Me, Frida
10 best books like Me, Frida (Amy Novesky): Sojourner Truth's Step-Stomp Stride, Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow: a Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix, Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya, Eleanor, Quiet No More, Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People, The House Baba Built: An Artist's Childhood in China, For the Love of Music: The Remarkable Story of Maria Anna Mozart, She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story, Frida
| Author | Andrea Davis Pinkney |
| ISBN | 0786807679 |
Born into slavery, Belle had to endure the cruelty of several masters before she escaped to freedom. But she knew she wouldn't really be free unless she was helping to end injustice. That's when she changed her name to Sojourner and began traveling across the country, demanding equal rights for black...
| Author | Gary Golio |
| ISBN | 0618852794 |
Jimi Hendrix was many things: a superstar, a rebel, a hero, an innovator. But first, he was a boy named Jimmy who loved to draw and paint and listen to records. A boy who played air guitar with a broomstick and longed for a real guitar of his own. A boy who asked himself a question: Could someone paint pictures...
| Author | Kathleen Krull |
| ISBN | 0152014373 |
Cesar Chavez is known as one of America's greatest civil rights leaders. When he led a 340-mile peaceful protest march through California, he ignited a cause and improved the lives of thousands of migrant farmworkers. But Cesar wasn't always a leader. As a boy, he was shy and teased at school. His family...
Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya
| Author | Donna Jo Napoli |
| ISBN | 1416935053 |
“Nelson’s pictures, a jaw-dropping union of African textiles collaged with oil paintings, brilliantly capture the villagers’ clothing and the greening landscape…This is, in a word, stunning.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Nelson’s (We Are the Ship) breathtaking...
| Author | Doreen Rappaport |
| ISBN | 0786851414 |
Eleanor Roosevelt was raised in a privileged but stern Victorian household, with an affectionate but mostly absent father and a critical mother who made fun of her daughter's looks. Alone and lonely for much of her childhood, Eleanor found solace in books and in the life of her lively and independent...
Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People
Once there was a little boy named Neftalí who loved wild things wildly and quiet things quietly. From the moment he could talk, he surrounded himself with words. Neftalí discovered the magic between the pages of books. When he was sixteen, he began publishing his poems as Pablo Neruda.
Pablo...
| Author | Ed Young |
| ISBN | 0316076287 |
I knew nothing could happen to us within those walls, in the house Baba built.
In Ed Young's childhood home in Shanghai, all was not as it seemed: a rocking chair became a horse; a roof became a roller rink; an empty swimming pool became a place for riding scooters and bikes. The house his father...
For the Love of Music: The Remarkable Story of Maria Anna Mozart
| Author | Elizabeth Rusch |
| ISBN | 1582463263 |
By the time she was 12, she was considered one of the finest pianists in Europe, but today few people know her name. Maria Mozart, like her famous brother Wolfgang, was a musical prodigy. The talented siblings toured Europe, playing before kings and empresses, were showered with gifts and favors, and...
She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story
| Author | Audrey Vernick |
| ISBN | 0061349208 |
"A wonderful picture book biography. Little girls will be inspired."*
Effa always loved baseball. As a young woman, she would go to Yankee Stadium just to see Babe Ruth’s mighty swing. But she never dreamed she would someday own a baseball team. Or be the first—and only—woman ever inducted...
| Author | Jonah Winter |
| ISBN | 0590203207 |
When her mother was worn out from caring for her five sisters, her father gave her lessons in brushwork and color. When polio kept her bedridden for nine months, drawing saved her from boredom. When a bus accident left her in unimaginable agony, her paintings expressed her pain and depression - and eventually,...
| Author | Duncan Tonatiuh |
| ISBN | 0810997312 |
This charming book introduces one of the most popular artists of the twentieth century, Diego Rivera, to young readers. It tells the story of Diego as a young, mischievous boy who demonstrated a clear passion for art and then went on to become one of the most famous painters in the world.
Duncan...
| Author | Don Tate |
| ISBN | 1600602606 |
Growing up as an enslaved boy on an Alabama cotton farm, Bill Traylor worked all day in the hot fields. When slavery ended, Bill's family stayed on the farm as sharecroppers. There Bill grew to manhood, raised his own family, and cared for the land and his animals.
By 1935 Bill was eighty-one and...
| Author | Matt Tavares |
| ISBN | 0763632244 |
Matt Tavares hits one out of the park with this powerful tale of a kid from the segregated south who would become baseball’s home-run king.
Before he was Hammerin’ Hank, Henry Aaron was a young boy grow ing up in Mobile, Alabama, with what seemed like a foolhardy dream: to be a big-league baseball...
| Author | Carmen T. Bernier-Grand |
| ISBN | 0761453830 |
Carmen T. Bernier-Grand's inspiring free verse and David Diaz's vivid paintings capture the defining moments and emotions of Diego Rivera's tumultuous life, including his stormy relationship with artist Frida Kahlo and his passion for his art. Rivera's energy, physique, love for women, and work...
| Author | Gary D. Schmidt |
| ISBN | 0547612184 |
2013 Pura Belpre Award for Illustration
As the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a former slave, Martin de Porres was born into extreme poverty. Even so, his mother begged the church fathers to allow him into the priesthood. Instead, Martin was accepted as a servant boy. But soon, the...
| Author | Tony Johnston |
| ISBN | 0152163301 |
Winner of a 2010 Pura Belpre Illustrator Honor!
Abuelita’s hair is the color of salt. Her face is as crinkled as a dried chile. She booms out words as wild as blossoms blooming. She stuffs her carcacha—her jalopy—with all the things she needs: a plumed snake, a castle, a skeleton, and more....
| Author | Yuyi Morales |
| ISBN | 1596433299 |
THREE-TIME PURA BELPRÉ WINNER
Yuyi Morales takes us on a new journey with Señor Calvera, the skeleton from Day of the Dead celebrations. Señor Calvera is worried. He can’t figure out what to give Grandma Beetle for her birthday. Misunderstanding the advice of Zelmiro the Ghost, Señor...
| Author | Nancy Andrews-Goebel |
| ISBN | 1584300388 |
Juan Quezada is the premier potter in Mexico. With local materials and the primitive methods of the Casas Grandes people -- including using human hair to make brushes and cow manure to feed the flames that fire his pots -- Juan creates stunning pots in the traditional style. Each is a work of art unlike...
| Author | Sue Stauffacher |
| ISBN | 0375944427 |
When Tillie Anderson came to America, all she had was a needle. So she got herself a job in a tailor shop and waited for a dream to find her. One day, a man sped by on a bicycle. She was told "bicycles aren't for ladies," but from then on, Tillie dreamed of riding—not graceful figure eights, but speedy, scorching,...
| Author | Pat Mora |
| ISBN | 1600602584 |
I did not consider Gracias Thanks by Pat Mora with illustrations by John Parra as a “must read” the first, second, or even third time I looked at it. The only reason I kept looking at it was because of the personal respect and expectations I have accumulated for her as an author. I remember the first time...
| Author | Margarita Engle |
| ISBN | 0805089373 |
In the Middle Ages, people believed that insects were evil, born from mud in a process called spontaneous generation. Maria Merian was only a child, but she disagreed. She watched carefully as caterpillars spun themselves cocoons, which opened to reveal summer birds, or butterflies and moths. Maria...
The Cosmobiography of Sun Ra: The Sound of Joy is Enlightening
| Author | Chris Raschka |
| ISBN | 0763658065 |
Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka shares his love of jazz great Sun Ra, just in time to mark the centennial of the musician’s birth.
Jazz musician Sun Ra (1914–1993) always said that he came from Saturn. Being from another planet, he was naturally intrigued by everything earthly — especially...
Harlem's Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills
| Author | Renée Watson |
| ISBN | 0375869735 |
From acclaimed author Renee Watson and Caldecott Honor winner Christian Robinson comes the true story of Florence Mills. Born to parents who were former-slaves Florence knew early on that she loved to sing. And that people really responded to her sweet, bird-like voice. Her dancing and singing catapulted...
