Beautiful New Picture Book Biographies

One of my favorite things to do is read about inventions and how they came to be. (I loved the book 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt!) In this fictionalized picture book of the inventor Garrett Morgan, we meet Garrett as a little boy with a head full of ideas on how to make life better for everyone. When he is hit by a car, his parents send him to the city where Garrett grows up to become a prominent business man and skilled inventor who produced the traffic signal, a gas mask, and others objects still used today.

I will buy any picture book that is illustrated by Ekua Holmes! In this stunning picture book biography, Heidi Tyline King and Ekua Holmes bring to life the story of MaVynee Betsch. As a young girl, MaVynee loved to swim. But segregation prevented her from going to any beach, so her grandfather bought a beach and named it American Beach and made it open to everyone. When MaVynee grew up, she traveled the world as an opera singer, but when her mom became ill, MaVynee returned home to care for her. Finding American Beach neglected, MaVynee was determined to restore her childhood beach to its former glory.

This beautiful book gave me chills from the very first page. The story begins in 1962 with eleven-year-old Elijah Cummings and other African American children protesting to integrate a city pool in Baltimore. The march inspired Elijah to pursue a career in law. With encouragement and sacrifice from his parents, he graduated at the top of his class and went on to be elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1983 and then to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996. He was a voice for people of color and spoke out to ensure that everyone was treated fairly and equally.

Kahlil Gibran grew up as a small, shy boy in Lebanon, a land of beautiful mountains and ancient trees. While he loved his country, Christians and Muslims clashed and one day his family lost their home and his father was jailed. It was no longer safe to stay in Lebanon, and Kahlil, his mother, and his three siblings took a ship to America. They settled in Boston where Kahlil saw divisions in the form of wealthy and poor. He began to draw and later to write, eventually becoming one of the most famous poets of all time.

I was captivated by this story of Francis Meilland, a cultivator of flowers at his family’s farm in France. He was endlessly fascinated by cross pollination and sought to create a beautiful rose. After years of experimentation and meticulous record keeping, he create a rosed like no other. But at the same time, World War II broke out, forcing him to make cuttings and send them all over the world. Not knowing whether the roses would make it with the global disruptions to shipping during the war, he waited in hope. At the same time, his family destroyed their flower farm in order to plant crops, burning all but a handful of their rose bushes. I loved this story of resilience and hope during a time of heartbreaking darkness.