Author: Anastasia Suen

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The Next President: The Unexpected Beginnings and Unwritten Future of America’s Presidents
by Kate Messner (Author) and Adam Rex (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Who will be the NEXT president? Could it be you? When George Washington became the first president of the United States, there were nine future presidents already alive in America, doing things like practicing law or studying medicine.

When JFK became the thirty-fifth president, there were 10 future presidents already alive in America, doing things like hosting TV shows and learning the saxophone.

And right now–today!–there are at least 10 future presidents alive in America. They could be playing basketball, like Barack Obama, or helping in the garden, like Dwight D. Eisenhower. They could be solving math problems or reading books. They could be making art–or already making change.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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Global Citizenship: Engage in the Politics of a Changing World
by Julie Knutson (Author) and Traci Van Wagoner (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Readers ages 12 to 15 discover the resources and information they need to learn about issues of global concern and strategies for taking informed action, as outlined by the Sustainable Development Goals set in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Each chapter centers on a specific human right defined by the United Nations’ “Convention on the Rights of the Child,” focusing on the political, human, economic, environmental, and cultural guarantees born of our common humanity. Readers learn about the history and evolution of citizenship, about past and ongoing human rights struggles, about economic justice, and about environmental sustainability and the climate protests happening around the world. They also learn about cultural appreciation and preservation in an age of global convergence. All of these issues have major ties to the present and align with the values being described by today’s movements, such as Black Lives Matter, which aims to reduce violence toward Black communities and individuals.

The book also has QR codes that can be accessed with a phone or tablet. A list of the QR code URLs also appears in the Resources at the end of the book.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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Looking Inside Earth
by Martha London (Author)

Booktalk: Explore Earth’s layers from the crust down to the inner core. Learn about tectonic plates, convection currents, Earth’s magnetic field, and more.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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Gridiron: Stories from 100 Years of the National Football League
by Fred Bowen (Author) and James E. Ransome (Illustrator)

Booktalk: The National Football League is the most popular sports league in the United States. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, is watched by millions of people every year. But it wasn’t always like this. In the last one hundred years, football has changed from a poorly organized, often overlooked sport to America’s favorite pastime. Discover the league’s scrappy beginnings in an automobile showroom, and early players like Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost. Relive the very first championship game, played indoors after a circus had visited, and famous games like the Ice Bowl. See the NFL at war, and meet some of the remarkable athletes who helped desegregate the league. Learn how the draft came into existence, and about the teams that strove for that almost impossible goal–a perfect season.

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Hear the author talk about the book.

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Turn and Learn: Our World
by Isabel Otter (Author) and Hannah Tolson (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Explore five of the world’s habitats and use the magic slider to discover amazing adaptations that animals have made to survive. Uncover weird and wonderful plants and learn about the traditions of people from all over our world.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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Every Second: 100 Lightning Strikes, 8,000 Scoops of Ice Cream, 200,000 Text Messages, 1 Million Gallons of Cow Burps … and Other Incredible Things That Happen Each Second Around the World
by Bruno Gibert (Author / Illustrator)

Booktalk: See some of the incredible things that happen each and every second in our world! A unique introduction to numbers and statistics for kids in kindergarten and elementary school.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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A Bowl Full of Peace: A True Story
by Caren Stelson (Author) and Akira Kusaka (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Sachiko’s family home was about half a mile from where the atomic bomb fell on August 9, 1945. Her family experienced devastating loss. When they returned to the rubble where their home once stood, her father miraculously found their serving bowl fully intact. This delicate, green, leaf-shaped bowl–which once held their daily meals–now holds memories of the past and serves as a vessel of hope, peace, and new traditions for Sachiko and the surviving members of her family.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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W is for Welcome: A Celebration of America’s Diversity
by Brad Herzog (Author)

Booktalk: Following the alphabet this book uses poetry and expository text to celebrate America’s diverse population and showcase the remarkable achievements and contributions that have come from the many people who have chosen to make our country their home. Topics include well-known landmarks and institutions (the Statue of Liberty and the White House, our national parks system) and famous citizens whose talents helped make the United States a world leader (Albert Einstein and Madeleine Albright). In addition to celebrating America’s history and development, key concepts such as naturalization and steps to citizenship are explained in easy-to-understand terms for the young reader.

Snippet: Each year millions of people leave their homelands to start new lives in another country. They emigrate from their birth nation and immigrate to a new one. America, in particular, is made up of immigrants and their descendants. Everyone is here because their ancestors “migrated” (moved from one place to another). Some of them, such as the ancestors of Native Americans, migrated to North America very long ago. Many other arrived against their will. For instance, hundreds of thousands of Africans were forced to come here and were enslaved. But over the centuries, the United States has welcomed millions of strangers to its shores.

A is for America
a dreamer’s destination
made up of people who are here
due to immigration.

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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Truth and Honor: The President Ford Story
by Lindsey McDivitt (Author) and Matt Faulkner (Illustrator)

Booktalk: When Gerald Ford became president after the turmoil of the early 70s, Americans were ready for an honest, hardworking politician. And that is just what they got with President Ford. He was a man of integrity and honesty, who cared deeply about all Americans. His life, tougher than some and filled with character-building lessons, had prepared him for the job–from his childhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan to his days on the University of Michigan football team and in the Navy to his many years representing the Great Lakes State in Congress.

Snippet: As a baby in 1913, Junior, as he was called back then, survived stormy times. His mother, Dorothy, escaped her violent husband by clutching her baby close and slipping out the door without even a suitcase. Dorothy fled to Omaha, Nebraska, to her parents, with Junior, then just 16 days old. They all moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to start a new life.

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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North America: A Fold-out Graphic History
by Sarah Albee (Author) and William Exley (Illustrator)

Booktalk: North American history unfolds in this graphic timeline that places the United States, Canadian and Mexican/Caribbean histories in the context of their continent. From healers in the Aleutian islands in 10,000 BCE to the first to cultivate corn in 3,000 BCE in Mexico to Canadian scientists studying butterfly migration in 1975. From the Aztecs of the city of Tenochtitlan to the Mississippians who built Cahokia to the Inuit of the arctic and the Taino of the Caribbean. Then there are Spanish, French, English, and other Europeans who invaded in the 1500s, the enslaved Africans forcibly brought to our shores, and millions more, from all around the world.

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2020 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.