Boston Book Festival 2019

Nonfiction stories for young readers have been gaining in popularity and critical acclaim; two of the four most recent Caldecott Medal winners have been picture book biographies. How do creators of nonfiction picture books choose their subjects and conduct research? How do they condense complicated life stories into thirty-two pages and select which details to include (and which to omit)? What is the role of illustration in bringing true stories to life on the page? These are just a few of the questions we’ll explore with authors of four exciting new nonfiction picture books, two about space and two about sports. Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of several acclaimed picture book biographies; her latest, Counting the Stars, explores the life of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. Hayley Barrett also looks to the stars in her new book; What Miss Mitchell Saw is about the life of nineteenth-century astronomer (and Nantucket native) Maria Mitchell. On the sporting side, Karlin Gray’s Serena: The Littlest Sister is about tennis phenom Serena Williams, and Gloria Respress-Churchwell’s Follow Chester! traces the courageous story of Chester Pierce, Harvard’s first black football player. Whether you’re a parent, educator, librarian, aspiring picture book creator, or you just like a good (true) story, you’ll want to turn up for this fascinating session, hosted by Simmons University’s Megan Dowd Lambert, author of several picture books as well as the guidebook Reading Picture Books with Children.