“Sound sorcerer” John Cage composed music, but he also made space—space to listen to what exists between the notes of a song. He delighted in and utilized ambient noise, the small sounds of everyday living, letting his audience find the sounds behind the silence. “Sounds within silence / silence in noise / music in both / life within all.”
Informational
Black Hands: Builders of Our Nation
Weatherford traces the impact of Black effort and achievement on U.S. history and culture in this powerful picture book utilizing the refrain “Black hands.”
Puffins!
Follow the journey of a puffin family on Maine’s Eastern Egg Rock Island in this joyful, appealing nonfiction picture book. Puffin mates meet, and Mother Puffin lays a single egg while Father Puffin patrols the burrow.
Houdini’s Library: How Books Created the World’s Greatest Magician
Harry Houdini’s astonishing magic tricks and escape acts enchanted and thrilled audiences the world over. Houdini himself, though, found magic in something more commonplace: books.
Loudmouth: Emma Goldman vs. America (A Love Story)
This luminous biography of Jewish activist and anarchist Emma Goldman spotlights her turn-of-the-century activism while highlighting contemporary issues.
Ablaze: The Story of America’s First Female Smokejumper
Deanne Shulman’s childhood love of nature became a passion for fighting wildfires with the U.S. Forest Service when she was an adult. The work was physically and mentally arduous, but Deanne excelled as a member of wildland crews and hotshot crews, working twenty-four-hour days in extreme heat.
My Presentation Today Is About the Anaconda
A series of oral reports on animals is delivered by other animals in a fiction/nonfiction hybrid that is equal parts hilarious and informative.
I Am We: How Crows Come Together to Survive
“[W]hen winter comes / and hunger thrums / and danger hovers overhead—” it’s roosting time for the murder of American crows that narrates this poetic informational picture book.
American Spirits: The Famous Fox Sisters and the Mysterious Fad that Haunted a Nation
A prank blossoms into a nationwide phenomenon in this meticulously researched account of two acclaimed spiritualists. In Hydesville, New York, in 1848, unexplained rapping noises in the Fox family home, interpreted as messages from a murdered peddler buried in the cellar, draw widespread attention. Maggie (14) and Kate (11) are the only ones able to communicate with the spirit.
Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa
“Up and down the crooked spine of the / Andes goes Alberto, playing an epic / game of paka paka con la papa, / potato hide-and-seek.” A delightful picture book about Peruvian scientist Alberto Salas describes his travels around the Andes collecting potatoes.