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In her nonfiction book Is It Real? The Loch Ness Monster, award-winning author Candace Fleming encourages readers to don their detective hats and gather their investigative tools in order to reach a verdict on one of the natural world’s greatest mysteries, whether the Loch Ness Monster is real or legend. To take readers on this sleuthing journey, Fleming invents a member of the Black Swan Scientific Investigation (BSSI) team who receives the job to unravel the mystery of what lurks in Scotland’s Loch Ness. Just as the scientific method typically has six steps, so too does the investigative method follow a systematic process: Review theRead More →

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Candace Fleming puts her research skill and storytelling talent to use to write a remarkable nonfiction account of ten teenage girls who broke ciphers, kept secrets, and helped win World War II. Because everyone employed at Bletchley Park—code name Station X—signed the Official Secrets Act, their vital, top secret toil was unknown for more than thirty years. Writing The Enigma Girls and filling it with rich photographs to capture this historic time, Fleming memorializes the heroic contributions of these young women who dedicated themselves to hard work and secrecy. Although names like Alan Turing, Alfred “Dilly” Knox, and Tommy Flowers may be more widely known,Read More →

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While reading Justin Baldoni’s book Boys Will Be Human, I kept thinking of people I needed to pass this book on to next. Not just for male readers, it is a primer of sorts about acceptance and validation. Baldoni opens this topic early by writing: “Regardless of our genders, what’s important to our spiritual growth is learning how to be kind, loving, honest, of service, thoughtful, sensitive, loyal” (15) humans. Baldoni also argues that life isn’t a poker game where the winners are the most stoic players with the monetary and physical resources to bet high. We have to be willing to check our privilegeRead More →

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Based on the YouTube sensation, Storybooth compiled by Marcy Kaye and Joshua Sinel is a collection of “amazing & heartbreaking & inspiring stories” told by “brave teens bold enough to share a piece of themselves with the world.” The collection features true confessions, secrets, struggles, embarrassments, heartbreaks, and other facets of diverse and fragile lives. The compilation is brimming with emotion, and many of the stories cover difficult subjects, like rape, homophobia, racism, suicide ideation, self-harm, bullying, abuse, and experimentation with sexual intimacy. The multifarious voices inspire readers and remind us that we are all in this world together, trying our best, not just toRead More →

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In his nonfiction book Days of Infamy, Lawrence Goldstone reveals several events from the past that bear remembering, lest they be repeated. The book provides important history for young adults about how a century of bigotry led to Japanese American internment. With Executive Order 9066 authorized by President Franklin Roosevelt, anyone of Japanese heritage was considered an “alien,” a potential saboteur or enemy agent who could be denied rights otherwise guaranteed under the Constitution. To have one’s rights annulled in the name of national security—as was again done with the Patriot Act after September 11, 2001—is something we should have learned from; yet, here weRead More →

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Despite the prologue, this graphic novel (Messy Roots by Laura Gao) isn’t about the pandemic. The beautiful color pages of the first chapter describe what this book is really about: freedom and roots. Two concepts that can seem like opposites but that blend together in a beautiful combination in this book. Opening her story with her childhood in Wuhan, Gao makes it easy to see how different her adolescence in Texas is from her early years. As a child transplanted to the US at a young age, Gao quickly learns the importance of fitting in. She changes her Chinese name for the American “Laura” andRead More →

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In his newest book, A Rebel in Auschwitz, Jack Fairweather tells the true story of a resistance hero who fought the Nazis from inside the tortuous prison camp.  The book opens with an introduction to Witold Pilecki, a young Polish underground operative. Once readers have a sense of this man’s values, we read about Hitler’s goal to obliterate the Polish people as well as their nation—“to drown the people in blood” (12). Feeling it is imperative to face down evil, Witold accepts a mission to infiltrate Auschwitz so that he can pass on any intelligence to the resistance group and rally the power of theRead More →

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Brandy Colbert writes an important book, a story that needed to see the light of day. Black Birds in the Sky is a nonfiction account of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. It is filled with sad and horrifying cruelty as it recounts one of the most deadly and destructive acts of racial violence in American History. Colbert makes her readers aware of just how much the past inform the present. She enlightens us, explaining that history is full of progress and setbacks. The Unites States, in particular, has a violent genocidal foundation. Traumatic times often get passed over in classrooms and conversations because they makeRead More →

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Deborah Hopkinson’s nonfiction book We Must Not Forget joins other powerful stories of survival and resistance during the era when an act of defiance carried a risk and a price. Hopkinson tells the stories of lesser known Jewish children and teens whose courage and strength enabled them to survive the Holocaust. To give the dead a voice and to call the world to action, Hopkinson provides key dates, people’s harrowing stories, and photographs to illustrate their lives. Most chapters also end with grey shadow boxes that share Look, Listen, Remember resources and information for further exploration. Furthermore, like most nonfiction books, We Must Not ForgetRead More →