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Lorenz Graham wrote two children’s books about the (in)famous abolitionist, John Brown—a picture book, John Brown’s Raid: A Picture History of the Attack on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (1972) and a biography for young adults, John Brown: A Cry for Freedom (1980). Both books recount a history of Brown’s life and antislavery work, situated within Brown’s African American context and recounted from a Black perspective. While Graham’s books are exceptional in their extended treatment of this historic figure for a child audience, they are not unprecedented. This essay situates Graham’s children’s biographies of Brown in the long history of Black writers’ work on him—for both adults and children. Reading Graham’s John Brown in this context shows how Graham follows familiar traditions for encountering Brown within the larger context of Black freedom struggles. Graham’s books follow a rich tradition of presenting him to Black children.

Award-winning author Kathy Kacer has written numerous fiction and non-fiction books for children about the Holocaust. With a master’s degree in psychology, she worked with troubled teens before turning to writing full time in 1998. Growing up listening to her parents’ stories of their experiences during the Holocaust, her writing is a very personal labour of love. Her work has been translated into many languages and rights have been sold around the world. Kathy spends much of her time speaking at schools, libraries and conferences. In the following interview Kathy tells us about the importance of speaking to this generation about the Holocaust, her favourite Jewish custom, books she has collaborated on and much more.

Chaudhri et al reviews 1919: The Year That Changed America by Martin W. Sandler, Manhattan: Mapping the Story of an Island by Jennifer Thermes and The Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in Our Food and Drugs by Gail Jarrow.

Kathy Kacer is to be commended for writing books in different genres including historical fiction, non-fiction and picture books, and for different audiences including upper elementary, middle years and young adult readers. The real-life experiences of her mother prompted Kacer to publish her first historical fiction title The Secret of Gabi’s Dresser. Gabi recounts her experiences as a young Jewish girl who lived on a family farm in Eastern Europe during the Second World War. When the Nazi’s conducted house searches for Jewish children, Gabi successfully hid in the dining room dresser (which is now in the author’s home).

Rob Nixon in his 2011 book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor writes “[i]n a world permeated by insidious, yet unseen or imperceptible violence, imaginative writing can help make the unapparent appear” (p. 15). Nixon talks about the power of literature to render spectacular environmental violence which has become mundane and thus largely invisible. He points to the writing of Kenyan environmentalist and politician Wangari Maathai as work which captures the notion of slow violence. In her writing, Maathai creates the sense of urgency that Greta Gaard argues is a key boundary condition for an ecopedagogy of children’s literature. This article explores seven illustrated biographies of Maathai. The article interrogates the extent to which the books capture what Rob Nixon describes as “slow violence”, that is violence that occurs slowly, over time, and which is often overlooked. The article also introduces the term precarious progress to describe the fragile nature of the change initiated after slow violence. Finally, the article also draws on Val Plumwood’s writing on place attachment and “shadow places” to explore how the Kenyan landscape is depicted as not mere object but subject in these texts and the way in which they work to foster a consciousness of place in their child readers.

Earth has been referred to as the blue planet due to the abundance of water it contains in both liquid and solid forms; just over 70% of the surface is covered by water. Young students may be familiar with the abundance or lack of water in their local area based on daily interactions, observations, and the weather, but understanding the different places that water exists and the forms it can be found in requires them to expand their view beyond their local settings. Here, Royce utilizes two trade books to teach children where water is, the characteristics of different water formations, how much of Earth's water is available for use, where it is stored on the planet, and how it is transferred from place to place as part of the water cycle.

Ida (2011), written by Jørn Hurum and Torstein Helleve and illustrated by Esther van Hulsen, is a non-fiction picturebook for children with an ambitious objective. It presents a fossil, the findings from the study of this fossil, and the dispute over the validity of the results. The composition of the text is threefold: the book opens with an illustrative story about the life and death of the primate that ends up becoming the fossil in question, subsequently introduces a lexicographical section ensuring the credibility of the scientific results of the primate's research group, and finally provides instructions for appropriate activities that offer the child reader ownership of the presented knowledge.This article discusses the ambiguity within the book. The discussion has a primary focus on the constraints within the illustrative story that is jointly ruled by scientific aims and the traditions of children's literature. The purpose of the protagonist is to die, which is rather rare in a children's book. Nonetheless, the protagonist's life and death takes place in the jungle environment which, according to Marilyn Strasser Olson “apparently reduces the tension” (Olson 2013: 55). The intertextual use of Christian mythology adds a solid cultural background to the story and the artwork calls to mind Henri Rousseau's jungle cosmology. It will nonetheless be argued that the literary traditions embedded in the book ultimately blur the validity of the scientific message.

On Nov 22, 2017, the top floor of Carmelite House in London was filled with excited conversation as people gathered for the announcement of the Information Book Award and the inaugural 'Hachette Children's Group Award for Outstanding Contribution to Information Books'. Outside it was cold and dark with a wonderful view across the Thames but this was mostly ignored due to the display of information books that drew exclamations of delight from the audience. Paul Rockett, Publishing Director of Franklin Watts and Wayland, two of Hachette Children's information book imprints, welcomed everyone to the evening stating 'the school library is often a foundational moment in a person's life-long exploration of knowledge, offering books that not only supplement curricular studies--but, possibly and more greatly--stimulate a wider curiosity about the world'.