Non-Fiction - Picture Book Joy

          Each Wednesday I'm happy to link to Alyson Beecher's Non-Fiction Picture Book Challenge at her blog, Kidlit Frenzy. I love finding good non-fiction picture books available about varied topics, for all ages, too. Here are three books with stories and illustrations that just might become favorites. 

        Thanks Alyson!

No One Saw - art presented by Bob Raczka

              Beautiful book of well-known art, with comments by the author. Each piece illuminates the art, would be wonderful to use as a starter for an art project. For example, the book shows the art piece “A Basket of Apples” by Paul Cézanne, and Raczka writes, “No one saw apples like Paul Cézanne.” And for “One Hundred Cans” by Andy Warhol, the words are “No one saw soup like Andy Warhol.” There is a list of the paintings in the back matter and short biographies of each artist.

Migrant - written by Jose Manuel Mateo and illustrated by Javier Martinez Pedro

          What a marvelous book, written in a a codex that folds out accordion style with intricate black and white illustrations filled with people and the actions of the story told, rather briefly in small paragraphs to the left. It’s the story of a migrant family, a mother and two children who the dangers of leaving their small village to cross into the U.S.      

          The author expresses a need to empower the many children, estimated 50,000, who cross each year, sometimes even alone. And as the words also tell us, some never make it, simply disappear. No one is speaking for these children, who don’t even have the power to know their birth date, to ask for documentation from their home county. The book was written to speak for them.

 Gus & Me - written by Keith Richards with Barnaby Harris and Bill Shapiro and illustrated by Theodora Richards

            Since I am a grandparent, I do love books that show beautiful relationships between grandparents and grandchildren. I loved all my grandparents, and have written about all of their special times with me. This time, Keith Richards has written about his grandfather’s influence in his music, along with that special first guitar that he got from his grandfather. They walked all over when Keith visited, especially visiting music shops where Keith saw all the instruments and the workers repairing them, testing the guitar strings, “dinka-plink dinka-plink”. Even more wondrous is that Keith’s daughter, Theodora, named after this great-grandfather, Theodore Augustus Dupree, created the gorgeous illustrations for the book, filled with line drawings and vibrant colors-like music! It’s a sweet story from Richards’ childhood. a memorable part of his life.