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Explore SCBWI Portfolio Showcase

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Deep Dive Into Nonfiction

2024

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont (New England)

New York: Metropolitan

A young boy’s favorite place in the world is the old, splintery neighborhood dock. At this dock the boy can swim, fish, or watch minnows dart between the rocks. But a hurricane is coming…and its violent winds and rain carry with it anything that can float.                                                                                                 Caldecott Honoree John Rocco shows the power of community and the beauty of rebuilding after adversity in this dramatically illustrated follow-up to Blizzard and Blackout.

Hurricane

website for How We Got To The Moon

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The Moon landing is one of the most ambitious, thrilling, and dangerous ventures in human history. This exquisitely researched and illustrated book tells the stories of the 400,000 unsung heroes--the engineers, mathematicians, seamstresses, welders, and factory workers--and their innovations and life-changing technological leaps forward that allowed NASA to achieve this unparalleled accomplishment.From the shocking launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik to the triumphant splashdown of Apollo 11, Caldecott Honor winner John Rocco answers every possible question about this world-altering mission. Each challenging step in the space race is revealed, examined, and displayed through stunning diagrams, experiments, moments of crisis, and unforgettable human stories.Explorers of all ages will want to pore over every page in this comprehensive chronicle detailing the grandest human adventure of all time!

How We Got To The Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity's Greatest Adventure

Every year, a boy and his family go camping at Mountain Pond. But this year is different. This year, the boy is going into first grade, and his mother is encouraging him to do things on his own, just like his older brother. And the most different thing of all...this year, a tiger comes to the woods.

Camp Tiger

A young working-class teen fights to save his family’s diner after his father is lost in a fishing-boat accident. When his dad goes missing in a fishing-boat accident, fourteen-year-old Jake refuses to think he may have lost his father forever. But suddenly, nothing seems certain in Jake’s future, and now his family’s diner may be repossessed by loan sharks. In Narragansett Bay, scrabbling out a living as a quahogger isn’t easy, but with the help of some local clammers, Jake is determined to work hard and earn enough money to ensure his family’s security and save the diner in time. Told with cinematic suspense and a true compassion for the characters,Swim That Rock is a fast-paced coming-of-age story that beautifully and evocatively captures the essence of coastal Rhode Island life, the struggles of blue-collar family dynamics, and the dreams of one boy to come into his own.

Swim That Rock

Blizzard is based on John Rocco's childhood experience during the now infamous Blizzard of 1978, which brought fifty-three inches of snow to his town in Rhode Island. Told with a brief text and dynamic illustrations, the book opens with a boy's excitement upon seeing the first snowflake fall outside his classroom window. It ends with the neighborhood's immense relief upon seeing the first snowplow break through on their street. In between the boy watches his familiar landscape transform into something alien, and readers watch him transform into a hero who puts the needs of others first. John uses an increasing amount of white space in his playful images, which include a gatefold spread of the boy's expedition to the store. This book about the wonder of a winter storm is as delicious as a mug of hot cocoa by the fire on a snowy day.

Blizzard

Some people used to think that Earth was smack-dab in the middle of the universe, with all the stars and planets held in the sky by giant glass balls. Boy, were they wrong! In this follow-up to the award-winning Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs!, Kathleen Kudlinski and John Rocco look at the mistakes, mishaps, and creativity that are part of scientific discovery. From the first humans wondering about the night sky to the demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet status, this book is an entertaining and informative look at how scientific theories change over time.

Boy, Were We Wrong about the Solar System! 

Young Eli Trebuckle is the “fixer of all things fixable.” He fixes the vacuum cleaner, the fan, and even the radio, hoping to catch some news of his father who is away at war. But there’s one thing that Eli simply can’t fix—his bad dreams. It’s the same one over and over again: a mountain of junk, a prize just beyond his reach, and a fall.One night as Eli stays up late to work on his most recent invention and escape another nightmare, a mysterious, luminous, and somewhat bumbling man by the name of Mr. Moon appears at his window. He knows just what the matter with Eli is and promises to help him, if he can fix one more thing…And so Eli Trebuckle makes the journey to the broken Moonpowder factory. If he can get it up and running, he can ensure that the whole world will have sweet dreams! But can Eli face his greatest fears and meet the biggest challenge of his lifetime? With inspiring courage, determination, and a little faith, Eli proves that, happily, the answer is yes.

Moonpowder

A robust and wildly entertaining fairy tale, freely abridged from Eden Phillpotts's 1910 fantasy and wryly  retold by Katherine  and John Paterson.An ambitious Stone Age man demands a talisman that will harden his heart, allowing him to take control of his tribe. Against his better judgment, the tribe's magic man creates the Flint Heart, but the cruelty of it causes the destruction of the tribe. Thousands of years later, the talisman reemerges to corrupt a kindly farmer, an innocent fairy creature, and a familial badger. Can Charles and his sister Unity, who have consulted with fairies such as the mysterious Zagabog, wisest creature in the universe, find a way to rescue humans, fairies, and animals alike from the dark influence of the Flint Heart? This humorous, hearty, utterly delightful fairy tale is the sort for an entire family to savor together or an adventurous youngster to devour.

The Flint Heart

Everything you need to know about finding, keeping, and training your very own pet train.Finding advice on caring for a dog, a cat, a fish, even a dinosaur is easy. But what if somebody’s taste in pets runs to the more mechanical kind? What about those who like cogs and gears more than feathers and fur? People who prefer the call of a train whistle to the squeal of a guinea pig? Or maybe dream of a smudge of soot on their cheek, not slobber? In this spectacularly illustrated picture book, kids who love locomotives (and what kid doesn’t?) will discover where trains live, what they like to eat, and the best train tricks around—everything it takes to lay the tracks for a long and happy friendship. All aboard!

How to Train a Train

When the warrior Chang challenges young Fu to a duel, Fu panics. His only hope is that the Master will train him, just as he's trained all the young warriors of the village. But instead of teaching Fu to fight, the Master teaches him to pour tea. Fu learns purpose, flow and patience in the process, but will it be enough to defeat the mighty Chang?With his signature breathtaking art, John Rocco has created a modern parable full of adventure, heart, humor, and a gentle message about the importance of focus and finding joy in simple tasks.

Fu Finds The Way

Putting a new twist on a classic "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," this retelling finds a curmudgeonly wolf discovering what he's been missing the most. Full color. 

Wolf! Wolf!

One hot summer night in the city, all the power goes out. The TV shuts off and a boy wails, "Mommm!" His sister can no longer use the phone, Mom can't work on her computer, and Dad can't finish cooking dinner. What's a family to do? When they go up to the roof to escape the heat, they find the lights--in stars that can be seen for a change--and so many neighbors it's like a block party in the sky! On the street below, people are having just as much fun--talking, rollerblading, and eating ice cream before it melts. The boy and his family enjoy being not so busy for once. They even have time to play a board game together. When the electricity is restored, everything can go back to normal . . . but not everyone likes normal. The boy switches off the lights, and out comes the board game again. Using a combination of panels and full bleed illustrations that move from color to black-and-white and back to color, John Rocco shows that if we are willing to put our cares aside for a while, there is party potential in a summer blackout.

Blackout

Every super hero gets his powers from somewhere. The young hero of this book, Rocco, thinks his abilities come from his shock of red hair, and the longer it gets, the stronger he becomes. He even has a posse of super friends with wild hair of their own. Our hero is unstoppable--until the day he's dragged to the super evil villain's lair and robbed of his powers. How will he face his friends? Will he ever regain his super hero-ness? A girl who has been watching all along offers the gang a chance to save the day and get their groove back. With bold images that burst with energy from white backgrounds and narration as earnest as Superman himself, SUPER HAIR-O AND THE BARBER OF DOOM is a feel-good and funny book for emergent comic book fans and parents who grew up on them.

Super Hair-o and the Barber of Doom

John Rocco

About

Books

Hurricane

How We Got To The Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity's Greatest Adventure

How We Got To The Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity's Greatest Adventure

Camp Tiger

Swim That Rock

Blizzard

Boy, Were We Wrong about the Solar System!

Moonpowder

The Flint Heart

How to Train a Train

Fu Finds The Way

Wolf! Wolf!

Blackout

Super Hair-o and the Barber of Doom

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