Bookology Magazine

Nonfiction

Summer Reading

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When I say “sum­mer read­ing,” you think about … a good nov­el, right? I have a cou­ple of suggestions. Every kid should have these two books tucked in their beach bags, ready for a car trip, or packed for sum­mer camp. Seriously. In between the read­ing out loud of those nov­els you’ve been sav­ing up all year, or the lis­ten­ing to an audio book on the car radio, or the flash­light read­ing in the pitched tent in your back­yard, I hope you will share these books.… more

You Write Books with … Messages?

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Elizabeth Verdick
Yes. Yes I do. Sure, I know there’s a whole school of thought that says “shar­ing a mes­sage” in a children’s book is some­thing to avoid. That chil­dren will learn more, feel more, by read­ing books—sto­ries—that evoke an emo­tion­al response and increase empa­thy through strong char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and vivid lan­guage. Yes. Yes that’s true. But.… Some­times chil­dren, and the adults rais­ing and teach­ing them, need straight­for­ward tools that address social and emo­tion­al chal­lenges and mile­stones.… more

Summery

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Peter Lourie
A well-known jour­nal­ist in a local bagel joint, after not see­ing me for a few weeks, would always greet me with, “Wel­come back, Pete.” It wasn’t because he knew where I’d been, but he knew I trav­eled a lot to write my children’s adven­ture books. Since I’d seen him last, I’d prob­a­bly been out climb­ing Aztec or Mayan tem­ples, pad­dling a riv­er, accom­pa­ny­ing biol­o­gists study­ing polar bears, whales, or man­a­tees.… more

Sorry — I Mean Structure—Seems To Be the Hardest Word

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Susan Latta
There’s an old Elton John song titled, Sor­ry Seems to be the Hard­est Word. Well, I won­der if he’d mind if I changed the title to, Struc­ture Seems to be the Hard­est Word. Struc­ture is a lot like voice; it needs to be present, yet it must be invis­i­ble and unforced. With­out it, the writ­ing may fall down just like a kindergartner’s block tow­er.… more

Re-claiming Women’s History — Still

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Karen Blumenthal
At a meet­ing at the Dal­las Pub­lic Library one day, a retired chief exec­u­tive explained to me his vision for a per­ma­nent dis­play on a soon-to-be-ren­o­vat­ed floor hon­or­ing the men who built up the city’s down­town after World War II. I looked at him skep­ti­cal­ly. “What about the women?” “There aren’t any,” he snapped back. Of course there were! But because a group of white men con­trolled pol­i­tics in the city for decades, few peo­ple know them.… more

Capers and Cons

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Capers and Cons The Player King
When you (or your stu­dents) want a book that keeps you turn­ing the pages for your week­night and week­end read­ing, here are some sug­ges­tions for books with that nim­ble pac­ing and what-are-they-up-to plots. Many of them are just right for mid­dle grade or avid younger-than-that read­ers, with a cou­ple of teen titles added. (And, of course, all are suit­able for read­ing by adults.)
… more

The Good Thing about Bad Words

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Karen Blumenthal
It’s mid-Jan­u­ary, I have this Non­fic­tionary dead­line, and all I can think about is Pres­i­dent Trump’s lat­est vulgarity. His recent word choice about cer­tain coun­tries jumped from my phone like an elec­tri­cal charge, lit­er­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly jolt­ing me back­wards. For the rest of the day and beyond, my soul hurt and my spir­it sagged. But it was just a word.… more

A Science Rookie: Learning to Craft a Science Narrative When
You Know Next to Nothing about Science

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Susan Latta
Enter the fresh­man chem­istry tutor dressed in torn jeans and a flan­nel shirt. His job? To get me through entry lev­el chem­istry at Iowa State Uni­ver­si­ty. My first col­lege plan was to major in Hotel and Restau­rant Man­age­ment because my father owned a com­pa­ny that did busi­ness with these types of insti­tu­tions. So, what the heck, I didn’t know what else to study so I declared that my major way back in the fall of 1977.… more

Biography: How to Decide
What Goes into the Soup Pot (and What Doesn’t)

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Susan Latta
It is cold up here in the north coun­try, so late­ly my thoughts have turned to cre­at­ing a steam­ing pot of soup. For soup, you have to hit the high­lights; the chick­en, onions, a car­rot or two. If you toss in too many ingre­di­ents, noth­ing will stand out and the result will be a mud­dled mess. You must also have a spe­cial ingre­di­ent.… more

A Picture and a Thousand Words

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Karen Blumenthal
As a reporter and edi­tor for decades, I often heard peo­ple accuse my col­leagues and me of “bias,” of hav­ing a par­tic­u­lar slant on a sto­ry — usu­al­ly a point of view that the accuser dis­put­ed. It was a com­mon charge, espe­cial­ly if the issue was controversial. But in truth, reporters are no dif­fer­ent than any­one else. Every­one comes to a sub­ject with some kind of bias. … more

Why Young Writers Need an Authentic Audience

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Melissa Stewart
For me, writ­ing non­fic­tion is a fun adven­ture. A game to play. A puz­zle to solve. A chal­lenge to overcome. But many stu­dents don’t feel the same way. Accord­ing to them, research is bor­ing. Mak­ing a writ­ing plan is a waste of time. And revi­sion is more than frus­trat­ing. It’s down­right painful. Why do young writ­ers have a point of view that’s so com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from mine?… more

Unearthing the Good Stuff

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Susan Latta
Five Steps to a Suc­cess­ful Non­fic­tion Interview I love flow­ers but no one would ever call my thumb green. Each spring how­ev­er, I drag the pots to the front step, fill them with soil, plant red gera­ni­ums sur­round­ed by marigolds, and water when nature for­gets. And when the school bus­es rum­ble down the street, I am delight­ed to emp­ty the pots for anoth­er season.… more

Three Tips for Writing Teachers

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Melissa Stewart
Teach­ers often feel frus­trat­ed when the revi­sions stu­dents make to their writ­ing aren’t improve­ments. And so they ask me how to help the chil­dren make their man­u­scripts better. I wish I had an easy answer for these teach­ers and for their stu­dents, but here’s the truth: Revi­sion is messy. It’s fraught with detours. Even expe­ri­enced writ­ers strug­gle with the process, and some­times our efforts are com­plete and utter fail­ures.… more

What the Heck is Creative Nonfiction?

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Melissa Stewart
The term cre­ative non­fic­tion was first used by Lee Gutkind in the 1980s as a syn­onym for nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion. Gutkind wished to con­vey the idea that non­fic­tion wasn’t always dry and util­i­tar­i­an. By employ­ing such ele­ments as char­ac­ter, dia­logue, scene build­ing, strong voice, inno­v­a­tive struc­ture, point of view, and lit­er­ary devices, writ­ers could craft non­fic­tion that sings. … more

Why Students Copy Their Research Sources,
and How to Break the Habit

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Melissa Stewart
By third grade, near­ly all stu­dents know what pla­gia­rism is and under­stand that it’s both immoral and ille­gal, and yet, again and again, we catch them copy­ing their sources. Why don’t stu­dents express ideas and infor­ma­tion in their own words? Because they haven’t tak­en the time or don’t have the skills to ana­lyze and syn­the­size the mate­r­i­al they’ve col­lect­ed so that they can make their own mean­ing.… more

Third Grader Reading at a Sixth Grade Level

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Making Friends with Billy Wong
Respond­ing to a par­ent request for books that would inter­est her third-grad­er-read­ing-at-a-sixth-grade-lev­el, we crowd-sourced a list. Big thanks to Sara Alcott, Lin­da Baie, Les­ley Man­dros Bell, Karen Cramer, Caren Creech, Melin­da Fant, Ellen Klar­re­ich, Vick­ie LoP­ic­co­lo, Ellen McEvoy, Lau­ra Moe, Tunie Mun­son-Ben­son, Vic­ki Palmquist, Car­rie Shay, Faythe Dyrud Thureen, Cindy Walk­er, and Sharon J. Wilson. Unlike our usu­al anno­tat­ed book­lists, we are pre­sent­ing this one in alpha­bet­i­cal order by book title due to the length of the list.
… more

Candace Fleming Tames the Wild West

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Our thanks to author Can­dace Flem­ing for sit­ting still long enough to answer in-depth ques­tions about her con­cep­tion for, research into, and writ­ing deci­sions for Pre­sent­ing Buf­fa­lo Bill: the Man Who Invent­ed the Wild West, our Book­storm™ this month. Flem­ing’s answers will inform edu­ca­tors, pro­vid­ing direct quotes from an oft-pub­lished biog­ra­ph­er of beloved books that will be use­ful for teach­ing writ­ing and research skills in the classroom. … more

Everything You Need to Ace Five Subjects

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Everything You Need to Ace Science in One Big Fat Notebook
I’ve had this TBR pile of five very attrac­tive, come-hith­er-look­ing books beg­ging to be rec­om­mend­ed for weeks now. The spines are bright pri­ma­ry col­ors so I know that even when I shelve them they will be call­ing to me. And I think they’ll be call­ing to your stu­dents as well. I open what are for me the two scari­est vol­umes (eat your veg­eta­bles first — oops, as an adult, I find I LOVE veg­eta­bles), Every­thing You Need to Know to Ace Sci­ence in One Fat Note­book: Notes Bor­rowed from the Smartest Kid in Class (Dou­ble-Checked by Award-Win­ning Teacher) and Every­thing You Need to Ace Math in One Big Fat Note­book: Notes Bor­rowed from the Smartest Kid in Class (Dou­ble-Checked by Award-Win­ning Teacher).… more

Bookstorm™: Presenting Buffalo Bill

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Presenting Buffalo Bill
Pre­sent­ing Buf­fa­lo Bill pro­vides an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to teach dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion between fic­tion and non­fic­tion, mythol­o­gy and fact, as well as the dis­cern­ment, research, and dis­cus­sion skills that are nat­u­ral­ly born out of this type of close read­ing. Buf­fa­lo Bill’s life and Wild West Show are excit­ing and the author makes them all the more vivid and engag­ing with her writ­ing.… more

Anita Silvey

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We are so pleased to have author and edu­ca­tor Ani­ta Sil­vey talk with us about her book Let Your Voice Be Heard: The Life and Times of Pete Seeger, our Book­storm this month. Do you remember when you were first aware of Pete Seeger as a child or teenager? In my sophomore year in college, I came down with mono and had to be sequestered from other students.… more

Bookstorm™: Let Your Voice Be Heard

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Let Your Voice Be Heard
Whether you include social jus­tice, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, activism, or social action in your cur­ricu­lum or at your library, this is the ide­al book for you. A biog­ra­phy of Pete Seeger, recip­i­ent of our Nation­al Medal for the Arts, and cham­pi­on of the peo­ple for his 94 years, our Book­storm this month, Let Your Voice Be Heard: The Life and Times of Pete Seeger, cel­e­brates his life while it inspires each read­er to car­ry on his work.… more

Reading Memories

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Treasury for Young Readers
Mem­o­ries of my child­hood are imper­fect. Yours, too? I don’t remem­ber hav­ing a lot of books as a child. I remem­ber The Poky Lit­tle Pup­py and anoth­er dog book (title unknown) and Three Lit­tle Kit­tens (per­haps a reminder to me to keep track of my mittens). I remem­ber using the school library vora­cious­ly to read books. I had no access to the pub­lic library (too far away) so that school library was my life­line.… more

Eileen Ryan Ewen

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Miss Colfax's Light
Miss Colfax's Light is a perfect example of the text and illustrations enhancing each other to make a picture book biography that is more than the sum of its parts. With our interview, we hope to help you look more deeply at Eileen Ryan Ewen's illustrations.

Aimée Bissonette

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Aimée Bissonette
In this inter­view with Aimée Bis­sonette, author of Miss Col­fax’s Light, our Book­storm™ this month, we asked about writ­ing and research­ing this non­fic­tion pic­ture book biography. 
 Aimée, thank you for shar­ing your expe­ri­ences and dis­cov­er­ies with our read­ers. We’re excit­ed about this book that show­cas­es an Every­day Hero, one of Amer­i­ca’s female light­house keepers.… more

Look at how we’re teaching nonfiction!

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Melissa Stewart
As anoth­er school year winds to a close, I’m feel­ing encour­aged about the state of non­fic­tion read­ing and writ­ing in ele­men­tary class­rooms across the country. In 2010, when the Com­mon Core State Stan­dards were intro­duced, edu­ca­tors began ask­ing me for ideas and strate­gies for imple­ment­ing the Read­ing Infor­ma­tion­al Text stan­dards. And they were hun­gry for tips and tools that they could use to teach infor­ma­tion­al writing.… more

Books about Chocolate

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Chocolate
Feb­ru­ary is Nation­al Choco­late Month, so how could we let it pass by with­out an homage to choco­late … in books? Far less cost­ly on the den­tal bill! “In 2009, more than 58 mil­lion pounds of choco­late were pur­chased and (like­ly) con­sumed in the days sur­round­ing Feb­ru­ary 14th — that’s about $345 mil­lion worth. (Kiri Tan­nen­baum, “8 Facts About Choco­late,” Del­ish) Were you a part of the nation­al sta­tis­tic?
… more

“Don’t get took! Read a book!”

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Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist I go crazy when I hear that Vaun­da Michaux Nel­son has anoth­er book com­ing out. I’m a fan. For my own read­ing life, No Crys­tal Stair: a doc­u­men­tary nov­el of the life and work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem book­seller, is one of my top ten books in the last ten years. I found every aspect of that book sat­is­fy­ing.… more

Bookstorm: The Shadow Hero

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Shadow Hero
In this Bookstorm™: Shadow Hero writ­ten by Gene Luen Yang
illus­trat­ed by Son­ny Liew
First Sec­ond, 2014 As we become a cul­ture adapt­ed to screens, visu­als, and mov­ing pic­tures, we grow more accus­tomed to the sto­ry­telling form of the graph­ic nov­el. For some, their com­fort with this com­bi­na­tion of visu­als and text telling a sto­ry sat­is­fies a crav­ing to “see” the sto­ry while they’re read­ing.… more

Hands-on History for Spatial Learners

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When I was in ele­men­tary school, I was nev­er more excit­ed than when the teacher told us we could make a dio­ra­ma or a minia­ture scene of a pio­neer set­tle­ment. The con­cept, plan­ning, and build­ing were thrilling for me. Even though my fin­ished work sel­dom approached the daz­zling dis­play I could see in my head, I learned a great deal about his­to­ry, engi­neer­ing, sci­ence, and card­board from my for­ays into build­ing a small world in three dimensions.… more

Reading Ahead: Levitate Your Brother!

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Big Magic for Little Hands
by Vic­ki Palmquist We recent­ly host­ed a Har­ry Pot­ter par­ty for adults for which every­one was asked to per­form a mag­ic trick. Some peo­ple fierce­ly addressed the chal­lenge. Some peo­ple pan­icked. Some peo­ple bought a trick off the inter­net. I turned to Joshua Jay’s Big Mag­ic for Lit­tle Hands (Work­man Pub­lish­ing Co). Cit­ing all the ben­e­fits of learn­ing to per­form mag­ic, the author reveals that he was­n’t a read­er until he need­ed to know about mag­ic.… more

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