What did you think of yesterday’s young adult fiction list? Anything you agree or disagree with? Up today is nonfiction. I read widely in this genre so it’s not organized in any particular way from children’s through adult, simply my favorite 10 published in 2020 because there’s nothing more spectacular than learning from the people, places, and things that you read about.
- All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys Soccer Team by Soontornvat
- I know the outcome but I’m still in the cave with the boys and out of the cave with the rescuers every minute that Soontornvat writes this out.
- Beauty Mark by Weatherford
- Most younger readers won’t know Marilyn Monroe, but this verse novel biography is more about her ability to overcome immense adversity rather than about who she was as a celebrity.
- The Beauty in Breaking by Harper
- Tugging at every heart string you have, Harper details her life, her work in medicine, and her self care routines while fighting against racism in healthcare.
- Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You adapted by Reynolds
- One word: listen. If you haven’t listened to Reynolds read the book, you haven’t really read the book. Then do what I did and read the book too. And then make sure everyone else does too.
- All Boys Aren’t Blue by Johnson
- Using essays to share his life’s story was the perfect choice for this new voice in literature about his upbringing as a queer Black man.
- Lifting As We Climb by Dionne
- When the whole story isn’t told, Dionne decides to tell it. The story which was important as election season ramped up, she goes back in time to talk about the Black women’s fight for the right to vote.
- A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team by Cooper
- You can’t get more inspirational and heartfelt than the story being told by one of the rowers on this first all-Black high school rowing team from Chicago. Sports story with heart.
- Becoming a Good Creature by Montgomery
- Creating a picture book from her adult biography in thirteen animals, the artwork compliments the storytelling and makes you appreciate what animals can teach us about being human.
- Wisdom of the Humble Jellyfish: And Other Self-Care Rituals from Nature by Shah
- This was a sleeper hit for me and a quick audiobook I listened to during a readathon this summer. Similar to Montgomery’s book, sometimes we have to look toward non-humans to help us be better humans.
- You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Coe
- A female biographer’s approach to telling George Washington’s story is equally fascinating to learn it from her perspective as it was to provide the best humor to learning about a founding father with one of the punniest title for a book.
May’s winner is… End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson.
Moving on to an informative picture book, this one details the life of Ruth Wakefield, inventor of the chocolate chip cookie. Ford provides the three versions of how people think the cookie was created and has fun providing you with a well-rounded tale of her passion for food and how her toll house became part of the “Nestle’s Toll House Cookie” recipe stamped on each chocolate chip bag you buy.
Faruqi and Shovan are publishing A Place At the Table next month and I couldn’t be happier that this book exists. When I read it, I felt a warmth for the characters and the food that filled me up with love. Sara is Pakistani American and Elizabeth is Jewish and they both end up in the Southeast Asian cooking class run by Sara’s mother after Sara moves to the school. They befriend one another and find that their connections run a bit deeper as both of their mothers are not naturalized American citizens. But as the title implies, the girls work through typical middle grade angst by finding a place for each other at the table.
And last is an adult title that was recommended to me by a friend. While the book is over ten years old, it will resonate with those who can appreciate all the ways that food affects our lives be it romance or in mourning, friendship or solitude. It’s a series of vignettes that are all centered around Lillian’s cooking school “The School of Essential Ingredients” that she runs on Monday nights. It follows the attendees in various parts of their lives and how they all came to be together in the class. The languid storytelling is part of the appeal, like savoring a meal, and enriches the understanding. I also found myself pausing and re-reading lines that hit me to my core as a cook, baker, lover of food. As said by two participants in the class: “Here’s to kitchens. And here’s to what comes out of them.”
Readers Be Advised 