The NCTE Orbis Pictus Award® was established in 1989 to promote and recognize excellence in the writing of nonfiction for children.
2023
Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky
Call Number: x 535 B847
Grades: 1 - 4: This informational picture book weaves together art, science, and history to tell a complex story of the color blue. Gorgeous illustrations by Daniel Minter depict the varying blues of nature, as well as the historical attempts to reproduce these vivid hues for human consumption. Brew-Hammond celebrates these artistic and technological innovations, but does not ignore the costs and repercussions to the people whose labor made them possible.
2020
A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation
Call Number: x 323.1 W829
2017
Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White
Call Number: x 92 W583Sw
Grades 3 - 7
This biography of the author of beloved classics Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan, is gorgeously illustrated, full of photos and quotes, endlessly interesting, and just plain fun to look at.
2016
Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans
Call Number: 976.32 N55Br
A graphic-novel take on the devastation, both from the hurricane and from government infrastructure, about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The book is painterly in its drawings as it depicts the horrors of the victims’ lives, with a touch of hope at the end with the rebuilding of New Orleans. Recommended for those teenagers looking to see how communities and government can work or not.
2012
Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade
Call Number: x 92 S2445Sw
2001
Hurry Freedom: African Americans in Gold Rush California
Call Number: x 979 S788
Recounts the history of African Americans in California during the Gold Rush while focusing on the life and work of Mifflin Gibbs.
1993
Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp
Call Number: x 370 S788 1993
