Confirmed young adult fiction readers do enjoy some non-fiction. What does it take to make them cross genre boundaries? Books that hook them need an intriguing subject, but more importantly, a strong narrative thread! Several recent longer non-fictions for older readers have a strong sense of story that will keep fiction fans engaged.
Arlene Schulman's Cop on the Beat: Officer Steven Mayfield in New York City (Dutton, $12.99; ages 10 and up) is an in depth look at the every day life of a man who patrols the streets of upper Manhattan. The writer hit pay dirt when she chose her subject for Mayfield shares his life honestly, has a high sense of integrity and dedication, and is also articulate. Schulman's interview scope is broad; she questions Mayfield's single mom, people on the street, his partner, siblings, and friends. Schulman is also a careful and skillful observer with a great ear. When she follows Mayfield around, she captures him in a variety of situations and snags great quotes.
"Where's common sense?" Mayfield asks as he tickets cars double parked near empty parking spaces. He wonders this often; when a fellow officer is killed and people on the street cheer, or when he is "sitting in an apartment alone with a dead body as he waits for the medical examiner to inspect the corpse and sign off on paperwork." This eloquent cop speaks openly about people's acceptance of him as black, about being single, and about the disrespect he sees on the streets. We get to know Mayfield through his growing up stories, seeing his professional side, and viewing the compassionate man who solves disputes, wants to see the right thing done, and mourns a friend lost on 9-11. The book is a mix of statistics, brisk writing style, many black and white photos, and insights delivered through stories.
Harold Holzer zeroes in on a significant historical moment in The President is Shot! The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Boyds Mills Press, $17.95; ages 10 and up). Holzer tells the story with an immediacy and depth that gives readers a sense of being there. He sets the scene well, describing its occurrence in the midst of great celebration of Lincoln at the Civil War's end. This celebration surprised Lincoln who was used to being unpopular and often receiving threats for "destroying the country."
The book dimensionalizes historical figures. We get to know the fear and phobias of Mary Lincoln, how she mourned her son and loved to spend money. There are facets that will fascinate readers like knowing that Lincoln had several dreams of his early death, one an exact vision of what later occurred. The author tells much about John Wilkes Booth - - his talents, family fame, celebrity status, his insecurities, and the hatred which led him to plan the kidnapping of Lincoln, and then his murder.
Holzer provides clear context and then paints such detailed pictures that this event becomes an absorbing story. The book includes period etchings, reproduced mementos, and early photographs - - there's everything from a mourning envelope to a picture of the execution of the conspirators.
Martin Sandler is a master at blending pictures and the tales of people to reveal historical stories. He succeeds once again in his latest book, Island of Hope: The Story of Ellis Island and the Journey to America (Scholastic, $18.95; ages 10 and up). This book was inspired by his grandfather, a Polish immigrant whose broken English at first embarrassed young Martin. But when Sandler, as a youth, interviewed his grandfather, he saw him as a hero, who like millions of others "risked everything they had to build new lives for themselves and their children."
"It is estimated that more than 40% of all American citizens can trace their ancestry to those who came through Ellis Island", Martin tells his readers and if this fact doesn't spark interest, the vivid black and white pictures and individual accounts will. There are contrasts in text and photographs that paint a distinct picture of the disparity between first class and steerage passengers and the difference between life in famine-filled Ireland and later in America
The most powerful part of the book comes when Sandler points the lens of his historical camera directly at life at Ellis Island. His focus is clear and precise and his details and examples portray the poignancy of the place, the times, and the people. Personal stories show the fear people felt about being turned back for lack of money, or the dreaded eye disease. Not only was the new language confusing, but money had no numeric values and people worried about theft. There was the strangeness of new foods, the extreme exemplified by a strict Jewish sect who almost died because of diet restrictions. There are compassionate stories of those who were kind to detainees and happy reunions at a landmark know as the "Kissing Post". The book's strong emotional quality is complemented by surprising statistics. For example, in these times, the Ellis Island hospital was the largest medical facility in the world and during sixty years of operation it delivered 350 babies.
Art Against the Odds: From Slave Quilts to Prison Paintings (Crown, $19.95; ages 10 and up) by Susan Rubin also is story-led, but it is less successful than the other books. The subject of this book is "outsider art", a term which describes self-taught, isolated, artists who created potent images with no thought of sharing them publicly. The outsider artists cover a huge range; holocaust camp children, prisoners, institutionalized insane, generations of poor women who stitched amazing quilts in Gee's Bend, Alabama, and even a Kenyan child who makes play toys despite the devastation which surrounds him.
The numbers of artists in these categories are large and many of them are prolific. That is why this book fails to succeed. It has all the stories, but because it is only 43 pages long, it has the feeling of an abridged non-fiction narrative. The peeks at these people and samplings of art are so poignant, you long for more. Perhaps these vignettes will be strong enough to send young adults searching for fuller stories, but I wish the author had provided them.
The involving writing and narrative strength of these non-fictions will capture YA readers and deepen their understanding of history, people, and the world.
Other Non-fiction narrative titles to recommend. Many of these authors have published numbers of narrative non-fictions:
Jennifer Armstrong, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance (Crown)
Marc Aronson, Witch-hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials (Atheneum)
Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine (Houghton Mifflin)
Marian Calabro, The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party (Clarion)
Russell Freedman, In Defense of Liberty: The Story of America's Bill of Rights (Holiday House)
James Giblin, When Plague Strikes (HarperCollins)
Maria Hinojosa, Crews: Gang Members Talk to Maria Hinojosa (HBJ)
Deborah Hopkinson, Shutting Out the Sky:Life in the Tenements of New York 1880-1924 (Orchard)
Philip Hoose, We Were There, Too! Young People in US History (FSG)
Susan Kuklin, Trial: the Inside Story (Holt)
Shannon Lanier, Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American Family (Random House)
Julius Lester, To Be a Slave (Puffin)
Milton Meltzer, Never to Forget: the Jews of the Holocaust (HarperCollins)
Jim Murphy, An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 (Clarion) and others
Gary Paulsen, Woodsong (Aladdin)
Jerry Stanley, Children of the Dustbowl (Crown)
Annie Thomas, editor, With their Eyes: September 11th: The View from a High School at Ground Zero (HarperCollins)
Michael O. Tunnell, The Children of Topaz: The Story of a Japanese American Interment Camp (Holiday House)
Ginger Wadsworth, Voices of Young Pioneers (Clarion)