What is all this about books for kids?

There is some overlap between this category and the picture books. Think beginning readers who might like lots of pictures in their stories while they’re still getting used to the whole reading thing.

Cathy Goldberg Fishman: When Jackie and Hank Met (2012) (Sports) (History) (Non-WASP)

Jack Roosevelt Robinson and Henry Benjamin Greenberg were born eight years and one thousand miles apart.

Nobody knew these babies would grow up and play baseball. Nobody knew Jackie and Hank would meet and become heroes.

Russell Hoban : Best Friends for Frances (1969)

Bread and Jam for Frances (1964)

I have pretty clear memories of reading these when I was small.

Margaret Hodges: Saint George and the Dragon (History)

A re-telling from Spenser’s The Faerie Queene of George, the Red Cross Knight.

The Kitchen Knight (1990) (History)

In the days when monsters and giants and fairy folk lived in England, a noble knight was riding across a plain. He wore heavy armor and carried and ancient silver shield marked with a red cross. It was dented with the blows of many battles fought long ago by other brave knights.

Elsa Holmelund Minarik: Little Bear illustrated by Maurice Sendak (1957)

Illustrated by Maurice Sendak. That is all.

Barbara Cooney: Miss Rumphius (1983) (Female) (Math & Science)

The Lupine Lady lives in a small house overlooking the sea. In between the rocks around her house grow blue and purple and rose-colored flowers. The Lupine Lady is little and old. But she has not always been that way. I know. She is my great-aunt, and she told me so.

Leo Lionni : Frederick (1967)
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (1969)
Inch by Inch (1960)
Fish Is Fish (1970)

I think Fish Is Fish was probably my favorite of these books, but I loved them all.

Rafe Martin: Rough Faced Girl (Female) (Non-WASP)

Mal Peet: Cloud Tea Monkeys (2000) (Female) (Non-WASP)

Tashi and the monkeys met in their usual place, where the endless rows of tea bushes were broken by a jumble of rocks and a tree spread its shadow on the ground. Here she sat and crossed her legs. The monkeys watched her with their deep, serious eyes.

Francois Place : The Old Man Mad About Drawing: A Tale of Hokusai (2004) (Art) (History) (Non-WASP)

I love and adore this book. I am heartbroken that it is currently out of publication–there are so many more kids I want to give this book to!

Andrea Davis Pinkney: Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra (2006) (Music) (Non-WASP)

You ever hear of the jazz-playin’ man, the man with the cats who could swing with his band? He was born in 1899, in Washington D.C. Born Edward Kennedy Ellington. But wherever young Edward went, he said, “Hey, call me Duke.”

Doreen Rappaport: Elizabeth Started All the Trouble (2016) (Female) (History)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton couldn’t go to college but more importantly, she couldn’t vote.

A brief look at the start of the Women’s Suffrage Movement–and a time when women were still often treated as property rather than citizens.

Allen Say: Tea with Milk (1999) (Female) (History) (Non-WASP)

From the window in her room, the girl could see the city of San Francisco. She imagined that it was a city of many palaces. And one day her father would take her there, he had promised, riding on a paddle steamer across the shining bay.

Her parents called her Ma-chan, which was short for Masako, and spoke to her in Japanese. Everyone else called her May and talked to her in English.

Tanya Lee Stone: The House that Jane Built (Female) (History)

Jane Addams was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her social activism.

Laurie Wallmark: Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine (2015) (Math & Science) (History) (Female)

Any geek worth their salt knows that Ada Lovelace was the mother of computing. But if you aren’t a geek, then you may never have heard of the daughter of Lord Byron who created programming and changed the world to come.

Click through on any of the title (or book covers) to see the books on Amazon. (And if you buy, I get a few parts of pennies to build up towards a book for me!)