Special Collections
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Winners
Description: The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal is awarded annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published in the United States in English during the preceding year. #award
- Table View
- List View
Summertime Sleepers
by Melissa Stewart and Sarah BrannenA 2022 Robert F. Sibert Honor BookEveryone knows about animals that hibernate in the winter. But it's time to discover animals that sleep all summer long!
All science classrooms discuss animals that hibernate during winter months, but few know about animals that estivate—a prolonged sleep during hot or dry periods. Dual layers of text awaken readers to the reasons estivating animals become dormant—whether it's because warm weather threatens food supply or to avoid increased body temperatures. From the ladybug to the salamander, from the lungfish to the desert hedgehog, twelve estivating animals and their habits—both when sleeping and awake—are explained through clear text and elegant watercolor illustrations that create a scrapbook feel.
Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.
We Are Still Here!
by Traci SorellTwelve Native American kids present historical and contemporary laws, policies, struggles, and victories in Native life, each with a powerful refrain: We are still here!
Too often, Native American history is treated as a finished chapter instead of relevant and ongoing. This companion book to the award-winning We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga offers readers everything they never learned in school about Native American people's past, present, and future. Precise, lyrical writing presents topics including: forced assimilation (such as boarding schools), land allotment and Native tribal reorganization, termination (the US government not recognizing tribes as nations), Native urban relocation (from reservations), self-determination (tribal self-empowerment), Native civil rights, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), religious freedom, economic development (including casino development), Native language revival efforts, cultural persistence, and nationhood.
Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.
Fallout
by Steve SheinkinNew York Times bestselling author Steve Sheinkin presents a follow up to his award-winning book Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, taking readers on a terrifying journey into the Cold War and our mutual assured destruction.
As World War II comes to a close, the United States and the Soviet Union emerge as the two greatest world powers on extreme opposites of the political spectrum. After the United States showed its hand with the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, the Soviets refuse to be left behind.
With communism sweeping the globe, the two nations begin a neck-and-neck competition to build even more destructive bombs and conquer the Space Race. In their battle for dominance, spy planes fly above, armed submarines swim deep below, and undercover agents meet in the dead of night.The Cold War game grows more precarious as weapons are pointed towards each other, with fingers literally on the trigger. The decades-long showdown culminates in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world's close call with the third—and final—world war.
The Tower of Life
by Chana StiefelA moving biography of the woman who created The Tower of Life, a powerful exhibit at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
There once was a girl named Yaffa. She loved her family, her home, and her beautiful Polish town that brimmed with light and laughter. She also loved helping her Grandma Alte in her photography studio. There, shopkeepers, brides, babies, and bar mitzvah boys posed while Grandma Alte captured their most joyous moments on film. And before the Jewish New Year, they sent their precious photographs to relatives overseas with wishes for good health and happiness. But one dark day, Nazi soldiers invaded the town. Nearly 3,500 Jewish souls—including family, friends, and neighbors of Yaffa—were erased.
This is the stunning true story of how Yaffa made it her life's mission to recover thousands of her town's photographs from around the world. Using these photos, she built her amazing TOWER OF LIFE, a permanent exhibit in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, to restore the soaring spirit of Eishyshok.
Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.
Sweet Justice
by Mara RockliffAn inspiring picture-book biography about the woman whose cooking helped feed and fund the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956, from an award-winning illustrator.
Georgia Gilmore was cooking when she heard the news Mrs. Rosa Parks had been arrested--pulled off a city bus and thrown in jail all because she wouldn't let a white man take her seat. To protest, the radio urged everyone to stay off city buses for one day: December 5, 1955. Throughout the boycott—at Holt Street Baptist Church meetings led by a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr.—and throughout the struggle for justice, Georgia served up her mouth-watering fried chicken, her spicy collard greens, and her sweet potato pie, eventually selling them to raise money to help the cause.
Here is the vibrant true story of a hidden figure of the civil rights movement, told in flavorful language by a picture-book master, and stunningly illustrated by a Caldecott Honor recipient and seven-time Coretta Scott King award-winning artist.
Choosing Brave
by Angela JoyA picture book biography of the mother of Emmett Till, and how she channeled grief over her son's death into a call to action for the civil rights movement.
Mamie Till-Mobley is the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy who was brutally murdered while visiting the South in 1955. His death became a rallying point for the civil rights movement, but few know that it was his mother who was the catalyst for bringing his name to the forefront of history.
In Choosing Brave, Angela Joy and Janelle Washington offer a testament to the power of love, the bond of motherhood, and one woman's unwavering advocacy for justice. It is a poised, moving work about a woman who refocused her unimaginable grief into action for the greater good. Mamie fearlessly refused to allow America to turn away from what happened to her only child. She turned pain into change that ensured her son's life mattered.
Timely, powerful, and beautifully told, this thorough and moving story has been masterfully crafted to be both comprehensive and suitable for younger readers.
How We Got to the Moon
by John RoccoLONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDThis beautifully illustrated, oversized guide to the people and technology of the moon landing by award-winning author/illustrator John Rocco (illustrator of the Percy Jackson series) is a must-have for space fans, classrooms, and tech geeks.Everyone knows of Neil Armstrong's famous first steps on the moon. But what did it really take to get us there? The Moon landing is one of the most ambitious, thrilling, and dangerous ventures in human history. This exquisitely researched and illustrated book tells the stories of the 400,000 unsung heroes--the engineers, mathematicians, seamstresses, welders, and factory workers--and their innovations and life-changing technological leaps forward that allowed NASA to achieve this unparalleled accomplishment.From the shocking launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik to the triumphant splashdown of Apollo 11, Caldecott Honor winner John Rocco answers every possible question about this world-altering mission. Each challenging step in the space race is revealed, examined, and displayed through stunning diagrams, experiments, moments of crisis, and unforgettable human stories.Explorers of all ages will want to pore over every page in this comprehensive chronicle detailing the grandest human adventure of all time!
Ordinary Hazards
by Nikki GrimesNikki Grimes discovered the power of writing at the tender age of six, when, alone in her room, she poured her fears, anger, and tears onto a piece of paper--and felt sweet relief. Words and faith were her most enduring companions as life flung her headlong from one harrowing experience to the next through her childhood and teenage years. Words, spilled into notebook after notebook, kept her moving forward. Words turned what might have been into what could be. In the course of this remarkable memoir in verse, Nikki Grimes shows how grace, wisdom, and the power of words can help a brave soul conquer the hazards--ordinary and extraordinary--of life. NIKKI GRIMES received the 2017 Children's Literature Legacy Award for substantial and lasting contributions to literature for children. Her books include the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award-winning Words with Wings; the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book One Last Word; the groundbreaking best seller Bronx Masquerade; and Garvey's Choice. She lives in Corona, California.
Ordinary Hazards
by Nikki GrimmesA Michael L. Printz Honor BookA Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor BookArnold Adoff Poetry Award for TeensSix Starred Reviews -- ★Booklist ★BCCB ★The Horn Book ★Publishers Weekly ★School Library Connection ★Shelf AwarenessA Booklist Best Book for Youth * A BCCB Blue Ribbon * A Horn Book Fanfare Book * A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book * Recommended on NPR's "Morning Edition" by Kwame Alexander"This powerful story, told with the music of poetry and the blade of truth, will help your heart grow."--Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak and Shout"[A] testimony and a triumph."--Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way DownIn her own voice, acclaimed author and poet Nikki Grimes explores the truth of a harrowing childhood in a compelling and moving memoir in verse.Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.
This Promise of Change
by Jo Ann Allen; Debbie LevyAt first things went smoothly for the Clinton 12, but then outside agitators interfered, pitting the townspeople against one another. Uneasiness turned into anger, and even the Clinton Twelve themselves wondered if the easier thing to do would be to go back to their old school. Jo Ann--clear-eyed, practical, tolerant, and popular among both black and white students---found herself called on as the spokesperson of the group.
All in a Drop
by Lori AlexanderFor fans of the "Who Was" series, this lively, accessible, and full-color chapter book biography shows how a self-taught scientist was the first to observe the microbial life in and around us. By building his own microscope, Antony van Leeuwenhoek advanced humanity's understanding of our oft-invisible world around us. Microbes are everywhere: in the soil and oceans, in snow, and inside our bodies. But in Antony van Leeuwenhoek’s time, people believed that what they saw with their own eyes was all that existed in the world. How did a simple tradesman—who didn’t go to college or speak English or Latin like all the other scientists—change everyone’s minds? Proving that remarkable discoveries can come from the most unexpected people and places, this eye-opening chapter book, illustrated with lively full-color art, celebrates the power of curiosity, ingenuity, and persistence.
Spooked!
by Gail JarrowAcclaimed author Gail Jarrow explores in riveting detail the famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast from 1938, in this nonfiction title.
Jarrow highlights the artists behind the broadcast, the broadcast itself, the aftermath, and the repercussions which remain relevant today.
On the night of October 30, 1938, thousands of Americans panicked when they believed that Martians had invaded Earth.
What appeared to be breaking news about an alien invasion was, in fact, a radio drama based on H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, performed by Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre players.
Some listeners became angry once they realized they had been tricked, and the reaction to the broadcast sparked a national discussion about fake news, propaganda, and the role of radio.
Archival photographs and images, as well as an author’s note, timeline, bibliography, and index round out this stellar nonfiction title.
Camp Panda
by Catherine ThimmeshFrom the Sibert medal winning author of TEAM MOON and the bestselling GIRLS THINK OF EVERYTHING comes a riveting, timely account of panda conservation efforts in China, perfect for budding environmentalists and activists.
Roughly a thousand years ago, an estimated 23,000 pandas roamed wild and free through their native China. But within the past forty years, more than fifty percent of the panda’s already shrinking habitat has been destroyed by humans, leaving the beautiful and beloved giant panda vulnerable to extinction.
Despite the seemingly insurmountable odds—poaching, habitat destruction, pollution, human overpopulation, and global climate change—the panda is making a comeback. How? By humans teaching baby pandas how to be wild and stay wild.
Brown Girl Dreaming
by Jacqueline WoodsonJaqueline Woodson is the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
A President Obama "O" Book Club pick
A Coretta Scott King Award Winner
A New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award and Newbery Honor Book
Jacqueline Woodson, the acclaimed author of Another Brooklyn, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement.
Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.
Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom
by Susan Buckley and Lynda Blackmon Lowery and Elspeth Leacock and Pj LoughranA memoir of the Civil Rights Movement from one of its youngest heroes
As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Albama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed eleven times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today's young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history.
Straightforward and inspiring, this beautifully illustrated memoir brings readers into the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, complementing Common Core classroom learning and bringing history alive for young readers.
Winner of the Sibert Honor
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winner
The Family Romanov
by Candace Fleming"Marrying the intimate family portrait of Heiligman's Charles and Emma with the politics and intrigue of Sheinkin's Bomb, Fleming has outdone herself with this riveting work of narrative nonfiction that appeals to the imagination as much as the intellect." --The Horn Book, StarredFrom the acclaimed author of Amelia Lost and The Lincolns comes a heartrending narrative nonfiction page-turner--and a perfect resource for meeting Common Core standards. When Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, inherited the throne in 1894, he was unprepared to do so. With their four daughters (including Anastasia) and only son, a hemophiliac, Nicholas and his reclusive wife, Alexandra, buried their heads in the sand, living a life of opulence as World War I raged outside their door and political unrest grew into the Russian Revolution.Deftly maneuvering between the lives of the Romanovs and the plight of Russia's peasants and urban workers--and their eventual uprising--Fleming offers up a fascinating portrait, complete with inserts featuring period photographs and compelling primary-source material that brings it all to life."An exhilarating narrative history of a doomed and clueless family and empire." --Jim Murphy, author of Newbery Honor Books An American Plague and The Great Fire"For readers who regard history as dull, Fleming's extraordinary book is proof positive that, on the contrary, it is endlessly fascinating, absorbing as any novel, and the stuff of an altogether memorable reading experience." --Booklist, Starred
Winner of the Sibert Honor
When Marian Sang
by Pam Muñoz RyanAn introduction to the life of Marian Anderson, extraordinary singer and the first African American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera, whose life and career encouraged social change.
Winner of the Sibert Honor
Sequoyah
by James RumfordThe story of Sequoyah is the tale of an ordinary man with an extraordinary idea-to create a writing system for the Cherokee Indians and turn his people into a nation of readers and writers. The task he set for himself was daunting.
Sequoyah knew no English and had no idea how to capture speech on paper.
But slowly and painstakingly, ignoring the hoots and jibes of his neighbors and friends, he worked out a system that surprised the Cherokee Nation-and the world of the 1820s-with its beauty and simplicity.
James Rumford's Sequoyah is a poem to celebrate literacy, a song of a people's struggle to stand tall and proud.
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Honor Award.
The Longitude Prize
by Joan DashBy the start of the eighteenth century, many thousands of sailors had perished at sea because their captains had no way of knowing longitude, their east-west location. Latitude, the north-south position, was easy enough, but once out of sight of land not even the most experienced navigator had a sure method of fixing longitude. So the British Parliament offered a substantial monetary prize to whoever could invent a device to determine exact longitude at sea. Many of the world's greatest minds tried -- and failed -- to come up with a solution. Instead, it was a country clockmaker named John Harrison who would invent a clock that could survive wild seas and be used to calculate longitude accurately. But in an aristocratic society, the road to acceptance was not a smooth one, and even when Harrison produced not one but five elegant, seaworthy timekeepers, each an improvement on the one that preceded it, claiming the prize was another battle. Set in an exciting historical framework -- telling of shipwrecks and politics -- this is the story of one man's creative vision, his persistence against great odds, and his lifelong fight for recognition of a brilliant invention.
[This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 9-10 at http://www.corestandards.org.]
Winner of the Sibert Honor
Titanic
by Deborah HopkinsonCritically acclaimed nonfiction author Deborah Hopkinson pieces together the story of the TITANIC and that fateful April night, drawing on the voices of survivors and archival photographs.
Scheduled to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the tragic sinking of the TITANIC, a topic that continues to haunt and thrill readers to this day, this book by critically acclaimed author Deborah Hopkinson weaves together the voices and stories of real TITANIC survivors and witnesses to the disaster -- from the stewardess Violet Jessop to Captain Arthur Rostron of the CARPATHIA, who came to the rescue of the sinking ship. Packed with heartstopping action, devastating drama, fascinating historical details, loads of archival photographs on almost every page, and quotes from primary sources, this gripping story, which follows the TITANIC and its passengers from the ship's celebrated launch at Belfast to her cataclysmic icy end, is sure to thrill and move readers.
Winner of the Sibert Honor
Walt Whitman
by Barbara Kerley and Brian SelznickThe pioneering team that brought you the Caldecott Honor-winning THE DINOSAURS OF WATERHOUSE HAWKINS focuses their remarkable skills and vision on Walt Whitman--poet, American, Civil War hero. Did you know that poet Walt Whitman was also a Civil War nurse? Devastated by his country dividing and compelled to service by his brother's war injury, Walt nursed all soldiers-Union & Confederate, black & white. By getting to know them through many intense and affecting experiences, he began to see a greater life purpose: His writing could give these men a voice, & in turn, achieve his greatest aspiration--to capture the true spirit of America. Dramatic, powerful, & deeply moving, this consummate portrait of Whitman will inspire readers to pick up their pens & open their hearts to humanity.
Winner of the Sibert Honor
Claudette Colvin
by Phillip M. Hoose"When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can't sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'" - Claudette Colvin
On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South. Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, skillfully weaving her dramatic story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history.
Claudette Colvin is the 2009 National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature, a 2010 Newbery Honor Book, a Sibert Honor book, and a Jane Addams Honor book.
Locomotive
by Brian FlocaIt is the summer of 1869, and trains, crews, and family are traveling together, riding America's brand-new transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with the details of the trip and the sounds, speed, and strength of the mighty locomotives; the work that keeps them moving; and the thrill of travel from plains to mountain to ocean.
Come hear the hiss of the steam, feel the heat of the engine, watch the landscape race by. Come ride the rails, come cross the young country!
The Caldecott Medal Winner, Sibert Honor Book, and New York Times bestseller Locomotive is a rich and detailed sensory exploration of America's early railroads, from the creator of the "stunning" (Booklist) Moonshot.
Lafayette and the American Revolution
by Russell FreedmanWhen the Marquis de Lafayette ran off to join the American Revolution, he was a strong-willed nineteen-year-old who had never set foot on a battlefield. He was also one of the richest men in France. Determined to prove his mettle, he defied his family and even the king of France with his actions. Although at first Lafayette was granted an honorary commission out of deference for his title and wealth, he quickly earned the respect of his fellow officers with his courage, devotion to liberty, and unstoppable drive. He joined Washington during the difficult winter at Valley Forge and won the first president's lifelong friendship. Playing a pivotal role in the conflict, Lafayette persuaded the French government to send troops and ships as reinforcements for the Americans, negotiated crucial pacts with the Iroquois Six Nations, and helped lead troops to victory at Yorktown. Russell Freedman's thrilling account tells the story of an adventurer who made history before he was even out of his teens.
Winner of the Sibert Honor
Josephine
by Christian Robinson and Patricia Hruby PowellIn exuberant verse and stirring pictures, Patricia Hruby Powell and Christian Robinson create an extraordinary portrait of the passionate performer and civil rights advocate Josephine Baker, the woman who worked her way from the slums of St. Louis to the grandest stages in the world. Meticulously researched by both author and artist, Josephine's powerful story of struggle and triumph is an inspiration and a spectacle, just like the legend herself.
Winner of the Sibert Honor