NCTE Orbis Pictis Award Winner
Nina Simone was an icon. Her music was the backdrop for a freedom movement. But before she was Nina Simone, she was Eunice Kathleen Waymon, a prodigy who sang before she could walk and learned to play the piano on her father's knee. But when doors were closed to her because of the color of her skin, she quickly discovered her talent might not be enough to succeed. Nina tucked away the hurt and persevered, finding a way to perform despite the obstacles, and with a voice like soft thunder, she triumphed. But as Nina's career soared, her people were hurting, marching for their very lives. Nina soon joined them, now raising her thunderous voice in powerful protest in the fight against racial inequality and discrimination. She demanded justice. Her voice echoed throughout the nation, changing hearts and minds. Beautifully and lyrically told by debut author Traci N. Todd and brought to stunning and glorious life by Caldecott honoree Christian Robinson, Nina is the stirring and victorious story of little Eunice, who grew up to become the acclaimed singer Nina Simone, and her bold, defiant, and exultant legacy that remains a call to action and a call for hope today. -- From dust jacket.

NCTE Orbis Pictis Award Winner
Much has been written about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1963 March on Washington. But there's little on his legendary speech and how he came to write it. Martin Luther King, Jr. was once asked if the hardest part of preaching was knowing where to begin. No, he said. The hardest part is knowing where to end. "It's terrible to be circling up there without a place to land." Finding this place to land was what Martin Luther King, Jr. struggled with, alongside advisors and fellow speech writers, in the Willard Hotel the night before the March on Washington, where he gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech. But those famous words were never intended to be heard on that day, not even written down for that day, not even once.

NCTE Orbis Pictus Award Winner
Ernie Barnes was an NFL football player who longed to make art. Finally his dream came true. When Ernie Barnes was growing up in North Carolina in the 1940s, he loved to draw. Even when he played as a boy with his friends he drew with a stick in the mud. And he never left home without a sketchbook. He would draw families walking home from church, or the old man on the sofa. He drew what he saw. But in the segregated south, Ernie didn't know how to make a living as an artist. Ernie grew tall and athletic and became a football star. Soon enough the colleges came calling. Still, in his heart Ernie longed to paint. Would that day ever come?

NCTE Orbis PIctis Award Winner
Rivers wind through earth, cutting down and eroding the soil for millions of years, creating a cavity in the ground 277 miles long, 18 miles wide and more an a mile deep known as the Grand Canyon.Home to an astonishing variety of plants and animals that have lived and evolved within its walls for millennia, the Grand Canyon is much more than just a hole in the ground. Follow a father and daughter as they make their way through the cavernous wonder, discovering life both present and past. Weave in and out of time as perfectly placed die cuts show you that a fossil today was a creature much long ago, perhaps in a completely different environment. Complete with a spectacular double gatefold, an intricate map and extensive back matter.

NCTE Orbis Pictis Award Winner
Sweet mixes White's personal letters, photos, and family ephemera with her own exquisite artwork to tell the story of this American literary icon. Readers young and old will be fascinated and inspired by the journalist, New Yorker contributor, and children's book author who loved words his whole life. This authorized tribute, a New York Times bestseller, includes an afterword by Martha White, his granddaughter.

NCTE Orbis Pictis Award Winner
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina's monstrous winds and surging water overwhelmed the protective levees around low-lying New Orleans, Louisiana. Eighty percent of the city flooded, in some places under twenty feet of water. Property damages across the Gulf Coast topped $100 billion. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-three people lost their lives. The riveting tale of this historic storm and the drowning of an American city is one of selflessness, heroism, and courage--and also of incompetence, racism, and criminality.