Text Messages: Recommendations for Adolescent Readers

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Episode 16 — Nonfiction Books for Teens

The best nonfiction books for teens defy simple distinctions between the dryness of fact and the pleasures of fiction.  They draw on photos, interviews, and archival documents to bring the past to life or introduce readers to previously untold stories. 

In this episode, you’ll hear about new nonfiction books that explore, among other things, the role of women in the NASA space program, the Civil Rights Movement, and the experiences of Arab American youth in the post-9/11 era.

After listening to this episode, be sure to print out this list of recommended titles to take to the library or book seller.

Recommendations in this episode include

• Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone (Candlewick, February 2009)
  
• Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Freedom by Phillip Hoose (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 2009)
  
• Years of Dust: The Story of the Dust Bowl by Albert Marrin (Dutton, August 2009)
  
• Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman (Henry Holt, 2008)
  
• I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields (Henry Holt, 2008)
  
• No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row by Susan Kuklin (Henry Holt, 2008)
  
• How Does it Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America by Moustafa Bayoumi (Penguin, 2008)

Published June 23, 2009

About the Host

Jennifer Buehler taught English for ten years before earning a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan’s Joint Program in English and Education. As a high school teacher, she developed an 800-book classroom library designed to engage and inspire her ninth grade students as readers. Watching students select reading materials led Jennifer to expand her own reading accordingly, allowing her to match books successfully with teens’ wide-ranging tastes and interests.

As a teacher consultant with the Eastern Michigan Writing Project, Jennifer regularly led workshops on young adult literature for parents, area teachers, and students in university methods classes. Now Assistant Professor of English Education at Saint Louis University, Jennifer teaches classes on English methods and young adult literature. She is an active member of NCTE's Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN), and she served on ALAN’s first Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee.