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Category Archives: Nonfiction

The top 15 of 2019 on the 15th

15 Dec

Top15of2019 (1)

Let’s make this a thing!

Last year I shared two lists: an adult and a YA/middle grade top 10 based on the books published in that calendar year. This year, absent from my list will be any fiction titles since I’m finishing up my term on YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults blogging team. Our final list will be available soon and in the meantime you can see the titles we’ve all blogged about throughout the year.

Now onto my top 15 published today, December 15th for 2019.

Graphic novels (in no particular order)

  • Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell: The color palette and storyline is richly detailed with the internal romantic lives of teenagers, especially highlighting unrequited and abusive relationships in a powerful story.
  • Pilu of the Woods by Mai K. Nguyen: A family-focused middle grade graphic novel with a vividly earthy color palette and a magical understanding of our natural world that has a message.
  • White Bird by R.J. Palacio: The historical graphic novel wrapped in a contemporary story that shows the power of technology and the need for youth to talk to their older relatives to reveal the secret stories that might never get told.
  • Maker Comics: Bake like a Pro! by Falynn Koch: I love baking, so this is my absolutely favorite maker comic to date. It’s so practical and useful wrapped in the goofy story of wizards honing their skills.
  • Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau: The same use of a smart color palette like Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, this romantic GLBTQ story in a bakery clearly has me gah-gah.
  • Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks: An endearing slow burning romance at a pumpkin patch where what you wish for isn’t always what you really need. The adventures were a humorous addition to a good ol’ fashioned romance in the fall. The setting is it’s own lovely character.
  • Kiss #8 by Colleen A.F. Venable and Ellen T. Crenshaw: Ah, what more can be said about a girl figuring out relationships while the readers follow along.
  • Hephaistos: God of Fire by George O’Connor: I’m all about this graphic novel series that keeps mythology alive for us all.

A picture book

  • Liberty Arrives!: How America’s Grandest Statue Found Her Home by Robert Byrd: I read it and then immediately booked a trip to the Statue of Liberty with my family. Yes, we were one of the lucky 400 per day to head up to her crown on a chilly October morning. So you should read the book and take the trip too.

And those fabulously fascinating nonfiction titles (again, in no particular order):

  • The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller: It’s a shocking look at five babies born in 1934 that shouldn’t have survived but did, then were ripped from their parents and raised as an amusement park attraction whose visits per year rivaled Niagara Falls.
  • Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein: A truly spectacular behind the scenes look at Onwuachi’s rise to popular chef that mixes the personal and the professional (and includes recipes!)
  • Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty: We all know I’m obsessed with Doughty and this one didn’t disappoint by sharing funny, gross, and impossibly weird questions posed by kids and Doughty’s straightforward and quirky answers that are truthful and entertaining.
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Making of America by Teri Kanefield: Her series always entertains and informs about those that built America. Kanefield never shies away from details that are less than stellar about these individuals and does the same with FDR.
  • Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson: I mean, Anderson powerful words in prose format? Yes, please. The story is meant to be uncomfortable but also powerful and uplifting. A true battlecry for a new era.
  • Rising Water: The Story of the Thai Cave Rescue by Marc Aronson: Whenever I’m talking about this book to teens, I’m always sharing how I knew what the outcome was and I was still sweating whether they were going to make it out alive! That is how capable Aronson is as a writer in manipulating our emotions.
 
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Posted by on December 15, 2019 in Adult, Authors, Cover Love, Graphic novels, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Verse, Young Adult

 

Photographic memories: A collaboration with wings

30 Sep

PhotographicMemories

Spending a massive amount of time reading fiction for my year-long commitment to the Best Fiction for Young Adults blogging team means that I need a mental break once in a while to read nonfiction, poetry, short stories, and anything graphic to keep me fresh for fiction. And in the words of Frenchman Stendhal, “a good book is an event in my life.” Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide is one such book from this past weekend. It hasn’t left me.

Published in 2018, I saw the cover frequently and wanted to get my hands on it. Focused on the life of Graciela Iturbide, she is the title character and the most memorable. A life that endured a tragedy, the death of a child, which she never talked about, it threw her into a tailspin and she became uber-focused on photography by specifically documenting her native Mexico.

2019-09-28 10.45.05And it’s the likes of illustrator Zeke Peña combined with the words of Isabel Quintero that merge Iturbide’s photography with an illustrated style that brings it to life two-fold. The most memorable panel, the one in which Peña re-works the iconic woman with the iguanas side by side with the photograph courtesy of Getty Images, is striking. And there are other panels that captivate the reader in their presentation and solidifies Peña’s skill both individually and collaboratively working with Quintero’s storytelling. Plus, the font itself worked seamlessly for my eyeballs to move around the pages and panels. Even Peña recognizes the beauty of illustrations by thanking readers “you and your eyeballs for reading this book”. You’re welcome, Peña. Thank you for illustrating it. And it got me thinking about my own life at thirty-something– how would Peña draw mine? What would Quintero write about me? Perhaps the best kind of self-reflective writing prompts could come from this book.

2019-09-28 10.45.18-1

How can we know so little about Iturbide? I am grateful to author and illustrator for starting the conversation with this glorious ode to her life and skill. And nothing says it better than Quintero’s words on Iturbide’s travels in this memorable quote: “Traveling is lonely. Not a desperate loneliness but the kind that asks me to reflect more deeply about the place I’m in. The wings behind my eyes open wide; traveling helps me see my many selves better”.

I advise (that like me) you read this more than once, keep it close by to recommend often, order multiple copies, and encourage budding photographers with this graphic novel biography.

 
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Posted by on September 30, 2019 in Authors, Cover Love, Graphic novels, Nonfiction

 

A week of booktalks

22 Sep

AWeekofBooktalks

I say it frequently, whether I’m tweeting about our readers’ reading habits in the library or animatedly talking about it with teacher colleagues, if I could do nothing other than booktalking as a high school librarian I would be even happier. It could be one-on-one or a whole class, but I can’t help but get excited about all of the books at our fingertips.

This past week, my co-librarian and I spent the week working with our ENL classes for orientations and booktalks and the majority of our 10th grade students booktalking for independent reading.

My favorite utterance was “can we check out more than one?” Ummmm, YES! We’ll continue over the next few weeks filling in here and there for more booktalks but the majority took place within this past week. While I’m exhausted and the library is in general loving disarray, I’m filled with love for authors, their books, and our students.

2019-09-16 16.00.47Here were some of my favorites to discuss:

  • Attack on Titan by Isayama
  • Proud by Muhammad
  • Long Way Down by Reynolds
  • Milk and Honey by Kaur
  • Lockdown: Escape from Furnace by Smith
  • Ms. Marvel by Wilson
  • Black Enough edited by Zoboi
  • The Selection by Cass
  • Chasing King’s Killer by Swanson
  • Between Shades of Gray by Sepetys
 
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Posted by on September 22, 2019 in Fiction, Graphic novels, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Poetry, Verse, Young Adult

 

Bringing it together

06 Aug

BringingItTogether

I regularly contribute to a few other blogs in addition to this one. This has taken shape over the last several years and focuses on a different kind of audience though ultimately it still boils down to books, reading, teaching, and librarianship. So in an effort to share out some of the other posts that often don’t make it back to this one, here is a post to bring it all together.

  • YALSA’s The Hub
    • A division of the American Library Association the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) uses The Hub to share out current recommendations for some of their virtual committees. This year, I sit on the Best Fiction for Young Adults (BFYA) 2020 committee. You’ll see several of my posts alongside other committee members’ and the other committees as well.
  • Times Union‘s Books Blog
  • Nerdy Book Club
    •  A national blog that celebrates a love of reading when it comes to children’s and young adult literature and is the brainchild of Colby Sharp, Donalyn Miller, Katherine Sokolowski, and Cindy Minnich.
 
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Posted by on August 6, 2019 in Blogging, Childrens, Events, Fiction, Middle grade, Miscellaneous, Nonfiction

 

Ballet biographies and the real thing

20 Jul

This post originally appeared on the Times Union Books Blog. 

Confession: It took me three decades to see a ballet; I’ve never even seen The Nutcracker. But last night, I attended Coppelia at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center amid the humidity for their 8pm performance with my two elementary-aged boys and husband. 

I was better prepared for a few reasons: my Pilates instructor, a former ballerina, gave me a Cliffnotes version of what Coppelia was about. And second, I’m a book nerd and had read Misty Copeland’s biography Life In Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina.* Like my post about a beer class connecting to reading, I read to learn as much as I find experiences to learn from and both came together last night. 

The biography balances her personal and professional realms allowing amateurs to understand the world of classical ballet. Copeland had a roller coaster life moving often based on her mother’s new love interest and entered ballet later than most. She battled against prejudice while working hard to perfect her skills to access the elite schools and companies to showcase her talent. 

What I liked is that she name-dropped sparingly. When reading celebrity biographies there is nothing worse than reading pages and pages of names of people I could care less about: I’m reading their biography because I want to know about them. I also liked that she focused on being a black woman in art by finding her voice and also celebrating it dancing on stage with Prince at his concerts to bring ballet to a different audience. Her audience widened again when she did an Under Armour commercial showing off her grace and athleticism that I discovered online afterward. 

And that athleticism is on full display with the breathtaking cover as it is on the stage watching any ballet. I guess aside from looking at a performance like Coppelia as a wordless picture book (I am a librarian after all) that was my other takeaway. I am more astounded by the power and grace of their execution than I am about the moves themselves (or their actual French names). In the book, Copeland regularly shared how arduous the practices were alongside maintaining her body for peak performance. This was a culmination of that appreciation. 

Whether I’m reading books about dead bodies or animals, it’s apparent that I love learning through books. Copeland’s biography is an entry point for those who like me haven’t ever seen a ballet. So I ask you, have there been books that you’ve read that have prepared you for an experience or activity? Share in the comments below! 

 

*Young reader’s editions are adapted books for a teen or tween audience adjusted for both interest and reading level from the adult version. Many adult biographies have been adapted including Sonia Sotomayor, Trevor Noah, Malala Yousafzai, or Ibtihaj Muhammad. 

 
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Posted by on July 20, 2019 in Authors, Events, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Young Adult

 

A serie-ously informative series

30 Jun

ASerieOuslyInforamtiveSeries

One of my favorite things is to discover nonfiction series books that are dependable, informative, and eye-catching. Ones like

  • Wicked History and History’s Worst
  • Captured History
  • Actual Times or the newer series Big Ideas that Changed the World by Don Brown
  • Ordinary People Change The World
  • Olympians graphic novel mythology series by George O’Connor
  • Who Is/Who Was; What Is/What Was

just to name a few. And after reading Teri Kanefield’s newest in her The Making of America series focused on Franklin D. Roosevelt, I’ll now always have my eye out for the next one. I actually realized I missed a few of them, but have some time to catch up: when Roosevelt’s hits shelves this fall know that she’s already hard at work on number six featuring Thurgood Marshall.

DisabilityinBooksWhat works well for the series is the chronological organization of biographical information that is equal parts intrigue and straight facts. There’s a humanity in Kanefield’s delivery that does not dilute the truth, yet weaves a story of a person hellbent on creating an America that they had envisioned as they rose to notoriety.fame. With a mix of photographs and eye-catching covers, they’re as star-spangled as the flag.

The monumental task of telling their stories is made just a tad easier in that loads has been written about them since they’re historical figures. But it’s the angle that Kanefield uses that makes them refreshing for a middle grade and young adult audience (plus interested adults re: nerdy librarians!)

If you haven’t read the first through fourth, get them. Have the fifth, Roosevelt’s pre-ordered and then find some stuff to read in between because Marshall’s won’t be out until spring 2020. Let’s leave the woman in peace so she can research and write because I know I’m waiting patiently over here.

 
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Posted by on June 30, 2019 in Authors, Cover Love, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Research, Upcoming Releases, Young Adult

 

Breaking it up

03 Jun

BreakingItUp

One of the discussions that occurs each time a readathon is on the horizon is about diversifying the book stack– not in terms of representation but format.

Do you have an audiobook so you can take a walk? A few short story or essay collections stacked alongside Harry Potter. For the basic reason that even though reading is exercise for the mind, our bodies need some if we sit too long reading and that reading the same thing might get a little boring. So add some stimulus with a graphic novel. Change the brain chemistry by switching from truth to fiction and back again.

So while I have a large committee commitment to read fiction– if I stuck solely to fiction for this entire year, my brain would explode or worse yet, seize up. I need change like the four seasons of upstate New York where I reside. I spend my lunch reading middle grade nonfiction or a sunny summerish day in the backyard with an adult biography.

Here were some recent non-YA fiction that I’ve read recently

  • The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein
  • Liberty Arrives!: How America’s Grandest Statue Found Her Home by Robert Byrd
  • Caught!: Nabbing History’s Most Wanted by Georgia Bragg
  • High: Everything You Wanted to Know About Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction by David and Nic Sheff
  • Sea Sirens by Amy Chu
  • A Computer Called Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Helped Put America on the Moon by Suzanne Slade

If you’re feeling like you’re in a rut, when was the last time you read something just for you? Or outside of your comfort zone? Or reliving the good old days and reading a picture book. Consider diversification to keep it fresh.

 
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Posted by on June 3, 2019 in Adult, Authors, Childrens, Graphic novels, Nonfiction, Poetry, Short Story, Verse

 

The joy of author visits

09 May

JoyofAuthorVisits

I find myself writing a post yearly if not more after coming down from an author visit high. But as I walked with Dashka Slater to the car at the end of her visit with us at our high school, I said that my co-librarian and I know it’s a successful visit when we’ve teared up: over a student comment or powerful statistic or thoughtful interaction with a kid. Slater can check that box.

The New York Times writer, journalist, author of young adult narrative nonfiction and picture books just spent four days in our area visiting three local high schools and one elementary school. Programming looked different at each of our schools, but all were changed by her visit. At our school, programming was a visit to our alternative high school program, lunch with a book group, an open presentation for any interested students, then a teacher-focused after school session about a topic addressed in The 57 Bus: restorative justice. No one walked away without something to ponder. Plus her personable nature and presentation style endeared her to everyone “on stage” and off. How flexible and Swiss-Army is she that she can speak with a group of 2nd graders in a snail costume after discussing institutionalized racism or helping freshman understand the myriad of terms in the LBTQAI+ community the day before?

Do I wish more students and staff attended? Absolutely. Learning is never-ending and relationships are integral to a healthy society. When we bury ourselves in being busy/hectic educators and over-scheduled teenagers, we don’t see the opportunities that are right in front of us, myself included.

But what are the joys of an author visit? I will count the ways.

  1. Student response– everything from “I got to meet a real live author!” to “Man, you wrote that?” Or the doodler who shares his sketch of them while they’re speaking and they ask to keep it.
  2. Adding to school climate and culture– we want our students to love reading and we promote that every day and use author visits judiciously.
  3. Books! The authors wrote the books then readers get to read them.
  4. Seeing the culmination of planning and preparation– I’ve been thinking about this visit for a year. Others not so much. But as much as visits create sleepless nights and nervous energy, they bring so many groups together.
  5. Did I mention student response? It’s all about them whether they become “Insta famous” being on an author’s Instagram story or take a selfie because again, they met a real live author!

Then all that’s left are the emotions of the day, the pictures, and the personal, lasting memories.

 
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Posted by on May 9, 2019 in Authors, Events, Nonfiction, Young Adult

 

Peek behind the curtain: the teenage brain

18 Jan

peekbehindthecurtain

The last several years, I’ve been increasingly interested in expanding my knowledge about the teens I work with. My own children are elementary-aged, so it’s preparation for their own teenage years, but in the meantime, it’s is exactly right for my job working as a high school librarian.

Beside running a professional development course with the book Brain Literacy for Educators and Psychologists by Virginia W. Berninger and being able to apply the science to several books I have read recently (Proust and the Squid: The Story of Science and the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf– which has an update on my TBR list called Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.) Then, there’s the book that I’m recommending to parents of teens, parents who WILL have teens soon, and those that work with teens in any capacity. As with many of the nonfiction titles I read because I’m curious about the topic, the Post-it count was high. I should really buy stock in the company.

inventingourselvesTitle: Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain

Author: Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Copyright: 2016, then re-printed in 2018 by PublicAffairs

Relevance: As I said above, if you have teenagers (or will soon) and/or work with teenagers, books like these remind us of our own teenage selves, provide scientific research and snapshots of studies with conclusions we can use to better inform our interactions with teens. And it’s not all negative. We need to continue to learn about the brain as science speeds forth and isn’t what you knew during teacher training programs or even that book from twenty years ago when you just started out.

Ah-ha! Post-it note: Synaptic pruning occurs voraciously during adolescence and embodies the motto “if you don’t use it, you lose it”, which is being investigated as a cause of the education slump that occurs around middle schools years (at different points for everyone in their development process) in which grades and performance dip for a short period of time.

Memorable quote or fact: The brain takes of 1/5 of the energy used by the body.

 
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Posted by on January 18, 2019 in Adult, Nonfiction

 

Top 10 of 2018: Adult edition

26 Dec

Copy of Top10of2018

Clearly I read a bit more young adult and middle grade titles than adult titles because my job is working with teens, but as I get older I enjoy taking the time out to read some adult titles. You’ll probably notice a bit of a theme, like the stuff in my Netflix queue, so if you didn’t get to read any of these titles when they were published this past year, put them on your list for 2019.

Top 10 of 2018- Adult Edition

  1. A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong: Detailing a 2008 rape report by Marie after a man broke into her apartment, the writers share the circuitous way in which a man was finally brought to justice after a long hard traumatic road.
  2. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: From it’s superb cover to the dynamic storytelling of Celestial and Roy’s relationship after he’s imprisoned is a slow burn that is full of frustration, love, resentment, and loyalty.
  3. Bingo Love written by Tee Franklin and illustrated by Jenn St. Onge: A queer love story with rich illustrations and a painful yet sentimental relationship about two women, Hazel and Mari who after meeting years ago were apart yet find their way back together decades in the making.
  4. How to be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery: Featuring thirteen animals who had an impact on her life and are reflected in the dozens of books she’s published for teens and adults over the years, it allows all of us to pause and reflect on how animals affect our lives from their presence to their absence.
  5. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara: True crime fans will likely have already bought this the day it came out and it was made more superb by the fact that the Golden State Killer was literally identified not too long ago after McNamara’s quest to identify him over years of her life. We’ve all been sucked into a project that won’t loosen it’s grip and this is evidence of one woman’s true obsession.
  6. Impossible Owls: Essays by Brian Phillips: I picked this one up after seeing it on a best list for 2018 since I’ve also been reading more essay collections. Phillips is a dynamic storyteller and makes the most mundane fascinating but also allows readers to peek behind the curtain of activities like the Iditarod and seeing tigers in the jungles of India.
  7. Not that Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay: Gay’s strong voice is a lightning rod of thoughtful observations that go without saying.
  8. Period: Twelve Voices Tell the Bloody Truth edited by Kate Farrell: The compilation of stories about menstruation is a worthy read for everyone because they are honest, emotional, beautiful, and empowering. Let’s change the dialogue.
  9. Saga Volume 9 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples: Now they’re taking a break after that ending? Gut-wrenching! But this space opera is the most creative and original work featuring star-crossed lovers and their journey filled with imaginative characters including Alana, Marko, and their daughter, Hazel.
  10. Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson: He’s probably biased because he’s a Smithsonian researcher on whales and I’m probably biased because I love whales and marine life in general. From digging up bones and to understanding their immensity, it’s also a message to humans inhabiting this planet that we must take care of all creatures and not hunt them to extinction.

I love animals, can’t you tell? I like true crime but you figured that out too. And a well-drawn and imaginatively well-written graphic novel, check. Let’s celebrate the diversity and creativity of the books that were published in 2018 and tip our hats to the authors continuing to hone their craft and new writers that will bring that much more for 2019.

 
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Posted by on December 26, 2018 in Adult, Authors, Cover Love, Fiction, Graphic novels, Miscellaneous, Nonfiction

 
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