Author: Anastasia Suen

The Elephants Come Home: A True Story of Seven Elephants, Two People, and One Extraordinary Friendship
by Kim Tomsic (Author) and Hadley Hooper (Illustrator)
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Booktalk: One day in 1999, Lawrence Anthony and Françoise Malby hear that a herd of wild African elephants needs a new home. They welcome the elephants to their wildlife sanctuary–Thula Thula–with open arms. But the elephants are much less sure they want to stay. How will Lawrence prove to them that they are safe and loved?

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Out of the Blue: How Animals Evolved from Prehistoric Seas
by Elizabeth Shreeve (Author) and Frann Preston-Gannon (Illustrator)
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Booktalk: Life on Earth emerged “out of the blue.” It began in the vast, empty sea when Earth was young. Single-celled microbes too small to see held the promise of all life-forms to come. Those microbes survived billions of years in restless seas until they began to change, to convert sunlight into energy, to produce oxygen until one day “Gulp!” one cell swallowed another, and the race was on.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Hidden Black History: From Juneteenth to Redlining
by Amanda Jackson Green (Author)
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Booktalk: Many important moments in history have not been taught in schools or explored in the mainstream media. These events often include people of color and involve Black history. Intentional or not, this puts all Americans at a disadvantage. Learn about Black history moments that shaped America, from the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619 to the Freedom Summer of 1964, and read about efforts to reshape how we teach Black history in schools in the 21st century as we prepare for Juneteenth on June 19th.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

And I Paint It: Henriette Wyeth’s World
by Beth Kephart (Author) and Amy June Bates (Illustrator)
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Booktalk: A father and daughter sneak away from their big, busy family to paint in the wild landscape. Together, they paint a lily, bright and white as a star; the green growing into the cap of a strawberry; the blue in the sky running pink. Henriette’s father is N.C. Wyeth, the famous artist, who encourages her to paint what she sees, to awaken into her dreams, and she does, in this picture book inspired by a famous American family of artists.

Snippet:
So that it’s only Pa and it’s only me,
sensing deeply, like Pa says.
Looking. Seeing. Smelling the air
and the earth,
and the turpentine,
and also that flower.

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

The People’s Painter: How Ben Shahn Fought for Justice with Art
by Cynthia Levinson (Author) and Evan Turk (Illustrator)
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Booktalk: As a child growing up in Lithuania, Ben Shahn yearns to draw everything he sees–and, after seeing his father banished by the Czar for demanding workers’ rights, he develops a keen sense of justice, too. So when Ben and the rest of his family make their way to America, Ben brings both his sharp artistic eye and his desire to fight for what’s right. As he grows, he speaks for justice through his art–by disarming classmates who bully him because he’s Jewish, by defying his teachers’ insistence that he paint beautiful landscapes rather than true stories, by urging the US government to pass Depression-era laws to help people find food and jobs.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

A Shot in the Arm!: Big Ideas that Changed the World
by Don Brown (Author / Illustrator)
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Booktalk: Explore the history of vaccinations and the struggle to protect people from infectious diseases, from smallpox–perhaps humankind’s greatest affliction to date–to the COVID-19 pandemic in this nonfiction graphic novel.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Parents Here and There: A Kid’s Guide to Deployment
by Marie-Therese Miller (Author)
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Booktalk: Parents have many different jobs. Some work in the military and are away from home for months or years. When your parent is gone, you miss what you did together. What are some things you can do while they are gone?

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

On Wings of Words: The Extraordinary Life of Emily Dickinson
by Jennifer Berne (Author) and Becca Stadtlander (Illustrator)
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Booktalk: In a small New England town lives Emily Dickinson, a girl in love with small things–a flower petal, a bird, a ray of light, a word. In those small things, her brilliant imagination can see the wide world–and in her words, she takes wing.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Wilderness
by John Muir (Author) and Giovanni Manna (Illustrator)
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Booktalk: A collection of some of John Muir’s most memorable and inspirational words reminds us of a shared responsibility and inescapable bond–that all inhabitants of this planet “travel the Milky Way together.”

Snippet: The sun shines not on us but in us.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Science and Me: Inspired by the Discoveries of Nobel Prize Laureates in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine
by Ali Winter (Author) and Mickael El Fathi (Illustrator)
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Booktalk: Discover some of the inspirational men and women who have received Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine from 1901 to the present day, among them Marie Curie, Hermann Joseph Muller, and Donna Strickland.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2021 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.