company had with this toy was that they should be a system and that every brick they sold should fit evey other one, no matter when it was bought.

From there, kids will no doubt enjoy reading about the innovations in LEGO toys: the themes like Town, Castle, and Space; the minifigures; the architectural and robotic kits. They may also be surprised to learnthat LEGO was on the ropes in the 1990's when it lost focus and started to emphasize video games. They managed to re-focus, re-connect with their fans, and now they are the biggest toy company in the world.

The book is sprinkled with "fun facts" features (ex: the biggest LEGO model that was ever built was a Star Wars spaceship that took 17,000 hours to build) and has short sections that discuss things such as brands and other business concepts. The back matter includes a timeline, and explanation of how LEGO bricks are made, source notes, and additional book and web resources. This 17-minute video, on the LEGO story is especially well done. (Warning - it does talk about the deaths of the founder and his wife.)

125 Animals That Changed the World by Brenna Maloney

Grades 3-6, 112 pages

Far all the kids who are animal lovers, this provides fascinating stories about a variety of our furry friends. 125 Animals That Changed the World, has all the things we expect from a book published by National Geographic: lively writing, eye-catching design, and-of course-clear, colorful photos. This is a book for older readers who still like the text broken into manageable chunks. Each of the animals gets a picture and a paragraph or two that tells their story.

Some of the tales are about animals you would expect: Washoe, the chimp who learned sign language; Laika, the first dog in space; Seabiscuit, the scrappy champion racing horse. But, we also have some more obscure world-changing animals like "The Goats That Discovered Coffee" and "Caspar the Communicating Cat."

One of my favorites is a tiny creature known as a tardigrade, or a water bear. We are told, "You can boil them, bake them, deep-freeze them, crush them, dehydrate them, or even blast them into space. It doesn't matter. Tardigrades will survive whatever you throw at them!" They are so small you have to look at them with a microscope to see what they look like. When these tiny animals are stressed from things like lack of water or food, they can roll up into a ball and sleep for decades, reviving when they come in contact with water.

They may, in fact, be living on the moon right now. An Israeli lunar lander crash-landed on the moon and spilled tardigrades all over the place. Eventually, someone will probably go back there and see if those little water bears can survive conditions on the moon.

This book will appeal to the children who like to dip into short pieces for interesting stories, and will appeal to the same crowd who likes world record books and "believe-it-or-not" books.

Railway Jack: The True Story of an Amazing Baboon by KT Johnston

Grades 3-6, 40 pages

The children you interact with are probably familiar with the idea of a service dog, but have they ever heard of a service baboon? Railway Jack is about a baboon that learned to help a disabled railway worker, but more than that it's a touching story of a resilient, persistent, and creative man and a loyal and clever primate companion. At the end of the book, author KT Johnston provides a wealth of extra resources that can provide the structure for a lesson on primates, friendship, animal helpers, disabilities, problem-solving, railroads, or any number of topics.

The story is extraordinary. It starts with a South African fellow named Jim Wide, who looked like he might have his railroad career cut short when an accident caused him to lose both of his legs below the knee. He figured out how to build a handcart that helped him do a different job at the railyard, but it was still difficult for him to do with the two wooden legs he had fashioned.

One day, Jim saw a man who had a baboon with him to help lead his oxen. Realizing how helpful such an animal could be, he made a deal to get the baboon on. At first, he wondered if the baboon, named Jack, would just be more trouble, but he was happy to find that the two of them bonded well and that Jack was able to do things like sweep and pump water.

It turns out, Jack could learn to do a great deal more. He could load Jim's cart on the tracks and push him to work. It's charming to see the two of them riding down hills together, having a great time. Johnston tells us "He [Jack] was so helpful that Jim came to think of Jack not merely as his assistant, but also as his best friend. It was clear Jack felt the same way. He would sit with his arm around Jim's neck and stroke Jim's hand, chattering endlessly."

Jack even learned how to throw the switches for the trains that came, learning from the number of whistle blows which track the engineer wanted. One of the passengers on the train was understandably not too happy to see a baboon running the switches, and complained to management. Here we have the showdown of the story, with the company bosses testing Jack to see if he could actually do the job. I won't give away all the ending here, but will say it ends happily for both Jim and Jack.

This is a charming story with all kinds of funny details that will interest and amuse children-as well as grownups. After the story, Johnston provides more information on what happened to Jim and Jack and includes several photos, which I loved seeing. She also includes information about baboons, a history of service animals, a glossary, discussion questions, internet resources, other books about remarkable animals, and a bibliography.

The story is presented in a picture book format with large illustrations and 2 to 4 paragraphs on the pages with text. César Samaniego's illustrations have a smudgy, coal-suffused feel to them, appropriate to the railyard and effectively conveying the emotions and action of the story.

Elizabeth Started All the Trouble by Doreen Rappaport

AR Reading Level 5.0, Grades 3-5, 40 pages

I went looking around for children's books on women's suffrage since we are so close to the 100 th anniversary of the passage of the 19 th amendment which recognized women's right to vote.Elizabeth Started All the Trouble is one of the best brief overviews I've found of the women's suffrage movement. It's just 40 pages long and in picture book form. It would make a nice read-aloud for a group to introduce the topic.

Despite its title, the book doesn't focus solely on Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but instead provides a narrative on the movement, starting with Abigail Adams who 235 years ago encouraged her husband to remember women's rights in the new country they were forging. "She warned John [Adams] that if women were not remembered, they would start their own revolution. John laughed at her. It took much longer than Abigail wanted for that revolution to begin. But it finally started, seventy-two years later."

Turn the page, and there we see Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott traveling to London for an abolitionist meeting. But, the women were not allowed to be delegates. In fact, they were expected to sit behind a curtain and listen to the men speak. "Elizabeth and Lucretia were shocked. How could men who were against slavery deny women their rights just because they were women? They had to do something about this."

It took 8 years, but they finally were able to put together a 2-day convention. To their surprise, 300 women came. They came up with their own declaration, complete with Stanton's assertion that women should have the right to vote. That was a bridge too far for most of the delegates. Even Elizabeth's husband left town when he learned what she wanted. Author Doreen Rappaport tells us. "That's when the big trouble started. It had taken seventy-two years, but just like Abigail had predicted, Elizabeth's declaration started a revolution."

Ministers, newpaper reporters, and lawmakers ("all men, of course" Rappaport tells us) laughed and spoke out against her ideas. But, those ideas turned out to have legs and soon a thousand women were coming to the next conference, one of them being Sojourner Truth.

From there we are introduced to people like Susan B. Anthony and Mary Lyon, who started a women's college. Even Amelia Bloomer makes an appearance, designing more comfortable clothes for women. We see how long and hard the suffragists worked, through the Civil War and beyond. Think of it-Susan B. Anthony made more than 75 speaches a year for forty five years.

The next part of the story warms my heart because I'm from one of those big square states out west. "Then hooray for Wyoming!" says the text. That was the first placein which women won the right to vote, followed by Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and a whole bunch of other states out west.

The struggle wasn't over, though. Women who decided to picket the White House were attacked by mobs, arrested, sent to prison and beaten. The illustrations turn somber here, but the descriptions aren't so graphic that they'll disturb most young children. After a full year of protesting, President Wilson finally said he would support a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote. The last page shows women from all time periods with equal rights signs. Rappaport notes that there are still unfair laws to change. "And we're still working on it," she concludes.

The illustrations by Matt Faulkner capture the essence of this book remarkably well. They are strong and lively, portraying the sometimes raucous activity along with the dignity of all the women involved. I like the creative ways he portrays moments, such as when he shows these self-important men looming over and scolding women who seem to be half their size. The back matter includes a list and short description of "The Trailblazers" along with short description of important dates

Captain Sully's River Landing: The Hudson Hero of Flight 1549 by Steven Otfinoski

AR Reading Level 5.3, Grades 4-6, 112 pages

At first glance Captain Sully's River Landing looks like a staid nonfiction book, but once you start reading it, you realize that the plotting and pacing are much like the "I Survived" historical fiction books that are so popular. I imagine this book will be as appealing to children who like that series. (To be clear, the book is still straight narrative nonfiction; there aren't invented characters or dialogue like you would see in historical fiction.)

I remember hearing about this flight that had to landed in the Hudson River, but I hadn't realized how quite how dangerous the situation was until I read this book.

We start with a chapter that sets the scene, talking a little about the historical conditions in the US back in 2009 and the weather in New York, which was prompting many people to fly to midwinter vacations. One of those flights was Sully's flight out of LaGuardia. "Normally a routine flight," author Steven Otfinoski tells us, "on this day it would be anything but ordinary."

Otfinoski then uses a number of 1-to-2 page chapters to tell us the rest of the story, each from the point of view of one of the people who was involved in the crash. We start with an 85-year-old woman who was taking the flight; then we go to the cockpit where Captain Sullenberger is preparing for the flight; then to a woman who is traveling with her 9-month-old baby.

About 20 pages in, we get to the accident, when a flock of geese are taken into both jet engines, causing them to fail. We cut to the reactions of the passengers and then back to the cockpit as Sullenberger is trying to figure out what to do. The technique heightens the suspense and make the story a page-turner as we learn that the captains determines the only option is to land in the river. Dangerous, yes, but less dangerous than the alternatives.

Almost everyone on board is surprised that they land safely, but their ordeal is not over as they have to wade through the cold water to get to life rafts (more difficult for people traveling with the elderly and with babies) and some of them have to stand on the wing to stay out of the water.

We meet some of the ferry captains who came to rescue the passengers and all the people who came to help. I had to smile when Otfinoski relates the conversation between Sullenberger and the operations manager of the airline he was flying for.

"This is Captain Sullenberger."

"I can't talk now. There's a plane down in the Hudson!"

"I know. I'm the guy."

The book uses larger font, spacing between lines, small pages, and photos to break up the text to make the story less daunting to read. It reminds me of the Magic Tree House nonfiction companions in size and scope.

It includes all kinds of the finding tools we see in nonfiction books, including a table of contents and index, along with a timeline, a glossary, critical thinking questions, internet sites, and further reading.

When Sue Found Sue by Toni Buzzeo

AR Reading Level 5.1, Grades 2-5, 32 pages

This is a book for the quiet kids in your class, the ones who like to read and to take a close look at the world around them. It will interest kids who like dinosaurs and also show them some of the kinds of work involved in making discoveries like this.

In When Sue Found Sue, author Toni Buzzeo tells us "Sue Hendrickson was born to find things: missing trinkets, prehistoric butterflies, sunken ships, even buried dinosaurs." Turn the page, and we see Sue as a small girl, out in her neighborhood with a magnifying glass looking for little treasures, and finding things like little brass perfume bottles. "Sue wasn't like other kids," Buzzeo tells us. "So shy and smart, Sue gobbled up books the way other kids gobbled up gingersnaps." One of the things she liked to do was to visit the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and see all the treasures other people had found.

On the next page, we are with Sue at age 17 as she set out on her life, joining teams that dove in the sea to find tropical fish and lost boats; who searched Dominican amber mines for prehistoric butterflies, or explored the hills of South Dakota for dinosaur bones. The dinosaur excavation kept Sue going for four summers, digging in the rock for duck-billed dinosaurs. Sue had always been drawn to a bluff near the dig site, and finally she followed her curiosity and hiked for four hours to get to the rock face. After walking around the base of the cliff, she noticed what looked like bones on the ground, then she looked up. "She stared up at three enormous backbones protruding from the cliff eight feet above her."

She had been in the business long enough to know that bones the size she was seeing must belong to a T. rex, and that is what they turned out to be, the "largest, most complete, best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossil discovered so far." The team named the dinosaur skeleton Sue, in honor of the woman who found it.

In a nice twist, the Field Museum ended up being the one who bought the skeleton at auction, and now it graces the museum. Here is a little five-minute video from the museum that tells its story and shows how big it is.

This book is in picture book format with full page illustrations and 3 or 4 sentences on each 2-page spread, making it a quick read to a group of children. The back matter includes an author's note that gives more information on Sue and her T. rex, and a short list of resources for children along with additional resources. Her website is worth taking a look,

Guitar Genius by Kim Tomsic

AR Reading Level 4.3, Grades 2-5, 48 pages, 2019

How is this for a tale of resilience? A boy's music teacher sends a note home to his mother, "Your boy, Lester, will never learn music, so save your money. Please don't send him for any more lessons." But this boy learns to play, well enough to get on the radio. Then over the years, he tinkers around with instruments enough so that he invents a harmonica stand, the solid-body electric guitar, and even the process for recording 8-track tape. As the years go on, he is inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and also the National Inventors Hall of Fame. As author Kim Tomsic tells us in this picture book biography of Les Paul, Guitar Genius, the boy had grit.

Can I just say how much I love the illustrations by Brett Helquist? Probably only people my age will appreciate the book cover which hearkens back to the album covers from the 50's. Throughout the book, his illustrations bring Paul's story to life. I especially like that they are big enough to share with a large group of children.

And, the turns of phrase that Tomsic uses make this a fun book to read aloud. When she describes how Paul learned to play his first guitar, she says "He fumbled through the chords. His fingers floundered over the fret board. He even blundered through the B notes. His hands weren't big enough to reach all six strings, so he removed one."

Kids who love gadgets will also be intrigued by this book. Paul starts out by learning to make his own radio. Then he builds a device that lets him record his music using "a Cadillac flywheel, a dentist's belt, a nail and other pieces and parts..." Next, he comes up with a device that would hold a harmonica so that he could play it together with his guitar. Then, when audience members complained his guitar wasn't loud enough, he figured out a way to amplify the sound and also to create a solid body to eliminate the echo and feedback that a hollow body would make.

For anyone musical or mechanic al, or for anyone who has been told they are no good at what they dream to be, this is a great book to read.

The Only Woman in the Photo: Frances Perkins and Her New Deal for America by Kathleen Krull

Lexile reading level 950, Grades 3-6, 48 pages

The Only Woman in the Photo serves as a biography of a strong woman figure in Frances Perkins, but it is also an excellent introduction to the social and labor movement in the United States.

Many children--and indeed, many adults--don't know how dirty and dangerous working conditions were for the people in factories and other workplaces across America. Once they read this book, they will certainly remember author Kathleen Krull's description of bakeries of the time: "Rats nibbled on bags of flour, and cats had kittens on the counters. Dirty water, instead of chocolate, dripped onto pastries." Frances Perkins wrote it all down in her report to New York's Board of Health, and they forced bakeries to make conditions cleaner and better for the works, and for the public. We can all be glad that there are regulations for how food should be prepared.

I'm getting a little ahead of the story, so let me go back to the beginning when we learn that Frances Perkins was quiet when she was a little girl, too shy to ask for what she wanted or at the store. However, she was inspired by her grandmother who would say, "Take the high ground if someone insults you & when someone opens a door to you, go forward." Perkins was the kind of child who watched and listened and felt empathy for anyone who was poor or having a difficult time.

Her father realized how smart she was and encouraged her to learned, even though some people at the times were afraid that "women's 'delicate bodies' would suffer if their brains go too big." Perkins went to college, and a part of her assignment for her classes was to observe the working conditions in the mills nearby. She was horrified at how people were treated, especially the children, and she moved to New York City to begin a career in the developing field called social work. She said "I had to do something about the unnecessary hazards to life, unnecessary poverty. It was sort of up to me."

Perkins overcame her shyness to speak out, especially for the cause of women's suffrage. After witnessing the terrible fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, she entered politics and took a position heading up a committee Theodore Roosevelt started to investigate workplace safety.

From there, she took increasingly responsible jobs with the state of New York and then with the whole United States, accepting control of the Department of Labor under Franklin Roosevelt. The title The Only Woman in the Photo refers to the fact that Perkins was the only woman in the president's cabinet, and thus, the only woman at official functions or meetings when photos were taken. She would study the men around her and figure out how to act to best persuade them. Krull tells us that she found she was more successful at work in her "staid three-cornered hat," that reminded the men of their mothers, she would have more success.

We learn more about her federal career, how she was one of the main architects of the New Deal and in charge of the Civilian Conservation Corps. I can see this book sparking more interest in the New Deal and what it did for America.

The illustrations are delightfully colorful and evocative. They have an old-fashioned, yet lively feel to them. The pictures take up the bulk of the pages, and they convey the feel of the times and the action of the story. Some of the main quotes from the book are expanded poster style with different typography.

The back matter includes more information about Perkins and a list of sources.

When Bill Gates Memorized an Encyclopedia by Mark Weakland

AR Reading Level 4.1, Grades 1-4, 32 pages

When Bill Gates Memorized an Encyclopedia is a picture book biography that uses kid-friendly details and illustrations a little reminiscent of cartoons to tell the story of Bill Gates's life. Kids who like working with computers will especially like learning about one of the most successful computer nerds in history.

The book spends quite a bit of time on Bill's childhood relating some funny family stories: how his grandparents bought everyone matching pajamas every Christmas and hung them on the Christmas tree; how the family would play games after dinner and the winners wouldn't have to do the dishes.

Parents and teachers will be glad to see how voracious a reader young Bill was, and how he won a school reading contest for several years. We also learn that he liked to compete in sales, a young man selling nuts for the Cub Scouts, going door to door and making notes as to why some people would buy his nuts and some wouldn't. And, of course, he read a whole set of encyclopedias when he was eight and remembered many facts from it.

I also appreciated the author acknowledging that Bill wasn't perfect, though. He was strong-willed, argumentative with his parents at times, and inclined to act like a know-it-all. His parents decided to enroll him in a private school, the place where he became absorbed into computers, a rarity in the 60's when he went to high school. "'Of course, in those days we were just goofing around, or so we thought,'" he said later. 'But the toy we had--well, it turned out to be some toy."'"

Bill and his friends actually got into trouble, sneakily changing the usage data on the machine so they could get more time on it. At first, the computer company banned them, but then they decided to let them have the time if they would do the work of looking for bugs in the software. Gates points out he was fortunate that the company found a way for the boys continue with their interests, rather than shutting them down permanently.

The book also describes the first company he founded with his friend, one that would track traffic data. Of course, his big company was Microsoft, and the story of that company curiously turns up in the author's note, rather than in the main part of the text.

Even so, it's a book that will show children how everyday kids can read and learn and have their ideas be successful. The illustrations convey the sense of activity and fun that is very much a part of Gates' story.

Caught! Nabbing History's Most Wanted by Georgia A. Bragg

Grades 4-8, 224 pages

Even though is over 200 pages long, it reads quite a bit faster than you'd think due to relatively large print, the numerous illustrations and sidebars and the rollicking style of author Georgia Bragg. In these pages, she tells the stories of 14 notorious characters in history and how they were caught. Some were out-and-out criminals like All Capone and Billy the Kid. Some were blamed for things they probably didn't do, like Mata Hari. And some were careless people or hapless people who caused lots of misery, like Typhoid Mary or the (sometimes) spy Bernarnd Otto Kuehn.

Bragg's style is conversational and often hilarious as she gives each of her subjects about 10 pages of text to tell the story of how they went astray somehow and how things caught up with them. The author is also not shy about giving her opinion about the person in question. Describing Joan of Arc, she says, "[She] is like the kind of friend you can't stand, but when you need her for something important, she's there at the rescue...She showed up and led the French army when she was only seventeen years old, at a time when girls were barely allowed to do more than peek out a tower window or feed a goat."

Of Blackbeard, she says, "The best-dressed pirate was Blackbeard. He didn't need a patch, a hook, or a peg leg to scare everybody to death; he used pyrotechnics. But it was just a flashy show of fire and smoke. Blackbeard captured over a hundred ships and he never killed a single prisoner. Except for the stealing, kidnapping, and destroying of property, he wan't that bad."

Children, like the rest of us, will surely be both fascinated and repulsed by her account of Typhoid Mary, a cook who spread disease because she refused to wash her hands after going to the bathroom. Says Bragg, "She didn't exactly mean to poison the food with a deadly disease...not at first, anyway. But the poop was in the pudding."

Illustrator Kevin O'Malley provides each person with a full-page drawing and provides little illustrations throughout. After each story, Bragg provides more interesting little factoids about the life of the person in question. For instance, in the section about Vincenzo Peruggia, she lists 5 of the biggest art heists, and gives a short history of the use of fingerprinting to catch criminals.

I can see this book working well for a child who needs to give a presentation about a historical character and includes some graphics about related topics.

Here is a list of people who are covered in this book:

1. Joan of Arc

2. Sir Walter Raleigh

3. Caravaggio

4. Blackbeard

5. John Wilkes Booth

6. Jesse James

7. Billy the Kid

8. Mata Hari

9. Typhoid Mary

10. Rasputin

11. Vincenzo Peruggia

12. Bernard Otto Kuehn

13. Anna Anderson

14. Al Capone

Eclipse Chaser by Ilima Loomis

Grades 4-7, 80 pages

Eclipse Chaser is the book I wish had been available before I loaded up the car and drove to the town of Glendo, Wyoming to see the 2017 eclipse. I had read Wendy Mass's book Every Soul a Star, which convinced me that an eclipse was a magnificent thing to see.

All those photos you see in the newspapers that show a little bit of light peeking around the dark moon don't really do the sight justice because they don't show the sun's corona, the part that is outside the blazing center. If you are at an eclipse in person, you will see the corona, a wild tangle of white wisps that whip around half the sky. (We usually can't see it because the sun is so bright.) The photos in Eclipse Chaser are the closest approximation I've seen to what a total eclipse looks like. You can see some of them in this

This book is designed to give children a sense of what it's like to work as a scientist in the field, and here we follow a woman named Shadia Habbal as she directs several different teams to gather data about the sun's corona during the Great American Eclipse of 2017. We see that she needs to have a variety of skills to decide on the five sites she'll use, to staff the teams at each site, and then to decide on the equipment and what kinds of measurements they'll take.

Though the author, Ilima Loomis, has quite a bit of text in this 80-page book, she keeps the narrative moving along. She describes Habbal's first eclipse in India in 1995: "As day turned to night, she looked up in amazement at the shimmering white corona. Near the center, angry red solar prominences jutted out from the sun's surface into the lower atmosphere, while father out, long white streamers of plasma cascaded into space so dramatically, she almost felt as if she could hear them whooshing away. She wasn't just looking at an eclipse, Shadia thought. She was looking at answers. The eclipse only lasted forty-two seconds, but that was long enough. Shadia was hooked."

Almost every page has one or more photos which serve to give the readers a sense of the places to which the eclipse team has traveled. They also show us some of the equipment that the team uses and illustrate some concepts about the sun which explain what Shadia is trying to find out with her data gathering and studies. Just as important, they show Shadia throughout her whole adventure. We see her standing with her equipment that has all kinds of lenses and knobs. We see her looking through eclipse glasses to see the sun. We see her working with her sister to make dinner for the team. We see that this is her job, and her passion.

We also learn lots of the things about the corona. For one thing, it gets hotter as it gets farther away from the center of the sun. Why? No one has figured that out yet, and that's why scientists need Shadia's data. She also uses special equipment to figure out which elements are in the corona. The pictures she gets are pretty cool, and sure to interest the science and space aficionados out there.

I started out by saying I regretted this book wasn't available before I went to see the eclipse. But, guess what? There is another total eclipse headed to the US in 2024, and this book would be a great one to read before going and taking a look at it. The eclipse will enter the US in Texas and travel north east until it exits through Maine. If you'd like to see if it's coming near you, take a look at this National Eclipse site.

The House That Cleaned Itself: The True Story of Frances Gabe's (Mostly) Marvelous Invention by Laura Dershewitz and Susan Romberg

Grades 2-5, 40 pages

The House That Cleaned Itself would be a great book to read before starting a project on problem-solving and inventions. It tells the story of Frances Gabe, a woman who got fed up with housework and finally set about to see if she could invent the kind of house that could clean itself.

One thing that makes this book a delight is the lively voice of the story. When it begins, we learn "Frances Gabe was NOT happy. A gooey glob of fig jam was crawling down the wall like a slug. Nobody would say how it got there. But one thing was for certain: it was Frances's job to clean it up...But Frances couldn't stand back-breaking, knee-creaking housework. She found cleaning 'a nerve-twangling bore.'"

What did she do? She went and got the garden hose and fired away at the wall. "All Frances had to do was stand there. The wall practically cleaned itself! And that day, as the story goes, she had the beginning of an idea."

Years passed, but finally she was able to sit down and try to design a place that would literally clean itself. The authors tell us it essentially worked like a car wash with sprinklers and soap and drying jets. She figured out how to have a self-cleaning bathroom, and a cupboard that would wash and store the dishes. Here's one invention I'd like: a waterproof cabinet that will wash and dry your clothes on the hanger. Didn't the Jetsons have something like that?

Her ideas caught some interest. Scientists studied them. Museums displayed models of her home. Unfortunately for everyone who has to do housework, her ideas hit some snags and none of us have self-cleaning homes.

Why read this book, then? As the author's tells us, "There's another funny thing about ideas, you know. New ones tend to connect to old ones....Maybe one day a young inventor will figure out how to build on Frances's ideas-and go out and do something about it."

This would be a great springboard to talking about the different kinds of chores there around the house and have the children brainstorm ideas about how to design something to perform them.

The illustrations are whimsical and eye-catching. The back matter includes a bibliography and more information about Frances Gabe, including a picture of her standing in a raincoat and umbrella inside her self-cleaning house.

Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children by Jonah Winter

Grades 2-5, 40 pages

Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children is a book that makes history come alive for children and helps them see how the social policies we now take for granted came to be. The children I've talked with usually have no idea that little kids used to have to work in the factories for ten hours straight for just two cents an hour. The factories were dangerous places, full of dust that damaged their lungs and machines that could take off a finger, or worse.

Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children introduces today's children to the struggle to end child labor in as gentle a way as possible, considering the subject matter. I think it works brilliantly because author Jonah Winter decided to narrate this story of the March of the Mill Children, 1903, in Mother Jones's voice. It would make an excellent read-aloud to introduce history, especially the labor movement. On the first double-page spread we see Mother Jones, dressed in her trademark black and white, striding purposefully towards us. "My name is Mother Jones, and I'm MAD," she says. "And you'd be MAD, too, if you'd seen what I've seen."

After telling us about how miners had been mistreated, and how she'd been arrested because she spoke up for them, she talks about the mill children, "I saw children YOUR AGE--nine and ten years old--who worked like grown-ups, forced to stand on their feet for TEN HOURS STRAIGHT, tying threads to spinning spools, reaching their hands inside the dangerous machines that make the fabric...breathing deadly dust--robbed of their childhoods, robbed of their dreams, and all for a measly TWO CENTS AND HOUR, while outside the birds sang and the blue sky shone." The illustration, with a subdued pallet, show young children, most of them barefoot, hunched over at their machines, looking exhausted. One little girl looks back at us, her face a mixture of sorrow and longing.

Turn a couple of pages and we see Mother Jones calling the newspapers on an old-fashioned phone giving them what for. She tells us though, that those newspapers were owned by rich men "who were buddies with the rich folks who owned the mills," and weren't about to print any stories about how evil and greedy the mill owners were. One of the most chilling illustrations is on the facing page, showing a bunch of fat cats holding the phone away from their ears and laughing while the hold a newspaper with a headline that says "Kids Enjoy Factory Work."

In the most important line of the book, Mother Jones tells us, "Money is a powerful thing. But there is power in the people. There is POWER in the UNION...What--you never heard of a union?" she says, and then explains briefly what a union is and what it does.

She came up with a plan to gather the children and march them to see the president. It's heartening to know that people along the way helped them out. Train conductors let them ride for free, sometimes, and people would bring them food.

By the time she got to the president's mansion, she only had three children with her, and the president would not come to see them. But, Mother Jones tells us that the march was not a failure. "HECK NO! What we did that summer changed the world." The march had "shined a great big SPOTLIGHT on child labor." She lists the things that they accomplished: children under 18 could not work dangerous jobs, children under 16 could not work during school hours, and children under 14 could not work after school.

It's a lively and inspiring book that memorably portrays an important time in American history. The back matter includes a bibliography and an Author's Note in which Winter reminds us that there are still 215 million child workers worldwide and that even here in the US, some people want to reverse the child labor laws. He ends by saying "We need Mother Jones."

Let 'Er Buck: George Fletcher, the People's Champion by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

AR Reading Level 4.7, Grades 3-6, 40 pages

We usually think of cowboys in the West looking like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but in reality twenty-five percent of the cowboys from that period were black, and even more were of Mexican origin.

Let 'Er Bucktells the story of a young African-American man, George Fletcher, a skilled bronc rider and of his participation in a contest that took place in eastern Oregon.

The story starts when Fletcher was about 10 years old and his family moved to Pendleton, Oregon. Author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson flavors her work with Old West phrases as she tells her story. "...there weren't many black people in Eastern Oregon, and most whites didn't cotton to them. George suffered meanness and hurt because of his skin color. Life at home was no bushel of peaches either. He had to make his own way." They lived near the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and Fletcher found he "took to their ways like a wet kitten to a warm brick."

One of his favorite games was to ride a barrel that had ropes attached to it. The other children would pull those ropes to make the barrel "buck." As he grew older, Fletcher moved up to actual bucking broncos and rode in rodeos and exhibitions all around town.

When he was 21, Fletcher competed in the Saddle Bronc Champion contest in the biggest rodeo held in the Northwest. His main competitors were Jackson Sundown, a Nez Perce, and John Spain, a white rancher. Sundown was disqualified when he lost a stirrup, and Spain had a "dandy ride." But it was Fletcher's ride that inspired the crowd. According to the newspaper, George rode his horse "with such ease and abandon that the crowd shouted itself hoarse." It described him as "limber and elastic as a rubber band" and "easily made the most showy ride of the Round-Up."

When it was time to announce the winner, though, the judges gave Fletcher second place. Nelson tells us he "took it like a cowboy. He'd felt the sting before." It didn't sit well with the sheriff, though, and he cut up Fletcher's hat and sold the pieces to crowd members as a keepsake, bringing the bronc rider more money than if he's won the first prize of the silver-trimmed saddle. The audience had "plumb decided--heck with the judges--George'd won." Today, he is still known as "The People's Champion," and in 2014 the City of Pendleton put up a statue to honor him.

The Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in Our Food and Drugs by Gail Jarrow

AR Reading Level 7.7, Grades 5-8, 157 pages

Here is a book that gives children a window into seeing how public policy can change lives. The Poison Eaters is one of those books that doesn't seem as long as it is because the information is so riveting. It's a book about the fight for making our food safer, which might seem a bit of a yawner, but in author Gail Jarrow's hands, it's a story that draws you in because you can't really believe things used to be this bad.

She starts with a description of a typical dinner scene for a family near the beginning of the 20th century. In days past, most families ate what they grew on the farm, but by 1890 many families got their food in a grocery store. But food companies were using tricks to sell people substandard--and even dangerous--food. Here is Jarrow's description of one of the family's food items, "The sausage sizzling in the pan... came from a filthy factory a thousand miles away. It was made from a pulverized mass of meat scraps swept off the floor off the floor--along with the rat feces--and mixed with borax to keep it from rotting." In case children are not familiar with Borax, she explains "Borax is the same stuff in scouring powder and laundry detergent."

We also find out that this milk is laced with formaldehyde, the "baking eggs" have been deodorized so that you can't tell that they are rotting, and the supposed strawberry jam is full of cheap sugar, leftover apple pieces, a dangerous red die and a preservative that is dangerous to eat. To top it off, the "soothing syrup" that the mother gives the baby because he is cutting a tooth has highly addictive morphine in it. People had no idea what was in the food they ate because food and medicine producers were not required to list the ingredients in their products.

By the time we are finished reading the first chapter, we are starting to wonder how anyone made it out of the 1890's alive.

The bulk of this story, though, is a good guy scientist tale, a recounting of the career of Harvey Wiley, a chemist who did testing for the government and eventually became the first commissioner of The Food and Drug Administration. As a scientist, he was suspicious of the substances that were added to food and set about to test them to see if they were harmful. He even devised an experiment to have a number of young men eat food with borax in it to see if it impacted their health, a group that was dubbed "The Poison-Eaters." Even though his experiment lacked some scientific rigor because he didn't have a control group, it attracted the attention of the press and led citizens, especially women's groups to push for a pure-food law that would require manufacturers to list the ingredients of their products and stop putting harmful chemicals into them.

I believe books like this are important for children to read because they will realize how hard people have to work to effect change, even when people's health and lives are at stake. It took decades and decades of struggle to get Congress to act because the food and drug manufacturers always pushed back, not wanting these laws to hurt their profits. It's a story told time and time again. Someone has to hold companies accountable because they always seem to value the bottom line over their customers' welfare.

Jarrow's writing stays engaging as she tells how journalists, concerned citizens, and--regrettably--several tragedies finally moved the needle and convinced Congress to pass a pure food act in 1906 and provide needed strengthening in 1938 and 1962.

Some of the instances she tells about are quite disturbing: the radium poisoning that caused people's bones to crumble, the eyelash dye that blinded people, the thalidomide that led to deformities in babies. As such, you would want to make sure that the readers can handle the topic and provide them support and a way to talk about what they've learned.

It's such an important topic, that it is worth introducing to older children and teens. Jarrow concludes by talking about the status of the FDA today and some of the products that they are still researching.

Throughout, there are plenty of photos, graphs, and sidebars to give readers a good grasp of the information. Back matter includes a glossary, an author's note, timeline, source notes, a bibliography and an index.

Soldier for Equality: José de la Luz Sáenz and the Great War by Duncan Tonatiuh

AR Reading Level 5.3 Grades 3-6, 40 pages

This is an important book for fostering empathy for people who have been bullied because of their heritage. It also adds to the diversity of stories we hear about American hereoes who worked for fairness and justice. Soldier for Equality uses a picture book format to tell the story of José de la Luz Sáenz (called Luz in the text), a teacher who fought in World War I and helped found the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a civil rights organization that works for equal rights for Americans of Latinx descent.

Tonatiuh starts his story with a situation that children can easily understand. As a young boy, Luz is bullied by other children who called him names because his family came from Mexico. When a boy yells out "Greaser!" we are told, "Luz (looz) ran toward the boy and tackled him to the ground. Luz had had enough. ¡ Ya basta! Why were those kids mean to him just because his family had come from Mexico?"

On the next page we learn that Luz's grandmother had come to the US more that 25 years before and Luz and all his siblings were born in the US, making them American citizens, just like those who tormented them. We learn that children of Mexican descent were made to attend schools that were far worse than the others and that some businesses had signs posted that said, "No Mexicans allowed."

Luz became a schoolteacher, but was still frustrated at the injustice his pupils had to deal with. In 1918 he joined the army, even though he could have gotten an exemption, because he believed it was his duty and that other Americans would see that his people were entitled to the same rights because they fought for the country.

While at training camp, he met Native Americans and fellow Mexican Americans who also met with discrimination. He mostly got along well with the others, but once again an officer called him "greaser." "This army will fight against tyrannical rulers and injustice in Europe," he thought. "How is it possible that some officers here can be so unfair to their own countrymen?"

After his training, Luz was shipped to France where he taught himself to read French, a language that has quite a bit in common with Spanish. When the colonel found out that Luz could translate, he assigned him to work in intelligence where he served honorably.

Once he returned home, though, Luz found conditions the same for Mexican Americans. They had all done their part for the war effort, and they wanted equality and justice. Luz began to give speeches and help organize the people, eventually helping to found LULAC with other activists.

In his Author's Note, Tonatiuh tells how he learned of Luz's journal which proivded quite a few insights into life of Tejanos in the military and in south Texas. He also points out that while Hispanics comprise 12% of the military today, they do not hold a corresponding number of high-ranking positions.

Tonatiuh also did the illustrations, showcasing the folk-art style he has used in other books such as Separate is Never Equal. They carry the mood of the story whether it is the isolation Luz felt when he saw exclusionary signs, the dangers of war, or the joy of a homecoming celebration.

Back matter also includes timelines, a bibliography, and index, and a glossary of Spanish words and phrases used in the text.

Karl's New Beak: 3-D Printing Builds a Bird a Better Life by Lela Nargi

AR Reading Level 4.8, Grades 3-6, 32 pages

Karl's New Beak, a short book published by the Smithsonian, could be an accompaniment to so many topics of study including methods of problem-solving, perseverance, the work of a scientist, bird physiology, adaptations, technology, and 3-D printing.

Children may already be familiar with hornbill birds, since Zazu of The Lion King is a hornbill, though he's an Abyssinian ground hornbill, rather than an African red-billed. They may have also seen a 3-D printer at work, perhaps making a small plastic toy. This is the story of how the two came together.

Karl lives at the National Zoo in Washington D.C., but he used to have a problem. Part of the lower section of his beak had broken off, making it hard for him to eat a normal hornbill diet. Zookeepers worried that he might be getting bored since he couldn't go around hunting wild creatures. Additionally, it would be tough for him to get a female to mate with him since he couldn't be a good provider.

Here, it's worth bringing in a little of author Nargi's text so you can see what her writing style is like: "A male hornbill in the wild blinks his velvety eyelashes at the arid landscape. When he notices a venomous puff adder, he POUNCES. He snatches up the snake using his beak like toothless tongs. Then he crushes the snake's head. He might bring this prize to his mate and chicks in their nest." The upshot: no snake for Karl, no family for him, either.

Enter James Steeil, the zoo's veterinarian, who realized they could use they could use a skeleton from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as a model for 3-D printing a new beak. The bulk of the book describes the process, illustrated with lots of photos of each of the different steps. We see the scientists measuring carefully, modeling on their computers, making prototypes, then making modifications. Finally, after all their careful planning and testing, it worked. Karl's a new bird now with a new beak to eat just what he wants.

Nargi keeps her text short with usually only about 4 or 5 sentences on each page. In addition to the photos, there are some drawings illustrating Karl's difficulties and final restoration. The back has a glossary and more facts about Abyssinian ground hornbills.

Close Calls: How Eleven US Presidents Escaped from the Brink of Death by Michael P Spradlin

You may have kids whose eyes glaze over if you want them to read a book about US presidents. But how about a book about how eleven of our presidents escaped from death? Now, you've got an angle that will make at least some of them prick up their ears. Who knew that they had such dangerous lives?

Close Calls is a slim volume that sneaks in quite a bit of information about our presidents and the times they lived in while also narrating some pretty exciting tales. Here you will read about John F. Kennedy and the several times he came close to death after the sinking of his boat, PT-109. You'll learn how Harry Truman had to duck out of sight while the Secret Service fought off two assassins outside the house where he was staying.

The one I found most interesting was Teddy Roosevelt. A deranged man shot him in the chest, but Roosevelt was saved by the 50-page speech he had in his pocket which blocked the bullet somewhat. It lodged in his body, but was not a mortal wound. Being who he was, the rough and ready presidential candidate refused to go to a hospital until he had given his speech. When he addressed the crowd, he said "The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best." His "not very long speech" turned out to be 90 minutes!

Spradlin chose good subject matter, and he also heightens the interest with lively writing. At one point, he tells us about a plot against George Washington in a section titled "If they kill the general, he can't be the father of his country." He tells us that a man named Thomas Hickey "supposedly had the idea to sneak some poisoned peas to the Washington household for the general to eat. Since peas were Washington's favorite veggie, this was probably a pretty sound plan." In one version of the story a tavernkeeper's daughter found out about the plot and went to Washington. "He was about to take a bite of peas, and she snatched them out of his hands and dumped them out the window. According to the legend, some chickens outside scarfed down the peas and immediately keeled over dead. This is probably unlikely-although it makes a really good story, especially the keeling-over chickens part."

Here are the presidents he covers: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln (who survived all but one of the attempts on his life), Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Throughout the stories, he includes sidebars which explain more about the historical situation, things like how Allan Pinkerton started his detective agency and Kate Warne became his first female detective. Back matter includes sources and an index.
© 2020 Adele Jeunette

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The 18 Best New Narrative Nonfiction Books for Grades 3-6

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Narrative nonfiction is way of writing that conveys factual information using a format that uses many of the techniques of storytelling. An author of narrative nonfiction will typically introduce an actual character (the following books have scientists, toymakers, and even a baboon!)

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Undefeated

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Watch Kwame Alexander read aloud from The Undefeated

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Author Kwame Alexander reads aloud from his book The Undefeated, which tells the story of iconic, overlooked and unafraid figures from black history.

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Catching the Moon

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Titles in the series by the Hatkoff family. Looking for Miza, Owen and Mzee, Leo the Leopard and so forth.

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Looking For Miza book. Read 14 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Miza is a baby gorilla. This is her story.In a magical place calle...

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Narrative Nonfiction - Video Alouds

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of R.B.G. vs. Inequality

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Narrative Biography

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Biographies

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A Place to Land

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Biography - Audiobooks

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Musicians

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First Ladies

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Hello Neighbor - True Story of Mister Rogers

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instant access to thousands of great kids books.

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Instantly access 40,000 high-quality books for kids

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The leading digital library for kids offering unlimited access to 40,000 of the best children's books of all time. Sign up for a free 30 day trial to instantly access high-quality online books for kids, ebooks, audio books, quizzes, videos, and more.

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Chef Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix

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A Place to Land

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Civil War

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American Revolution

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World War 1

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World War 2

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THE STORY OF VENUS AND SERENA WILLIAMS

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Read Out Loud GAME CHANGERS: THE STORY OF VENUS AND SERENA WILLIAMS

Gather round as award-winning author, Lesa Cline-Ransome reads GAME CHANGERS: THE STORY OF VENUS AND SERENA WILLIAMS on this episode of Read Out Loud. Lesa tells the greatest story in tennis - the story of two sisters from humble beginnings who devoted their lives to changing the sport forever and becoming the best players the game has ever seen - together.

ABOUT THE BOOK

GAME CHANGERS: THE STORY OF VENUS AND SERENA WILLIAMS
by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James Ransome
Venus and Serena Williams. Two peas in a pod. Best friends. Sisters.
Six days a week they awoke before the sun came up to practice their serves and returns, to learn to run faster and hit harder. They were unstoppable. At age fourteen, Venus played her first professional match. Three years later, it was Serena's turn. It wasn't easy. Some tennis fans cheered for these two fresh faces, while those who were unhappy to see two black girls competing in a nearly all-white sport booed and taunted them. But they didn't let it stop them.
With vibrant mixed media art, nonfiction superstars Lesa Cline-Ransome and Coretta Scott King Honor winner James E. Ransome share the inspirational story of two tennis legends who were fierce competitors on the courts, but close sisters above all.

ABOUT Lesa Cline-Ransome

Lesa Cline-Ransome is the writer of many picture books. Her picture book biography titles include Satchel Paige, Major Taylor, Champion Cyclist, Young Pele, Soccer's First Star, Helen Keller, The World in Her Heart, Before There was Mozart and Words Set me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass. Other titles are Quilt Alphabet, Quilt Counting and her newest is Light in the Darkness, A Story about How Slaves Learned in Secret. Originally from Malden, Massachusetts, Lesa has worked as a proofreader, fashion copywriter, publicist, teacher in the New York City Schools, and taught writing for adults. She has a B.F.A. in Merchandising and Management from Pratt Institute and an M.A. in Education from N.Y.U. She lives in Rhinebeck, New York and with her husband and frequent collaborator, illustrator James Ransome, four children and St. Bernard, Nola.

CONNECT WITH Lesa
Website | Twitter

CONNECT WITH KidLit TV
Facebook Group | Facebook Page | Instagram | Newsletter | Pinterest | Twitter | YouTube

Executive Producer: Julie Gribble

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Read Out Loud GAME CHANGERS: THE STORY OF VENUS AND SERENA WILLIAMS - KidLit TV

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Gather round as award-winning author, Lesa Cline-Ransome reads GAME CHANGERS: THE STORY OF VENUS AND SERENA WILLIAMS on this episode of Read Out Loud. Lesa tells the greatest story in tennis - the story of two sisters from humble beginnings who devoted their lives to changing the sport forever and becoming the best players the game has ever seen - together.

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The Story of a Young Girl's Baseball Dream

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'Catching the Moon' read by Kevin Costner and Jillian Estell

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Enjoy learning more about the history and life of Harriet Tubman in this Coretta Scott King honor book!

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Read Out Loud | BEFORE SHE WAS HARRIET

On this episode of Read Out Loud, author Lesa Cline-Ransome reads BEFORE SHE WAS HARRIET! Enjoy learning more about the history and life of Harriet Tubman in this Coretta Scott King honor book!

LIKE IT? PIN IT!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Written by Lesa Cline-Ransome; illustrated by James Ransome
A lush and lyrical biography of Harriet Tubman, written in free verse and illustrated by an award-winning artist. We know her today as Harriet Tubman, but in her lifetime she was called by many names. As General Tubman she was a Union spy. As Moses she led hundreds to freedom on the Underground Railroad. As Minty she was a slave whose spirit could not be broken. An evocative poem and opulent watercolors come together to honor a woman of humble origins whose courage and compassion make her larger than life. A Junior Library Guild selection and Coretta Scott King honor book.

ABOUT Lesa Cline-Ransome

Lesa Cline-Ransome is the writer of many picture books. Her picture book biography titles include Satchel Paige, Major Taylor, Champion Cyclist, Young Pele, Soccer's First Star, Helen Keller, The World in Her Heart, Before There was Mozart and Words Set me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass. Other titles are Quilt Alphabet, Quilt Counting and her newest is Light in the Darkness, A Story about How Slaves Learned in Secret. Originally from Malden, Massachusetts, Lesa has worked as a proofreader, fashion copywriter, publicist, teacher in the New York City Schools, and taught writing for adults. She has a B.F.A. in Merchandising and Management from Pratt Institute and an M.A. in Education from N.Y.U. She lives in Rhinebeck, New York and with her husband and frequent collaborator, illustrator James Ransome, four children and St. Bernard, Nola.

CONNECT WITH Lesa
Website | Twitter

CONNECT WITH KidLit TV
Facebook Group | Facebook Page | Instagram | Newsletter | Pinterest | Twitter | YouTube

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Read Out Loud | BEFORE SHE WAS HARRIET - KidLit TV

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On this episode of Read Out Loud, author Lesa Cline-Ransome reads BEFORE SHE WAS HARRIET! Enjoy learning more about the history and life of Harriet Tubman in this Coretta Scott King honor book! LIKE IT? PIN IT!

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Author Chris Barton reads his book WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A VOICE LIKE THAT?, which tells the extraordinary story of Texas hero Barbara Jordan. Find out all the places Jordan took her bold, booming voice!

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What Do You Do With a Voice Like That? Read-Aloud with Chris Barton | Read & Learn with Simon Kids

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Autobiography of Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews A prodigy, he was leading his own band by age six, and today this Grammy-nominated artist headlines the legendary New Orleans Jazz Fest.

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'Trombone Shorty' read by Angela Bassett

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A boy in a drought-ravaged village in Africa wonders how things work. Teaching himself English from old science books, he builds a windmill for his village. A true story of perseverance, patience, and innovation

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Read Aloud Video

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This resource supports The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. See more support materials for The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind .

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Kadir Nelson reads aloud from Testing the Ice: A True Story about Jackie Robinson, by Sharon Robinson, illustrated by Kadir Nelson.