Grades 9-12
Ages 14+
This is the true story of how four African American women helped achieve some of the greatest of NASA’s moments through their works in mathematics. These four women were Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden. They were a part of a group of people called “computers,” who calculated the math needed with pencils and adding machines. Through their work, they were able to launch rockets and astronauts into space. Don’t miss the movie adaptation of their story, staring Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer.
Grades 1-4
An accident caused Louis Braille to lose his sight at five years old. Braille was desperate to live like everyone else, and most of all, missed the ability to read books. When he discovered that even the school for the blind in Paris didn’t have books for him to read, he created his own system using only 6 dots so that he was able to feel the words with his fingers and was finally able to read. The story is written in first person, as if Braille is actually narrating his own biography, and it is simple enough for children to read on their own.
Grades 3-6
This is a great book for kids about vegetarianism! It speaks to the kids who might not be vegetarians, but are thinking about it, as well as vegans and pescatarians. I thought it explains why abstaining from eating meat is good for your health as well as the environment. It even explains why some religions don’t eat certain meats, or prepare it a certain way. This is a great one for any collection!
Thanks to Netgalley.com for a review copy of this book.
Ages 14+
Grumpy Cat loves the word no as well as all negative things. She wants to tell everyone about her least favorite things, and how to say no to everything. She is on a mission to let the world know how much she loves the word “no.”
Grades 5-8
Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton presents and explains today’s toughest challenges we face in today’s world for young readers. This includes poverty, hunger, education, gender equality and climate change. She cites various statistics and provides resources for kids to get involved in order to quell these challenges. This is a great book for kids to understand what’s going on in the world around them and motivates them to do something about it.
Ages 18+
Psychiatrist Dr. Lisa Damour has created a guide for parents with daughters so that they can help their teen develop into a well-rounded adult. She gives realistic examples of trials parents have gone through with their daughters, which serve as excellent examples of how to deal with teens on a day-to-day basis. The book is broken up into seven parts, including: Parting with Childhood, Contending with Adult Authority, Entering the Romantic World, and Caring for Herself. The aim of the book is to help parents understand and guide their daughters from adolescence to adulthood.
Grades 3-6
Misuzu Kaneko was a children’s poet in the early 1900s whose work was quickly forgotten after her premature death. Now, years later, it is rediscovered in the wake of the devastating tsunami of 2011. Jacobson brings her poems back to life in this book after connecting with Kaneko’s brother, and they are presented in Japanese and English.
Ages 18+
This book is the encouraging story of how Nadia Lopez, a life long educator, opened and became the principal of her own Brooklyn school. She was inspired by her students to create the school, and suddenly found herself in the national spotlight while she met with President Obama and the beneficiary behind a campaign to fund the school. All it took was one post on the popular site Humans of New York for her to get noticed. This book is the story of how Mott Hall Bridges Academy came to be.
Ages 14+
Wisler chronicles Hamilton’s life by taking lessons and advice that we can learn from everything he did and the way he lived his own life. Hamilton was a scrappy orphan who had an insatiable hunger for learning. He read everything he could get his hands on, and then he wrote as much as he could. Helping win the Revolutionary War, ratifying the Constitution and creating the country’s financial system were just some of the things that Alexander Hamilton accomplished. Wisler explains Hamilton’s basic maxims, as Hamilton liked to say, for anyone who wants success in money, romance or a good fight. Hamilton was a man before his time, and people of all generations will learn from him for years to come.
Michelle’s Bookish Life 