Books like Carter Reads the Newspaper
By Deborah Hopkinson
For the kid who asks a hundred questions and won't let a single one go unanswered, this is the true story of a boy whose curiosity turned into a life's work. Reverent, quietly inspiring, rooted in real history
A dog named Rocket sits under his favorite tree as a little yellow bird teaches him the alphabet, letter by letter, until sounds turn into words he can read all on his own.
A retired New York City fireboat, once the fastest and shiniest of its time, is rescued from the scrap heap by a group of friends — then called back into action on September 11, 2001.
A young left-handed girl picks up her brother's guitar, flips it upside down to play it her own way, and by age eleven has written "Freight Train," a song the world would come to know.
A Black boy growing up in segregated 1940s North Carolina loves to draw everything around him, but becomes a football star instead — until his dream of making art finds its way to him.
A determined young dancer in the 1930s and 40s trains for ballet despite discriminatory schools, then refuses to paint her skin white for a company's offer — and rises to become the Met Opera's first Black prima ballerina.
A young girl, her waitress mother, and her grandma save every spare coin in a big jar, hoping to finally buy a comfortable chair after a fire destroyed their old furniture.
A boy who loves telling stories struggles with messy handwriting and spelling mistakes, and starts to believe his stories were never meant to be written down at all.
A biography of jazz pioneer Duke Ellington, tracing his rise from playing pool halls and cabarets as a teenager to leading his orchestra through a groundbreaking Carnegie Hall performance of Black, Brown, and Beige.
A boy who longs to be a trumpeter can only play an imaginary horn, until a musician from the neighborhood night club notices his ambition and takes him seriously.
A bricklayer works hard every day building the city, while his son works hard at school and plays at molding tiny clay bricks, until one Saturday his father surprises him with something built just for their family.
A country cottontail raising twenty-one children dreams of becoming an Easter Bunny, and when the wise Grandfather Bunny notices how capably she runs her big household, he chooses her for the job.
A real-life picture book biography follows young Alma Thomas from a childhood soaking up color in Georgia to becoming a celebrated painter — teaching art for decades before beginning her own boundlessly colorful paintings near age seventy.
