Music Was IT: Young Leonard Bernstein
10 best books like Music Was IT: Young Leonard Bernstein (Susan Goldman Rubin): Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane, Dizzy, The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery, Eleanor, Quiet No More, Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition, Never Forgotten, The House Baba Built: An Artist's Childhood in China, Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing, The Dark Game: True Spy Stories from Invisible Ink to CIA Moles, Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali
| Author | Carole Boston Weatherford |
| ISBN | 0805079947 |
Young John Coltrane was all ears. And there was a lot to hear growing up in the South in the 1930s: preachers praying, music on the radio, the bustling of the household. These vivid noises shaped John's own sound as a musician. Carole Boston Weatherford and Sean Qualls have composed an amazingly rich hymn...
| Author | Jonah Winter |
| ISBN | 0439507375 |
This is a true story about a famous musician playing his horn, he went by the name of dizzy. Dizzy was a tiny boy so would get picked on by other kid because of it, he hated being billed so he would actually fight a lot he didn't matter that he was small he stood his ground. Except for the abuse from his father,...
The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery
| Author | Steve Sheinkin |
| ISBN | 1596434864 |
Most people know that Benedict Arnold was America's first, most notorious traitor. Few know that he was also one of its greatest war heroes. This accessible biography introduces young readers to the real Arnold: reckless, heroic, and driven. Packed with first-person accounts, astonishing battle...
| 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...
It began with the best of intentions. Worried about the effects of alcohol on American families, mothers and civic leaders started a movement to outlaw drinking in public places. Over time, their protests, petitions, and activism paid off—when a Constitional Amendment banning the sale and consumption...
| Author | Patricia C. McKissack |
| ISBN | 0375843841 |
A 2012 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book
"Forceful and iconic," raved Publishers Weekly in a starred review. This gorgeous picture book by Newbery Honor winner Patricia C. McKissack and two-time Caldecott Medal-winning husband-and-wife team Leo and Diane Dillon is sure to become a treasured...
| 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...
| Author | Ann Angel |
| ISBN | 0810983494 |
Forty years after her death, Janis Joplin remains among the most compelling and influential figures in rock-and-roll history. Her story—told here with depth and sensitivity by author Ann Angel—is one of a girl who struggled against rules and limitations, yet worked diligently to improve as...
The Dark Game: True Spy Stories from Invisible Ink to CIA Moles
| Author | Paul B. Janeczko |
| ISBN | 0763629154 |
From clothesline codes to surveillance satellites and cyber espionage, Paul B. Janeczko uncovers two centuries’ worth of true spy stories in U.S. history.
Ever since George Washington used them to help topple the British, spies and their networks have helped and hurt America at key moments...
| Author | Charles R. Smith Jr. |
| ISBN | 0763616923 |
A dynamic author-illustrator team follows the threetime heavyweight champ through twelve rounds of a remarkable life.
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. . . . I’m the prettiest thing that ever lived!"
From the moment a fired-up teenager from Kentucky won 1960 Olympic gold...
| Author | Xavier Garza |
| ISBN | 1933693983 |
Margarito acts like any other eleven-year-old aficionado of lucha libre. He worships all the players. But in the summer just before sixth grade, he tumbles over the railing at a match in San Antonio and makes a connection to the world of Mexican wrestling that will ultimately connect him—maybe by...
When George Ohr's trove of pottery was discovered in 1967, years after his death, his true genius was discovered with it. The world could finally see how unique this artist really was!
Born in 1856 in Biloxi, Mississippi, George grew up to the sounds of the civil war and political unrest.When...
| Author | Caitlin O'Connell |
| ISBN | 0547053444 |
In the sprawling African scrub desert of Etosha National Park, they call her “the mother of all elephants.” Holding binoculars closely to her eyes, American scientist Caitlin O’Connell could not believe what she was seeing from these African elephants: as the mighty matriarch scanned the...
| Author | Robert Andrew Parker |
| ISBN | 0375839658 |
Regardless of whether they’ve heard of jazz or Art Tatum, young readers will appreciate how Parker uses simple, lyrical storytelling and colorful and energetic ink-and-wash illustrations to show the world as young Art Tatum might have seen it. Tatum came from modest beginnings and was nearly...
A Coretta Scott King Honor Award author offers a fresh look at this pioneering American innovator
Shampoo from peanuts? Wallpaper from clay? Ink from sweet potatoes? Discover Carver's imagination and inspiration in this one-of-a-kind biography.
With imagination and intellect,...
| Author | Don Brown |
| ISBN | 1596436948 |
One of School Library Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of 2011
One of Horn Book's Best Nonfiction Books of 2011
On the ten year anniversary of the September 11 tragedy, a straightforward and sensitive book for a generation of readers too young to remember that terrible day.
The...
| Author | Nancy Plain |
| ISBN | 0803248849 |
Birds were “the objects of my greatest delight,” wrote John James Audubon (1785–1851), founder of modern ornithology and one of the world’s greatest bird painters. His masterpiece, The Birds of America depicts almost five hundred North American bird species, each image—lifelike and...
Black and white : the confrontation of Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Connor
| Author | Larry Dane Brimner |
| ISBN | 1590787668 |
In the 1950s and early 60s, Birmingham, Alabama, became known as Bombingham. At the center of this violent time in the fight for civil rights, and standing at opposite ends, were Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene Bull Connor. From his pulpit, Shuttlesworth agitated for racial equality, while...
| Author | Candace Fleming |
| ISBN | 0375841970 |
Discover the true story of P.T. Barnum, the man who created the world-famous Barnum & Bailey Circus, as featured in the movie The Greatest Showman!
The award-winning author of The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary, Amelia Lost, and Our Eleanor brings us the larger-than-life...
Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea, and Air
| Author | Stewart Ross |
| ISBN | 0763649481 |
Drystan - I thought it was great. I would give it 5 stars. My favourite story was about the Appollo 11 moon landing. I liked this best because I can't imagine building a straight, big rocket that would reach the moon. I thought that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin achieved their dream by travelling to the...
Louisa May's Battle: How the Civil War Led to Little Women
| Author | Kathleen Krull |
| ISBN | 0802796680 |
Louisa May Alcott is best known for penning Little Women, but few are aware of the experience that influenced her writing most-her time as a nurse during the Civil War. Caring for soldiers' wounds and writing letters home for them inspired a new realism in her work. When her own letters home were published...
The Great Migration: Journey to the North
| Author | Eloise Greenfield |
| ISBN | 0061259217 |
We were one family among the many thousands. Mama and Daddy leaving home, coming to the city, with their hopes and their courage, their dreams and their children, to make a better life.
When Eloise Greenfield was four months old, her family moved from their home in Parmele, North Carolina, to...
Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way)
| Author | Sue Macy |
| ISBN | 1426307624 |
Take a lively look at women's history from aboard a bicycle, which granted females the freedom of mobility and helped empower women's liberation. Through vintage photographs, advertisements, cartoons, and songs, Wheels of Change transports young readers to bygone eras to see how women used...
Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science
| Author | Marc Aronson |
| ISBN | 0618574921 |
When this award-winning husband-and-wife team discovered that they each had sugar in their family history, they were inspired to trace the globe-spanning story of the sweet substance and to seek out the voices of those who led bitter sugar lives. The trail ran like a bright band from religious ceremonies...
