Nonfiction Archives - Page 2 of 56

Disability Visibility (Adapted for Young Adults): First-Person Stories for Today edited by Alice Wong [in School Library Journal]

05 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“This is the book I wish I had as a teenager,” disability rights activist Alice Wong reveals, choosing 17 stories for this adaptation from the 37 in her 2020 original. As editor, Wong again reads her introduction. While none could dispute that Wong is a...

The Lemon Tree (Young Readers’ Edition): An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan [in School Library Journal]

31 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab, Audio, Biography, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“I wanted to write a history book in disguise,” journalist and professor Sandy Tolan announces, “and to make it feel, throughout, like a good novel. Even though the story is true.” Tolan voiced his original; here Rami Medina makes his audiobook debut: his rich, youthful...

Fashionopolis (Young Readers Edition): The Secrets Behind the Clothes We Wear by Dana Thomas [in School Library Journal]

30 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Paris-based journalist Dana Thomas adapts her 2019 erudite exposé for younger audiences, and also (again) narrates. For a writer careful enough to include phonetic guidelines – ”Maria Cornejo (pronounced “Cor-nay-ho”),” for example – her inconsistencies surprise: Ikeda is not “ai-kee-dah”; “Iris (pronounced “EEE-reece”)” is followed...

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Young Readers Edition by Anton Treuer [in School Library Journal]

29 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW “Indians. We are so often imagined, but so infrequently well understood,” Anton Treuer’s opening sentence reads. As a Princeton-educated, Ojibwe professor with “one foot in the wigwam and one in the ivory tower,” Treuer “cannot speak for all Indians,” but he’s ready with “specific...

How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo [in Christian Science Monitor]

27 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Filipina/o American, Nonfiction, Repost

Bracing cultural criticism flows from the pen of Elaine Castillo Provocative and pointed literary criticism in How to Read Now: Essays challenges people to become better, smarter readers. Boundless erudition and eloquent exasperation define Elaine Castillo’s debut nonfiction, How to Read Now, an incandescent collection of essays...

Mighty Justice (Young Readers’ Edition): The Untold Story of Civil Rights Trailblazer Dovey Johnson Roundtree by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe, adapted by Jabari Asim [in School Library Journal]

24 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Until her death at 104 in 2018, Dovey Johnson Roundtree—“a Black woman born in the early twentieth century in the Jim Crow South” – shared a remarkable 24-year friendship with Katie McCabe, a self-described “white woman who came of age in 1950s Washington, DC.” Theirs...

The Impossible Climb (Young Readers Adaptation): Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and a Climber’s Life by Mark Synnott, adapted by Hampton Synnott [in School Library Journal]

23 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Biography, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Synnott couple compress husband Mark’s 2019 bestseller to share with younger readers Alex Honnold’s thought-to-be-impossible feat of solo free climbing – as in no ropes, no harness! – Freerider, El Capitan’s notorious 3,000-feet vertical route in Yosemite National Park. Perhaps aware that adults might argue...

A Rebel in Auschwitz: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Fought the Nazis from Inside the Camp by Jack Fairweather [in School Library Journal]

22 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Biography, European, Jewish, Nonfiction, Polish, Repost, Young Adult Readers

What’s immediately striking here is the casting of a woman to narrate: the titular rebel is the Polish hero – a man – Witold Pilecki. So, too, is the author, Jack Fairweather, who adapted his 2019 award-winning The Volunteer. The reasons for choosing a female...

The Burning (Young Readers Edition): Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 by Tim Madigan, adapted by Hilary Beard [in School Library Journal]

21 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Two decades after Tim Madigan wrote The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 about “the nation’s worst race war,” award-winning writer Hilary Beard heightens the event’s significance with amplified awareness of social justice, systemic racism, and critical race theory in this young...

Killers of the Flower Moon: Adapted for Young Readers: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann [in School Library Journal]

20 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW David Grann’s adaptation of his 2017 mega-bestselling title of the same name has lost none of the urgency of the astounding original. Once upon a time, “the Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world,” a result of the oil beneath...

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop (Young Adult Edition): A Hip-Hop History by Jeff Chang and Dave “Davey D” Cook [in School Library Journal]

19 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Over a decade and a half after its 2005 publication, the young readers edition of historian/journalist/music critic Jeff Chang’s seminal Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation seems almost overdue. The enhanced collaboration with historian/journalist/professor Dave "Davey D" Cook adds new generations...

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy by Emmanuel Acho [in School Library Journal]

18 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW For audiences familiar with the former NFL linebacker’s viral YouTube series, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, or those who might have already listened to the Emmanuel Acho-narrated audiobook of the same title, be assured that Landon Woodson’s performance in this young readers edition...

Dreyer’s English (Adapted for Young Readers): Good Advice for Good Writing by Benjamin Dreyer [in School Library Journal]

17 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Benjamin Dreyer is delightful – as both author and narrator. His witty charm, his utter devotion to his craft (despite his comical protestations of “I hate grammar”!) are as immediately, joyfully recognizable in the ears as on the page. But, so much of Dreyer’s exacting erudition...

Chasing the Truth: A Young Journalist’s Guide to Investigative Reporting: She Said Young Readers Edition by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, adapted by Ruby Shamir [in School Library Journal]

16 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Serial collaborator Ruby Shamir fortuitously adapts journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s essential 2019 She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, providing young journalists not only an illuminating window into the industry, but also empowering young women, especially, to speak...

One Life: Young Readers Edition by Megan Rapinoe [in School Library Journal]

15 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Megan Rapinoe read her original 2020 memoir herself. Here, for the young readers edition, Nicole Lewis proves to be an optimal, dynamic match. Rapinoe made international headlines – and fielded a vicious media onslaught – when she emulated Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protests against racism targeting...

Sisters of the War: Two Remarkable True Stories of Survival and Hope in Syria by Rania Abouzeid [in School Library Journal]

14 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Young Adult Readers

Adapted from No Turning Back, award-winning Lebanese Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid narrows her focus here to younger characters forced to witness Syria’s decimation under President Bashar Hafez al-Assad. In 2011, Hanin is 8, the middle of three sisters living in the “fringes” of Damascus. Although the...

How to Fight Racism Young Reader’s Edition: A Guide to Standing Up for Racial Justice by Jemar Tisby [in School Library Journal]

13 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Jemar Tisby, who continues here as his own narrator, is a patient, thoughtful reader, remaining consistently gracious even when discussing egregious history and contemporary injustice. Tisby gets immediately personal, introducing his younger self when he realized that the predominantly white school had “all the nice...

Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, adapted by Sonja Cherry-Paul [in School Library Journal]

12 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW First came Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning, awarded the 2016 National Book Award. Then Jason Reynolds with Kendi presented (and narrated) “ A Remix” with 2020’s Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You for young adults. Middle grade audiences get their own version, distilled by...

The Racers: How an Outcast Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Challenged Hitler’s Best by Neal Bascomb [in School Library Journal]

10 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, European, French, German, Jewish, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

History alchemized through the Neal Bascomb lens – Russian battleship Potemkin, WWI prison camp, Nazi Germany – is a guaranteed thrill-ride; his latest takes readers into the speediest cars of the 1930s. Adapting Faster for younger audiences, Bascomb details a prominent Nazi upset played out...

The Story of More (Adapted for Young Adults): How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren [in School Library Journal]

08 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning scientist Hope Jahren continues her auspicious author/narrator streak, especially ideal for the adaptation of her lauded 2020 original: her chatty, friendly presentation is an immediate invitation to listen to “what happened to my world, to your world – to our world.” Even more compelling...

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