Picture Books and Common Core
A significant component of the many state standards is the reading non-fiction informational texts across the curriculum. Here are ideas to get you started incorporating non-fiction to support and expand your lessons in English Language Arts. Use these books to help establish context for both fiction and non-fiction readings you plan to assign and study with your students.
Orbis Pictus Award by National Council of Teachers of English for best Non-Fiction Picture Books – See First Place, Honor, and Recommended Titles.
First Place for 2019: A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation Written by Barry Wittenstein and Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney (Holiday House)
First Place for 2018: GRAND CANYON by Jason Chin
First Place for 2017: Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers)
First Place for 2016: Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans by Don Brown (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers)
First Place for 2015: The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming (Schwartz & Wade)
First Place for 2014: A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet (Alfred A. Knopf)
First Place for 2013: Monsieur Marceau: Actor without Words by Leda Schubert illustrated by Gérard DuBois (Roaring Brook Press)
First Place for 2012 : Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet
Below are titles from 2011.
First Place 2011: Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan illustrated by Brian Floca (Roaring Brook Press)
Honor Books for 2011
- Birmingham Sunday by Larry Dane Brimner (Calkins Creek)
- Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift’s “Chocolate Pilot” by Michael O. Tunnell (Charlesbridge)
- If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge by Mark Aronson (National Geographic)
- Journey into the Deep: Discovering New Ocean Creatures by Rebecca L. Johnson (Millbrook Press)
- Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age by Cheryl Bardoe (Abrams Books for Young Readers).
Recommended Books for 2011
- Black Elk’s Vision: A Lakota Story by S.D. Nelson (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
- Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill, illustrated by Bryan Collier (Little, Brown & Company)
- The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Suzy) by Barbara Kerley, illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham (Scholastic Press)
- For Good Measure by Ken Robbins (Roaring Brook Press)
- Henry Aaron’s Dream by Matt Tavares (Candlewick Press)
- Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot by Sy Montgomery, photographs by Nic Bishop (Houghton Mifflin)
- Polar Bears by Mark Newman (Henry Holt and Company)
- They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Houghton Mifflin).
Best in Children’s Nonfiction, The: Reading, Writing, & Teaching Orbis Pictus Award Books. See Paperback (Nov. 2001) by Myra Zarnowski, Richard M. Kerper, and Julie M. Jensen