It Spoke Volumes For Her

One of many things history teaches us is the power of a single individual to make a significant impact.  This effect can ripple through a community, a state, a region, a country or the entire world.  It can be damaging or beneficial.  It can be temporary or lasting.  

Some names are more well-known than others; people like Elvis Presley, Pura Belpre, Stan Lee, John Lewis,  Zora Neale Hurston or Greta Thunberg.  Even if we think we know all we need to know about these individuals and their accomplishments, through the efforts of authors and illustrators collaborating on biographical picture books, we learn more.  The value of the work of these authors and illustrators cannot be stressed enough, especially when they introduce people who are unfamiliar to us.

For whatever reason these individuals are lesser known (to me), they did contribute to the betterment of life for residents on this planet.  How much did we know about Todd Bol, Ben Shahn, Teresa Carreno, Mary Walker, Helen Martini or Jadav Payeng before we read outstanding picture book biographies about them?  Their achievements are inspirational, far-reaching and enduring.  Love Is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement (A Paula Wiseman Book, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, January 10, 2023) written by Sandra Neil Wallace with illustrations by Bryan Collier is a book vital to any discourse on the history of the Civil Rights Movement.  Although, Diane Nash was not given the same platform as her male counterparts at the same time, she was and is a woman powered by and empowered by love.

You arrive in the spring of 1938 on the South Side, when

Chicago's leaves unfurl, emerald green like your baby girl eyes.

CELEBRATION, JUBILATION. Your parents baptize beautiful, honey-brown you, Diane Judith Nash.

For the first four years of her life, she lives in a home her parents fill with love until World War II comes.  With her father in the army and her mother working all day, Grandmother Bolton comes from Tennessee to embrace this child in her special kind of affection.  When she attends high school, love sustains her as classmates from a variety of ethnic backgrounds sit around Diane.  It is not until she goes to Tennessee to stay with Grandmother Bolton to attend college that segregation is blatantly on display.

Signs in Nashville say WHITES ONLY and COLORED ONLY.  It is not right to not share a drinking fountain or a school or a lunch counter.  Diane Judith Nash, raised in love, knows something must be done but she refers to not get arrested. She and other students learn and practice peaceful persistence in church before classes.  

They calmly sit at lunch counters and their numbers grow through the winter months of February and March.  In April, Diane is ignited by an act of violence; she silently leads six thousand souls in a march to meet Mayor Ben West to desegregate the lunch counters in Nashville. Victory is theirs. The next focus for Diane is the Freedom Rides.  She is twenty-three years old.  

Pregnant with her first child, Diane Judith Nash faces time in a Mississippi jail for organizing student protests.  She does not post bail, but goes to jail for the sake of freedom and explains her actions in a letter to the world.  Her two year sentence lasts ten days, dismissed by the judge. Love wins.

Diane is not done.  She works tirelessly to make the Voting Rights Act a reality.  Wherever she can, whenever she can she believes in justice and peace forged from love.  She spreads her truth for fifty years.  On July 7, 2022 this remarkable woman is the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom given to her by President Joe Biden.  She is eighty-four years young.

When you read what author Sandra Neil Wallace has written in this title, page turn by page turn a cadence grows.  She includes specific facts and quotations in her narrative to build and define the distinguished and formidable Diane Judith Nash. Within each section at least two words are capitalized and bolded.

These particular words are like roots or foundations from which the other thoughts grow and form. There is a poetic, almost musical, quality to them through rhyme, repetition, and alliteration.  Toward the end of the book, three 

Love is . . .

statements are repeated to create a powerful and exhilarating meter.  Here is a passage.

Seeing twenty-one-year-old you sit down with your pearls and your books shakes

the cooks and the waitress.  She breaks plate after plate as you wait to be served.

Inside, you shake too.  HANDS SWEATING, NEVER FORGETTING the danger,

the fear of being arrested for ordering a sandwich.

Your family is also afraid.  Of what can happen to you over lunch.  They worry

you've gotten in with the wrong bunch.

The open and matching dust jacket and book case first reveal a vibrant persona on the right side, the front.  Diane Judith Nash is looking straight ahead, focused on her goal.  The colors radiating from her are warm tones, reds, oranges, and yellows.  These are reflective of her beliefs that love is the way to win.  Love Is is varnished as is Diane Judith Nash.  The ray from her mouth is a glazed white with a bright red varnish on Loud.

To the left of the spine, on the back, are three visuals taken from the interior of the book.  They are shown to us in three different rays divided by a wide yellow border.  They show a progression of Diane's life, birth, her lunch counter sit-in, and her speech to secure voting rights.  In each of these Diane presents calmness with intention.

A rich orange red covers the opening and closing endpapers.  Artist Bryan Collier continues his use of rays like a megaphone on the title, verso and dedication pages adding a bold sky blue hue to the red, yellow and white.  His images rendered

in watercolor and collage

span two and single pages.  They are historically accurate in their depiction of clothing, interior design, buildings, fair grounds, and signage in Chicago and the southern states.

Readers cannot fail to notice the outstanding portraits of Diane Judith Nash in every setting.  Underlying her facial features, regardless of her current mood, is love.  We see it in her eyes and in her stance.  It is her North Star.

One of my many favorite illustrations is a double-page picture.  On the left, Diane appears straight and tall at a lunch counter sit-in.  She is wearing a yellow V-neck sweater rimmed in cream with a green blouse.  A strand of pearls rests around her neck.  She is looking to the right.  There we see a scene which might have been at that moment or one of other moments during the sit-ins.  A waitress holding coffee pots is flinging plates.  Some of the customers are displaying anger.  The participants are calm and well-dressed.

Through the stirring, informative words of Sandra Neil Wallace and the equally informative and expressive artwork of Bryan Collier, Love Is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement is a superior nonfiction picture book.  At the close of the book is an author's note and an illustrator's note.  There is an extensive time line, several sources to learn about Diane Nash from video interviews and books for young readers.  There is a page of quote sources and a selected bibliography.  This is an essential title for all your collections.  

To discover more about Sandra Neil Wallace and Bryan Collier and their other work, please visit their websites by following the link attached to their names.  Sandra Neil Wallace has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Bryan Collier has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  At both the publisher's website and the website of Sandra Neil Wallace, you can view the book trailer.  At Sandra Neil Wallace's site is a link to a six-page curriculum guide.  At the publisher's website, you can view interior images including the open dust jacket.

One Voice For The River Of Grass

More than six decades ago, I traveled to southern Florida for the first time with my parents and sister.  At five years old it seemed as if I had set foot on a different continent rather than a state 1,400 miles away from my home located in Michigan.  There were lush palm trees, wide sandy beaches and the vast ocean.  It seemed as if there were hibiscus in striking shades of pink and red growing on bushes everywhere. One of the most remarkable memories is a visit we took to Parrot Jungle. (Parrot Jungle has since been closed.) With my arms held out perpendicular to my body, colorful parrots rested there, using them like tree branches.  On the top of my head sat a polite cockatoo. 

My memories of this childhood visit are wonderful but only memories.  Long before my trip another girl was fascinated by what she experienced in a stop with her parents in southern Florida.  But, unlike me, this singular individual came back and dedicated her entire life to protecting a portion of its natural beauty.  Marjory Saves the Everglades: The Story of Marjory Stoneman Douglas (A Paula Wiseman Book, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, September 22, 2020) written by Sandra Neil Wallace with illustrations by Rebecca Gibbon acquaints us with a woman who believed we need to act in light of what we know.  She stood strong to support that which was unable to do so for itself.

Before airplanes and automobiles,

a girl in gold-rimmed glasses sailed

on a steamboat to Florida.

She tasted a freshly picked orange as she savored the company of her father.  What she could not know in that moment, it would be a long time before she returned to Florida or felt the warmth of her father's companionship.  She and her mother returned to Taunton, Massachusetts living with her grandparents and Aunt Fanny.

Marjory kept to herself, away from those four adults, and she read as much as possible.  She also made a point to venture outside whenever she could during any season.  By the time she was eighteen, she was in college.  By the time she was twenty-four she was married, but it was not successful.  Shortly after World War I started, Marjory returned to Florida and her father.

The Miami Herald was her father's newspaper, and she became a reporter.  Marjory was the only woman reporter and her heart dictated what she wrote.  To make sure her stories were a reflection of realty, she enlisted in the navy during World War I.  She was a part of the Red Cross and traveled to Europe.  When she returned to Florida, she was dismayed to see the changes in her beloved state.  There was talk of draining the Everglades.

Knowing this, Marjory went to work.  She wrote, she studied, and she explored the Everglades, but at forty years old, she had never been inside this wild area until she met Ernest Coe.  Together they ventured into the interior and shared those insights with a hesitant National Park Service.  Still not convinced Marjory had a brilliant brainstorm.  It worked and changed everything for the Everglades.

Marjory had a unique cottage built in southern Florida.  From there she could easily study her beloved Everglades. Her findings led to the publishing of a now famous book.  When the Everglades were threated again, Marjory founded the Friends of the Everglades.  She was 79 years old.  Marjory continued to fight for the Everglades, convincing government officials to restore and maintain its place on our planet.  Marjory Stoneman Douglas lived to be 108 years old.  What a remarkable life filled with remarkable accomplishments.

Each time you read the words penned by Sandra Neil Wallace, you are acutely aware of the meticulous research behind her narrative  Her masterful use of language takes the gleaned facts mingling them with her descriptive imagery of place and time. We feel as though we've been friends with Marjory through the inclusion of her personal quotes placed perfectly within the text.  They serve to enhance the moments of her life being presented.  Here is a passage.

Traveling by houseboat, Marjory meandered through the Glades in a

string of pearls, and a silk dress with pleats as thick as the saw grass

jutting through the shallow waters.

She spotted crocodiles swimming, alligators soaking up the sun, and the

wiry roots of ghost orchids wrapped around the trunks of pond apples.

She saw sea turtles round as rain barrels bobbin through forests of

gumbo-limbo. 

One of the first things you notice about the open and matching dust jacket and book case are the expressions on Marjory's face in both scenes.  Her looks of happiness reveal the pleasure she felt when in the Everglades, fueling her determination to protect this threatened area.  On the front, right, Marjory is at home among all the flora and fauna found when investigating this southern Florida natural paradise.  All you see here is still thriving because of Marjory Stoneman Douglas.  The delicate elements surround her.  The main title text is varnished and raised.

To the left, on the back, Marjory stands in the lower, left-hand corner.  All we see is her upper body.  Her head, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, is raised up to gaze at the multitude of birds of all types gliding across the sky from left to right.  These birds in this sky cover the opening endpapers featuring a lovely quote by Marjory on the right-hand side.  The closing endpapers highlight the rivers of grass.  Here are placed a page of Sources, and a second page for Additional Resources, and Acknowledgements.

On the verso and dedication page illustrator Rebecca Gibbon depicts a crate of Florida oranges.  (You'll want to read the dedications.)  On the title page the text is framed by gorgeous Everglades' plants, flowers, and insects. 

Rendered in acrylic inks and colored pencils

the intricate illustrations flow in a range of sizes on the heavy, matte-finished paper.

The details in each image invite us to stop and observe the world portrayed in each one, just like Marjory viewed the world around her.  Rebecca Gibbon draws us into the visuals with her regard for historical accuracy in the architecture, clothing, and each setting in which we find ourselves.

One of my many, many favorite illustrations is a double-page picture.  Marjory is inside the Everglades on her trip with Ernest Coe.  Alone she sits on a grassy piece of land with pale turquoise water encircling her.  Around the water are trees, ferns, and aquatic plants.  Tucked among them are a shy raccoon, a turtle, several kinds of birds and insects.  In looking at this scene, it is easy to imagine sitting there, still as stone, listening to all the sounds made by the Everglades' life breathing in and out.

If you hand this book, Marjory Saves the Everglades: The Story of Marjory Stoneman Douglas written by Sandra Neil Wallace with illustrations by Rebecca Gibbon, to a reader, or if you read it yourself, they and you will be changed.  What this woman achieved in her long life will resonate for generations.  Her life is a call to action, and a testament to the power of one.  There are a lengthy Author's Note, information about eleven animal and plant inhabitants of the Everglades, Marjory's Tips for Protecting the Environment, Learn More about Marjory and Helping the Everglades and a Timeline of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the Everglades at the close of the book.  I highly recommend placement of this title in your professional and personal collections.

To learn more about Sandra Neil Wallace and Rebecca Gibbon, and their other work access their websites by following the link attached to their names.  Sandra Neil Wallace has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.  Here is a link to an Activity Kit and a Curriculum Guide for this title at Sandra Neil Wallace's website.  Rebecca Gibbon has an account on Instagram.  On author Patricia Newman's site there is a LitLinks: Using the Everglades to develop a love of nature post about this book written by guest blogger Roberta Gibson.  At the publisher's website there are a series of interior images, along with the opened dust jacket.  Please take a few moments to enjoy the book trailer.

Together We Are Stronger

Everyone has a story to tell.  Everyone's story has value.  By hearing the stories of others we learn.  When we learn we grow toward being the best we can be.  We know all of this to be true.

We need to remember the person we pass walking down a street, pushing a grocery store cart, sitting at a table in a library, or sitting or standing with us, waiting in a line, has a story we might need or want to hear.  If we listen to their story or read their story, it further validates them and us as human beings of worth.  First Generation: 36 Trailblazing Immigrants And Refugees Who Make America Great (Little. Brown And Company, September 4, 2018) written by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace with illustrations by Agata Nowicka is captivating and illuminating at every page turn.

Introducing The Heroes Of
First Generation
The United States is a nation of diversity, from Native American peoples to immigrants and refugees.  Maybe you can trace your family back to the first colonists who came over from Europe, or to immigrants who arrived during the late 1800s.  But immigrants and refugees didn't just come to this country hundreds of years ago.  There are millions of new Americans making this country thrive right now.  

Following a stirring, informative and inviting introduction readers meet eighteen women and eighteen men whose lives have and continue to elevate this country's greatness.  Each of them found their gift, persisted through challenges and used those talents for the benefit of others.  Person by person you feel something wonderful growing inside you.  It's gratitude.

At six a little girl born in a refugee camp in Kenya relocates to St. Cloud, Minnesota.  One year ago in 2017, this little girl, Halima Aden, is showcased on the cover of a magazine in the United States as the first hijab-wearing model.  Google co-founder Sergey Brin fled the Soviet Union with his parents also at the age of six for religious reasons.  One of six children, Maria Contreras-Sweet worked odd jobs to help her single mother when they left Mexico to live in California.  Her mother supported this move knowing opportunities would be better for Maria in America. Maria was the first Latina to start a bank;

a bilingual bank for California's Latinx small-business community.

As a boy (born in 1883 in Syria) Kahlil Gibran came to America with his mother and three siblings seeking freedom from a troubled marriage.  This beloved poet lived in a single room apartment his entire adult life.  When you read The Prophet you will understand why its popularity grew.

A librarian who read her Mary Poppins inspired this first Asian American woman to serve in the United States Senate to learn English faster.  He and his brothers and sisters (ten) living on the continent of Africa ate dirt to curb their hunger.  Meb Keflezighi was the first American citizen to win the Boston Marathon in thirty years.  Did you know conservationist John Muir immigrated to the United States from Scotland?

An Ethiopian orphan and his sister are adopted by a Swedish couple.  Today he owns numerous restaurants throughout the United States.  A Polish immigrant as an infant was instrumental in the women's rights movement.  She suffered for seven months in jail but her notes smuggled out gained national attention in assisting the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.  The stories of these first generation women and men no matter how times you read them resonate long after the book is closed.  The America seen through the eyes, hearts and minds of these thirty-six people is an America to preserve and protect for future immigrants and refugees.


As you read the words penned by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace their thorough research is apparent in the collective biographical essays.  Individual quotations by each person top the entries and are included in the body of the narrative.  Dates and statistics are seamlessly woven into the conversations about each person.  Their use of language allows us to become personally aware of the world in which these people rose to their considerable accomplishments.  Each page also contains at least one but usually two or three separate but significant facts placed within a box in the lower right-hand corner.  Here are some examples from the essays.

Mazie Hirono
"I wanted to do something with my life
that would help people."

In 1955, seven-year-old Mazie Keiko Hirono stood
with her mom and brother on the deck of a ship sailing
out of Yokohama Harbor, knowing they needed 
to leave Japan in a hurry.  Her father's problems with
alcohol and gambling had made him abusive and had
left his family poor and hungry.  Mazie cried a lot
during the trip to Hawaii because she didn't know
what to expect, but she believed in her hardworking
mom.  "My mother was my whole world," she
remembered.  "I learned risk-taking from her."

*Mazie became a US citizen in 1959-the same
year Hawaii became a US state.

Carlos Santana
"I would never take anything
from America that I wouldn't want
to put back a hundred times."

When Carlos Santana was nine years old, his father
took out a violin and played softly.  A bird settled on
a branch and sang along with the instrument.  "It was
as if I suddenly found out my father was a great wizard,"
Carlos recalled, "only this wasn't magic---it was
music."

*Carlos established the Milagro Foundation to
provide money to organizations that work with
children around the world in education, health,
and the arts.


Looking at the opened book case of this title, it's as if illustrator Agata Nowicka has presented readers with portraits revealing the passion at heart in the soul of each individual.  They all look ready to move into action or speak to us directly.  Her choice of color palette here and throughout the book is bold and vibrant.

A royal blue canvas covers both the opening and closing endpapers.  Small gold stars scatter and frame the text on the title and dedication pages.  For each image black acts as the defining hue bringing the elements in each illustration prominently forward.  In numerous visuals red, white and blue are used to excellent effect.

Readers need to pause at each depiction.  Look carefully at the details.  What is meaningful to the individuals and represents their talents, achievements and continued endeavors is present.  It's a gallery of greatness.


This book, First Generation: 36 Trailblazing Immigrants And Refugees Who Make America Great written by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace with illustrations by Agata Nowicka, is powerful and meaningful, relevant now and in the future.  Whether you read it as a whole in one sitting or read an entry a day, the impact will be as potent.  I can't imagine a personal or professional collection without this title.  These are stories we need to hear.  These are stories our children need to hear.  At the close of the book both Sandra Neil Wallace and Agata Nowicka acquaint readers with the inspiration and process of their work on this title.

To learn more about Sandra Neil Wallace, Rich Wallace and Agata Nowicka and their other work, please visit their respective websites by following the links attached to their names.  At the publisher's website you can listen to a podcast by the authors about this title.  At School Library Journal you can read a sponsored interview of the authors.  When the cover is revealed at Scholastic's Ambassador of School Libraries John Schumacher's site, Watch. Connect. Read., he engages them in conversation about this title and nonfiction in general.

 
Book Chat with the Editor - Deirdre Jones on FIRST GENERATION from LB School on Vimeo.


I hope you will take a few moments to visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher to view the selections by other bloggers participating in the 2018 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge this week.

Defending Your Passion

Some people demonstrate a talent early in their lives for what will become their life's work, though it's rarely a straight path.  For too many the trail is fraught with major obstructions, obstructions sometimes decades in the making.  Whether it's of their own choosing or not, a detour is offered and taken.

In fact, this detour seems to be in direct opposition to the earlier displayed ability.  Between the Lines: How Ernie Barnes Went from the Football Field to the Art Gallery (A Paula Wiseman Book, Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, January 28, 2018) written by Sandra Neil Wallace with illustrations by Bryan Collier (Hey Black Child Little, Brown And Company, November 14, 2017) describes the remarkable story of a childhood longing realized through perseverance.  If you hold onto a dream with both hands, you'll have a better chance of making it come true.  This is what Ernie Barnes did.

ERNEST LOVED THE NORTH CAROLINA RAIN.
He waited for the backyard to turn into mud.
Painting mud.  Then Ernest found a stick and painted in the slippery soil.

Believe me, this grabbed ahold of his neighbors' curiosity.  It also garnered the attention of his mother.  She worked as a housekeeper for Mr. Fuller, an attorney in Durham's white section.  When Ernest saw the artwork on the walls of Mr. Fuller's library he knew painting was what he wanted to do.

By the time he was thirteen Ernest was carrying a sketchbook and drawing what he saw in the neighborhood.  Even though the coach at Hillside High wanted him to play football, Ernest wanted to use his hands for making art.  This coach got his way and Ernest became a star player earning him scholarships to more than twenty colleges.  At North Carolina College near Hillside High Ernest studied football and art.

When he wondered what to paint his teacher helped him to focus.

"Art is all around you," Mr. Wilson told Ernest.  "Use what you see.  You catch my drift?"

Ernest was drafted to play professional football in 1959.  After watching the Baltimore Colts play, Ernest went home and painted.  He named it The Bench. Ernest was named Ernie by a news reporter after seeing The Bench which he carried everywhere.  Ernie moved from the Colts to the New American Football League that first year but was cut due to an injury.

Ernie kept his desire to paint alive by working as a door to door salesman and chatting with his customers.  When his hand healed he started to play again but this time he took a sketch pad (small) and pencil with him.  The coach did not appreciate this and fined him.  Did Ernie stop sketching? No, he did not.

By 1964 Ernie knew football needed to be replaced with painting full time.  Ernie's plan for success was a marvel.  He never forgot where he started as evidenced by how he framed his work.  His accomplishments are a beacon and an inspiration for us all but certainly for the children who view his work and read this book.


Sharing pertinent details with readers found through her painstaking research, Sandra Neil Wallace takes us into the world of Ernie Barnes's childhood, teen years, college and adulthood.  With each page turn, by selecting and placing direct quotations within her narrative, Sandra Neil Wallace increases our understanding of this man.  Her carefully chosen words breathe life into every depicted situation.  It's as if we are there with Ernie Barnes.  Here is a passage.

Back home the sideline images still swirled in Ernest's mind.  Jersey numbers, bruising cobalt blue.  Referee calls, roaring crimson red.  Sharp shoulders draped in goalpost white.  Everything was so clear that Ernest didn't draw it in his sketchbook.  He stretched out a canvas, reached for a palette knife, and painted.  Quickly. Before the image had disappeared from his mind, he'd created his first football painting.  He called it The Bench.  Ernest decided that he'd never part with it.


Those piercing, sincere eyes of Ernie Barnes looking right at readers surely get your attention.  Upon closer inspection of the matching, opened dust jacket and book case, you can see portions of his life and his framed art above his left and right shoulders.  To the left, on the back, framed in wooden fencing on the top and bottom is a close-up of Ernie's hands holding paint brushes in front of stretched canvases.  In the right-hand, lower corner is a yellow football helmet resting on its top.

The opening and closing endpapers are a lively, spring green.  With the first turn of the pages we come to the initial title page.  Now those paint brushes are being held together inside the helmet.  The fencing is used as a background here and on the formal title and verso pages for the text.

Eighteen moving, stunning illustrations spanning two pages each, rendered in watercolor and collage by Bryan Collier, envelope you in the life of Ernie Barnes.  It's like walking through a gallery, hushed voices speaking in admiration at what is revealed.  Bryan Collier's color choices and his perspectives represent and elevate each scene described by Sandra Neil Wallace.  With his placement of the elements in his illustrations we are drawn to a focal point.

Mr. Collier's use of light and shadow is excellent, especially in the facial features of the people.  Each picture is emotionally charged.  We feel longing, desire, acceptance, determination, understanding and victory.  We are uplifted.

One of my many favorite illustrations is when Ernest returns home after viewing the Colts game prior to the beginning of training.  It is a brilliant blend of the stadium filled with people, players moving and bending with each play like ballet dancers, and a referee standing guard.  Within this collage Bryan Collier has put Ernest on the right, his hands outstretched holding a canvas and palette.  His right elbow crosses the gutter.  It's a mix of artistic calm and measured tumult.


You will be unable to read Between the Lines:  How Ernie Barnes Went from the Football Field to the Art Gallery written by Sandra Neil Wallace with illustrations by Bryan Collier only once.  It invites you to revisit each page absorbing the truth of the words and the beauty of the illustrations.  I highly recommend this outstanding picture book biography for your professional and personal collections.  At the close of the book are an author's note, an illustrator's note, an extensive bibliography, quote sources and additional resources.

To learn more about Sandra Neil Wallace and Bryan Collier and their other work, please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  At the publisher's website you can view six interior illustrations. Please enjoy this video with Bryan Collier speaking about the process for this book.



Don't miss visiting Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher, this past week.  There you can view the other titles selected by those participating in the 2018 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.