50 Nonfiction Picture Books For Learning About the World

These nonfiction picture books will help you reach every student’s interest.

You’ll want to bookmark this post to use all year long. Send it to your librarian. Share it with your students’ parents. Because nothing gets kids jazzed about reading like learning about real life. Here are 50 nonfiction picture books published in 2017 that you can share with kids of any age to spark a new passion or engage them in their own writing.

Books about important people

1. Red Cloud: A Lakota Story of War and Surrender by S.D. Nelson

A leader among the Lakota during the 1860s, Chief Red Cloud deeply opposed white expansion into Native American territory. He rejected treaties from the U.S. government and instead united the warriors of the Lakota and nearby tribes, becoming the only Native American to win a war against the U.S. Army.


2. Bravo!: Poems About Amazing Hispanics by Margarita Engle



3. Take a Picture of Me, James Van Der Zee! by Andrea J. Loney

James Van Der Zee was just a young boy when he saved enough money to buy his first camera. He took photos of his family, classmates, and anyone who would sit still for a portrait. By the fifth grade, James was the school photographer and unofficial town photographer. Eventually he outgrew his small town and moved to the exciting, fast-paced world of New York City. After being told by his boss that no one would want his or her photo taken -by a black man, – James opened his own portrait studio in Harlem. He took photographs of legendary figures of the Harlem Renaissance–politicians such as Marcus Garvey, performers including Florence Mills, Bill -Bojangles- Robinson, and Mamie Smith–and ordinary folks in the neighborhood too.


4. The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid by Jeanette Winter



5. Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford



6. She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World by Chelsea Clinton



7. Trudy’s Big Swim: How Gertrude Ederle Swam the English Channel and Took the World by Storm by Sue Macy






9. Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing by Kay Haring



10. What’s the Big Deal About First Ladies by Ruby Shamir

Did you know that Mary Todd Lincoln hated slavery and helped to end it in America?  Or that Edith Wilson helped decode secret messages during World War I? How about that Sarah Polk didn’t let anyone dance in the White House while she was first lady?


11. Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Power of a Protest Song by Gary Golio



12. Becoming Bach by Tom Leonard

For Johann Sebastian there was always music. His family had been musicians, or bachs as they were called in Germany, for 200 years. He always wanted to be a bach. As he grew, he saw patterns in everything. Patterns he would turn into melodies and song, eventually growing into one of the most important and celebrated musical composers of all time.


13. Mickey Mantle: The Commerce Comet by Jonah Winter

He could run from home plate to first base in 2.9 seconds and hit a ball 540 feet. Mickey Mantle was the greatest switch hitter ever to play the game. And he did it all despite broken bones, pulled muscles, strains, and sprains, from his shoulders to his feet. How did a poor country boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, become one of the greatest and most beloved baseball players of all time?


14. Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History by Walter Dean Myers



15. Martin’s Dream Day by Kitty Kelley

Martin Luther King Jr. was nervous. Standing at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, he was about to address 250,000 people with what would become known as his “I Have a Dream Speech”—the most famous speech of his life.





17. Fancy Party Gowns: The Story of Fashion Designer Ann Cole Lowe by Deborah Blumenthal



18. Muhammad Ali: A Champion Is Born by Gene Barretta

The Louisville Lip. The Greatest. The People’s Champion. Muhammad Ali had many nicknames. But before he became one of the most recognizable faces in the world, before the nicknames and the championships, before he converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali, he was twelve-year-old Cassius Clay riding a brand-new red-and-white bicycle through the streets of Louisville, Kentucky. One fateful day, this proud and bold young boy had that bike stolen, his prized possession, and he wouldn’t let it go. Not without a fight.


19. I am Gandhi by Brad Meltzer



20. Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor: The Woman Who Loved Reptiles by Patricia Valdez

While other girls played with dolls, Joan preferred the company of reptiles. She carried her favorite lizard with her everywhere–she even brought a crocodile to school! When Joan grew older, she became the Curator of Reptiles at the British Museum. She went on to design the Reptile House at the London Zoo, including a home for the rumored-to-be-vicious Komodo dragons.


21. Lighter than Air: Sophie Blanchard, the First Woman Pilot by Matthew Clark Smith

Behold the story of Sophie Blanchard, an extraordinary woman who is largely forgotten despite her claim to being the very first female pilot in history. In eighteenth-century France, “balloonomania” has fiercely gripped the nation . . . but all of the pioneering aeronauts are men. The job of shattering that myth falls to a most unlikely figure: a shy girl from a seaside village, entirely devoted to her dream of flight. Sophie is not the first woman to ascend in a balloon, nor the first woman to accompany an aeronaut on a trip, but she will become the first woman to climb to the clouds and steer her own course


22. Helen Thayer’s Arctic Adventure: A Woman and a Dog Walk to the North Pole by Sally Isaacs

Take a trip with Helen Thayer and her dog, Charlie, as they walk from Canada to the magnetic North Pole.


23. Stand Up and Sing!: Pete Seeger, Folk Music, and the Path to Justice by Susanna Reich

Pete Seeger was born with music in his bones. Coming of age during the Great Depression, Pete saw poverty and adversity that would forever shape his worldview, but it wasn’t until he received his first banjo that he found his way to change the world. It was plucking banjo strings and singing folk songs that showed Pete how music had the incredible power to bring people together.



Eugenie Clark fell in love with sharks from the first moment she saw them at the aquarium. She couldn’t imagine anything more exciting than studying these graceful creatures. But Eugenie quickly discovered that many people believed sharks to be ugly and scary―and they didn’t think women should be scientists.


25. Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag by Rob Sanders

Trace the life of the Gay Pride Flag, from its beginnings in 1978 with social activist Harvey Milk and designer Gilbert Baker to its spanning of the globe and its role in today’’s world.


26. Caroline’s Comets: A True Story by Emily Arnold McCully



27. Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code by Laurie Wallmark


Books about fascinating animals

28. Birds Make Nests by Michael Garland

Birds make many kinds of nests in many kinds of places―to keep their eggs safe and to keep chicks safe.


29. Lost and Found Cat: The True Story of Kunkush’s Incredible Journey by Doug Kuntz



30. Book of Bones: 10 Record-Breaking Animals by Gabrielle Balkan

Ten record-breaking animal bones are introduced through a series of superlatives set up as a guessing game with clues. Readers examine animals’ skeletons and guess to whom they belong; the answers are revealed in vibrant, full-color scenic habitats, with easily understood — and humorous — explanations.





32. What Makes a Monster?: Discovering the World’s Scariest Creatures by Jess Keating

Some people think monsters are the stuff of nightmares—the stuff of scary movies and Halloween. But monsters can also be found right in your backyard. Animals like aye-ayes, goblin sharks and vampire bats may look scary, but they pose no threat to humans. Others, such as the prairie dog, seem innocent—cute, even—yet their behavior could give you goose bumps.


33. Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation by Kyo Mclear



34. The Tapir Scientist: Saving South America’s Largest Mammal by Sy Montgomery



35. Can an Aardvark Bark? by Melissa Stewart

Can an aardvark bark? No, but it can grunt. Lots of other animals grunt too…Barks, grunts, squeals—animals make all kinds of sounds to communicate and express themselves.


36. Trickiest!: 19 Sneaky Animals by Steve Jenkins

The Extreme Animals reader series explores nature’s truly superlative animals with the help of illustrations, infographics, facts, and figures while detailing the astounding abilities of critters as small as a frog or as big as a whale.


37. Animals of a Bygone Era: An Illustrated Compendium by Maja Säfström

In the past, amazing and strange animals roamed the earth, including giant sea scorpions, tiny horses, enormous sloths, and fierce “terror birds.”


38. Penguin Day by Nic Bishop

Rockhopper penguins live by the sea, but in many ways their families are just like ours. Penguin parents take good care of their children. Mama penguin fishes for food, while papa stays home and watches the baby. But even little ones get tired of waiting for breakfast, and sometimes they wander off… Luckily, penguin parents always save the day!


39. Apex Predators: The World’s Deadliest Hunters, Past and Present by Steve Jenkins

Apex predators are the animals at the top of their food chains and have no natural enemies.


Books about science, social studies, and math

40. Counting on Snow by Maxwell Newhouse

Maxwell Newhouse, folk artist extraordinaire, has created a unique counting book. The premise is simple. He invites children to count with him from ten crunching caribou down to one lonely moose, by finding other northern animals – from seals to wolves to snowy owls – as they turn the pages. But as the animals appear, so does the snow, until it’s a character too, obliterating light and dark, sky and earth.


41. Secrets of the Sea by Kate Baker

From the rock pools along the shoreline to the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean, breathtaking illustrations reveal the sea’s creatures—from the microscopic and the bizarre to the fragile and the deadly—in all their startling beauty.


42. Water by Seymour Simon



43. Transportation by Gail Gibbons

From cars and trains to plains and boats, people all around the world have developed diverse means and methods of travel.


44. Rivers of Sunlight: How the Sun Moves Water Around the Earth by Molly Bang

In this brightly illustrated narrative, readers will learn about the constant movement of water as it flows around the Earth and the sun’s important role as water changes between liquid, vapor, and ice. From sea to sky, the sun both heats and cools water, ensuring that life can exist on Earth. How does the sun keep ocean currents moving, and lift fresh water from the seas? And what can we do to conserve one of our planet’s most precious resources?


45. Magnets Push, Magnets Pull by David A. Adler



46. A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars by Seth Fishman



47. If You Were the Moon by Laura Purdie Salas

What would you do if you were the moon? Do you think you would rest quietly in the night sky? Oh, no. The moon does so much more than you might imagine! It spins like a twilight ballerina, plays tug-of-war with the ocean, and lights a pathway for baby sea turtles.


48. Round by Joyce Sidman






50. Grand Canyon by Jason Chin



Posted by Kimberley Moran


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