Top Nonfiction Picture Books 2012

http://www.ala.org/yalsa/nonfiction-award

I'm so excited to be on the 2014 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Awards committee. This committee started in 2009 with the first books awarded in 2010.  For the 2014 Award we are reading books published for young adults from November 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013.  I can't actually tell you anything about any of those books right now but I can tell you about these two super fantastic books!







Top Nonfiction Picture Book reads of 2012

from Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World by Sy Montgomery (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2012. 148p. $17.99. 9780547443157.) I actually listened to this one so I should also give credit to Meredith Mitchell, the narrator. What I loved about this book was the way Montgomery interspersed facts about autism with Grandin's story. Learning about how her dad wanted her sent away and then listening to some behavorial issues some autistic children may exhibit sort of put a face to the information and made it real. I especially loved Temple Grandin's tips to autistic children.

from Macmillan

Bomb: The Race to Build-- and Steal -- The World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin (Roaring Book Press, 2012. 272p. $19.99. 9781596434875.) Wow! This has to be the best nonfiction I've read in a long time.  I could not stop reading! Sheinkin's account of how scientists around the world worked to build the first atomic bomb, based on a theoretical  by  test on uranium reactions by Otto Hahn. This story is intense and filled with accounts of physicists and spies trying to help their country or, in some cases, another country, win World War II. Simply amazing.  There's a teacher's guide and a clip of Sheinkin reading from the book on the publisher's website.