Annette Bay Pimentel
LightNews LightNews
banner
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Annette Bay Pimentel
@annettepimentel.bsky.social
410 followers 350 following 220 posts
Writing books for kids about the people and ideas that shape our world.
HOW A BEAR BECAME A BOOK (Macmillan). I'm repped by Kathleen Rushall at Andrea Brown, and I represent the people of Latah County, Idaho on the library board.
Posts Replies Media Videos
annettepimentel.bsky.social
The very important holiday baking chocolate chip test.
parchment-covered cookie sheet has 6 cookie dough balls labeled "Bulk choc chips," "Ghirardelli," and "Guittard."
November 18, 2025 at 3:14 AM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
My 3 y/o grandson told his mom, "My g'ma is really good at making books. She made this for me." The book I supposed ly wrote? LON PO PO by Ed Young.
Maybe mistaken identity isn't so bad.

#picturebook #mistakenidentity #edyoung
Cover of book is deep red. At the left a black wolf with glowing eyes looks directly at the reader. The title reads, Lon Po Po, a Red Riding Hood Story from China, Ed Young. The cover has gold Caldecott medal seal on it.
October 28, 2025 at 6:49 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Thrilled that HOW A BEAR BECAME A BOOK got named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Libraries are a huge part of my life, and I appreciate this library-related seal of approval! Coming March 31, 2026.

@jrlibraryguild.bsky.social @mackidsbooks.bsky.social @faithpray7.bsky.social
Cover of book shows silhouette of bear made of sketchy words emerging from open book. The bear reaches his paw up toward a smiling boy with green galoshes sitting high in a tree. The trunk of the tree features a green door. Text reads: How a Bear Became a Book: The Collaboration That Creted Winnie-the-Pooh, words by Annette Bay Pimentel, pictures by Faith Pray. In the corner of the image is a round gold seal that says "JLG Gold Standard."
October 22, 2025 at 5:20 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Coming March 31, 2026!
A book of my heart--about a character I love and the writer and artist who collaborated to create him. I had a wonderful collaborator-- @faithpray7.bsky.social who brought my words to life with playful, buoyant art.
@mackidsbooks.bsky.social #kidlit #nonfiction
Cover of book shows silhouette of bear, made of sketchy words, emerging from an open book. The bear is reaching his paw up towards a boy in green galoshes sitting high in a tree. A green door is in the trunk of the tree. Text reads: How a Bear Became a Book: The Collaboration that Created Winnie-the-Pooh, words by Annette Bay Pimentel, pictures by Faith Pray
October 22, 2025 at 5:06 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Why I love critique partners: they suggest 3 seemingly different books as mentor texts for 1 manuscript. Nothing like getting critical creative juices flowing! @eijasumner.bsky.social #critiquegroup
@ericfan.bsky.social @mbgriffinbooks.bsky.social
Covers of 3 children's books--The Night Gardener shows a tree trimmed to look like an owl; Little Shrew shows a shrew talking on a telephone in a living room; Just Us shows two women and their son and daughter looking out a window at falling snow.
October 16, 2025 at 9:50 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Firefly Song by @colleenpaeff.bsky.social and Ji-hyuk Kim uses text and art so inventively to explain what it means for fireflies to flash synchronously!

#nonfictionpicturebook #nonfictionforkids #pbillustration #illustration #firefly #kidlit 👍📚💡💙
Page of picture book is divided into horizontal strips. Top strip is solid black with the word "Dark" printed in yellow. The strip below shows a tree canopy dotted with many fireflies lit up in bright yellow. The strip below is again sold black with the word "Dark" printed in yellow. The bottom strip shows the trunks of the trees with many fireflies lit up in bright yellow.
September 6, 2025 at 7:42 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
I love the newsletter by @grantdraws.bsky.social and was excited to see his new book Poetry Comics at the library. He does wonderful, inventive things with the comics form. Strong recommend.

#poetry #comics #poetryforkids #amreading #kidlit
Page shows a nine-panel graphic novel format, but the illustration on the panel is page-wide. Each panel has a little bit of a single poem about a tree, but the page as a whole shows the tree, though every individual panel shows only a tiny bit of the tree.
September 3, 2025 at 9:05 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
One of the lovely things about running for library board is being invited into strangers' homes to talk about the library issues that they care about.

Strangers no more!

#libraryboard #Mayelection #democracy #genessee #latah
Five women, probably in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, standing in a cozy living room, smiling at the camera
April 30, 2025 at 8:42 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Second-person narration, beautiful art, and fascinating facts: Golden Gate: Building the Mighty Bridge by Elizabeth Partridge and Ellen Heck @chroniclebooks.bsky.social
#PictureBooks #kidlit #nonfiction #nonfictionpb 💡📚👍💙
Illustration from book shows backs of a boy and a girl, her arm around a German shepherd, as they watch out their window the construction of a tower for the Golden Gate Bridge in the San Francisco Bay
April 28, 2025 at 5:30 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Make a Pretty Sound shows where I lived as a Berkeley student! Barracks built for WWII shipyard workers housed students for many years after. It was torn down a few years ago, so this is an extra poignant illustration for me!

Art by @squinkyelo.bsky.social #nonfiction 💡📚👍 #kidlit
spread from picture book shows playground full of kids with AFrican American adult leaning over fence to chat with kids near San Francisco Bay. The playground is next to 4 barracks, each box-like with a few windows showing.
April 24, 2025 at 8:32 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
I'm so happy to be running for Library Trustee with my fellow incumbents, @marcimiller.bsky.social and Rochelle Smith! And grateful to the library for hosting a Meet and Greet for us.
#librarytrustee #election #latahcounty
Three women standing in a library talking to an audience.
April 22, 2025 at 11:24 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Our re-election campaign button.
If you're local, let me know if you'd like one!
@no-id-lady.bsky.social #latah #library
Campaign button shows two Idaho-shaped bookends holding up three books. Text reads: "Go Vote May 20" and "Vote Annette, Marci & Rochelle for Latah Library Trustee"
April 17, 2025 at 7:35 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
turtle swimming on blue background. Photos inset of white woman and Asian man next to Publisher's Weekly announcement of new book Turtle on the Tarmac, coming Spring 2027
April 11, 2025 at 5:20 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
I loved the Chagall vibes of the art in Breaking through the Clouds: The Sometimes Turbulent Life of Meteorologist Joanne Simpson.

by @senickel.bsky.social and HelenaPerezGarcia #PictureBooks #pbbio #nonfictionpb 💡📚👍💙
Illustration shows woman in a maroon graduation gown, diploma in her hand, floating blissfully among the clouds with birds swooping around her (one bird holding her mortar board in its beak). Below this fanciful image we see grass, trees, and a college campus.
April 10, 2025 at 2:39 AM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Every day my computer randomly gives me a new photo of some exotically beautiful place in the world. Today it gave me a photo from my own backyard! The beautiful Palouse hills.

#palouse #hometownlove #moscowidaho
computer screen says 3:55 Monday, April 7, but behind the words is a beautiful landscape of hills carved into a crazy quilt pattern with black soil, yellow wheat fields, and bright green fields
April 7, 2025 at 11:08 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Startling (and persuasive) claim that leafcutter ants were the world's first farmers in City of Leafcutter Ants: A Sustainable Society of Millions by @amyhevron.bsky.social
I'm always astonished by how much I learn from #nonfictionpb
👍📚💡
Page from book shows illustration of ants and has text, "Leafcutters belong to a group of ants that were our world's first farmers, growing industrial-scale food crops for over 60 million years."
March 29, 2025 at 12:24 AM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Volcanoes--lyrical text and luminous illustrations. Beautiful! by @nellcrossbeckerman.bsky.social and @k04sk.bsky.social
#PictureBooks #kidlit #nonfiction #nonfictionpb #volcano 💡📚👍💙
Page inside book says Collecting sweltering samples. Hiking in shoe-melting temperatures. Risking it all to learn more. Digital, photo-like illustration shows a volcanologist in shiny protective gear walking on black rock at edge of seething mass of glowing lava
March 25, 2025 at 9:41 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
Delicious picture book biography by the inimitable @jenswanbooks.bsky.social and @veronicajamisonart.bsky.social

#PictureBooks #kidlit #nonfiction #nonfictionpb 💡📚👍 💙
Cover of book shows illustration of African American girl looking through a submarine's periscope
March 20, 2025 at 7:52 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
For a couple of years now, my husband and I have been playing @nytimes.com spelling bee at breakfast.

Today it said we've found 21,000 words! That's a lot of words, one at a time.
March 15, 2025 at 7:39 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
I laughed out loud at the opening spread of Flamingos Are Pretty Funky: a (Not So) Serious Guide by @abicushman.com

We start entangled in the feathers--kind of like me trying to frame a photo shoot.

#nonfictionpb 💡📚👍💙
Close-up of pink feathers with words "Look closely. You just might be able to spot--"
March 14, 2025 at 11:27 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
I loved the gentle explanation of land acknowledgments in This Land by Ashley Fairbanks and Bridget George.

I'm grateful for the Nez Perce who are the traditional stewards of the beautiful land where I live.

#PictureBooks 📚👍💙
Cover of book shows grandmother beating drum while she and grandchild sing
March 6, 2025 at 12:02 AM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
I appreciate the honesty in the back matter heading in If I Were a Fungus--a good reminder that science is not static!

by Gaia Stella, translated by @nanettemcg.bsky.social

#backmatter #nonfictionpb #PictureBooks 💡📚👍💙
Back matter in book has heading saying "A few things we know about fungi (until proven otherwise)"
March 4, 2025 at 12:53 AM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
School visits energize me. Also, I never have a voice at the end of a day of visits.
How do teachers do it every day?

#schoolvisit #authorvisit
Kindergarteners and first graders talking with author at the front of the room
February 28, 2025 at 7:13 PM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
So much primary source material content stylishly incorporated into the art of Thomas Jefferson's Battle for Science! This is the superpower of a #nonfictionpicturebook

by @bandersonwriter.bsky.social
art by Jeremy Holmes
book design by Barbara Grzeslo

💡📚👍💙 #nonfictionpb #PictureBooks
February 27, 2025 at 12:48 AM
annettepimentel.bsky.social
winter read
about a summer climb
lifts me up

Climbing the Volcano: A Journey in Haiku by Curtis Manley and @jenniferkmann.bsky.social

#poetry #PoetryforKids 💙💡📚👍
Illustration shows child hiking through dense forest. Text reads a perfect blue above the treetops-- tripping over roots
February 25, 2025 at 10:33 PM