Pop quiz time: True or false? Nonfiction for kids can be fun.
Go to the head of the class if you answered with a resounding “true.”
Nonfiction may be an acquired taste for young readers. But if the recipe is right, it won’t take long for them to develop an appetite. These eight new nonfiction choices for children – toddler to teens – are a tasty place to start.
Toddlers
Hoping to introduce your bouncing baby to the fine arts at an early age? San Francisco-based publisher Chronicle Books has cut the masters down to size in a series of six thick little board books, each featuring a world- famous painter.
“Sharing With Renoir” and “Sunday With Seurat” ($6.95) offer small but chunky volumes expressly created for tiny hands.
“Sharing with Renoir” features 10 of the artist’s most famous paintings, including “Woman With a Cat” and “Two Girls in Field,” coupled with playful descriptions. “The girl hugs a cat who purrs in her ear,” reads the page opposite “Woman With a Cat.” “Her furry friend is always near.”
“Sunday With Seurat” includes seven images, also with thoughtful captions, including “Line Fisherman,” with this passage: “Fishermen cast their lines and wait for Sunday supper to take their bait.”
Careful selection of kid-friendly paintings and lively text make these beginner books that art-loving families are sure to enjoy sharing from year to year.
Picture books
“Jesus,” written and illustrated by the gifted artist Demi is a short, vibrant exploration of the life of Jesus from angelic announcements to shepherds dozing off in the night to crucifixion and resurrection at the close of his 33 years.
Told through dazzling images and scriptural passages by Demi for Simon & Schuster’s Margaret K. McElderry Books, “Jesus” ($19.95) is a beautiful introduction to the Christian faith, even if, once again, a Westernized Jesus sports a head of golden hair.
Also from Simon & Schuster (Atheneum Books for Young Readers) is “Elephants Can Paint Too!” ($16.95) – pictures and text by Russian educator Katya Arnold, who works with children in Brooklyn, N.Y., and creative elephants in Asia.
“I teach in two schools,” Arnold says on the first page. “One is in the city. The other is in the jungle.”
Thanks to her simple descriptions and her lush, well-crafted photo illustrations, Arnold captures the energy of both her classes as they learn how to clutch brushes and paint.
A portion of the proceeds from “Elephants Can Paint Too!” goes to the Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project, an organization dedicated to saving the dwindling population of Asian elephants.
Middle grades
“Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs” is actually appealing to readers of almost all ages, thanks to the magical paper engineering of Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart. Dinosaurs of every kind pop out of each two-page spread, miniature paper replicas of the real thing.
Publisher Candlewick and even Amazon.com suggest the book for readers ages 4-8. But its fact-filled text and fragile construction (not to mention it’s robust $26.99 price tag) make it better suited for slightly older readers eager to take the next informational step – away from picture books and toward the expanding world of books about things unknown.
Of course, parents willing to share the book with younger readers – and willing to supervise the experience or buy copies of the interactive book – can buy it for dinosaur fans of all ages. But middle-grade paleontologists will appreciate its wonders most.
If you’ve ever wondered if countries around the world have libraries and library cards, “My Librarian Is a Camel,” by Margriet Ruurs and published by Boyds Mills Press (the same team that brings us Highlights for Children), is a picture book created just for you.
Through vivid color photos and intelligent text, Ruurs compares libraries in the United States with those in 13 other nations, including Australia, Indonesia, Kenya and Pakistan. Maps and sidebars give the book a slightly textbook-inspired look. But the intrigue of those pictures – including a floating library at sea and the title’s inspiration, books moved from location to location via camels – help it make the grade.
“My Librarian Is a Camel” ($16.95) is a spunky middle-grade book that’s fun and educational.
Teens
Some teens of the new millennium don’t know who John Lennon was. Most parents of teens will never forget. Elizabeth Partridge’s remarkable photographic biography, “John Lennon: All I Want Is The Truth” (Viking, $24.99) is the perfect way to introduce one of the recent past’s most original musicians and pop-culture figures to a new generation searching for meaningful thoughts.
Moving from his childhood to his life with the Beatles to Lennon’s passionate stance against the Vietnam War and his death at the hands of a madman, Partridge paints a haunting portrait of a person both human and bigger than life. She captures his appeal as a rebel willing to fight for what he believed in and a visionary for peace.
Teen book advocate Richie Partington can see in this volume the spark to fire a new generation from apathy to awareness. “Within its beautiful package,” he writes, “‘John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth’ provides the seeds, the instructions, and the cautionary statements for enacting that change.”
Another powerful work of nonfiction for teens is Carolyn Lehman’s “Strong at the Heart: How It Feels to Heal From Sexual Abuse” (Farrar Straus Giroux, $18, in stores in November.)
Respect is critical in dealing with a subject as painful and frightening as this one. But steering away from the topic can be deadly, in the most urgent sense of the word. According to some reliable statistics, one in three girls will be sexually mistreated before the age of 18, and one in six boys. With those figures in mind, a book like Lehman’s is long overdue.
Nine true stories of survivors of sexual abuse are skillfully told, not by outsiders looking in but by the victims themselves. Heroes, male and female, courageously share their painful memories so other victims won’t have to feel isolated. They share their intimate nightmares so that those of us who have not been victims will at least possess the tools we need to empathize and help.
Kelly Milner Halls lives in Spokane, Wash.
