The following slides are part of a presentation Katie Day and I made for the 2025 ISLE librarian conference in London. (Note: Although I am the one “publishing” or “blogging” this discussion the credit equally goes to Katie Day as this all originates in our many discussions on reading, nonfiction, librarianship and more. )
The slides are pretty self-explanatory. The main idea being that we tend to lump nonfiction into one big pile, perhaps separated by the five types recognised by Melissa Stewart. In this part of the presentation we argued that nonfiction could be categorised along the dimensions of “reality” “time” and “emotion”. In doing so one can more easily appeal to students who are more used to the fictional genres and sub-genres and perhaps find some nonfiction appealing to their fictional reading preferences.
This is the typical way of looking at the continuum between fiction and nonfiction. Note we talk about nonfiction as being “informational” rather than “factual” and try to nudge students into thinking of it in the same way.
The next dimension we add to the equation is that of time. In this instance we are focused on the bottom line of the time dimensions of nonfiction.
We then further elaborate with the dimension of emotion. And this is where we allow our students to feel they are in the more familiar territories of “genre”
The next couple of slides give examples of the 6 “emotional tones” and related books.
Have fun exploring and discussing the categorisations with your students.
International Mother Tongue Day is next week Friday, but my students and I will be embarking on their annual Week Without Walls trip so I’m a week early with this post – hopefully it will be of some use to those of you planning on celebrating it in the library. I will be upfront about my objection to it being called Mother Tongue Day – as it denies all the families where the language of other significant family members are spoken at home. I prefer the term “home language”. This year is the silver jubilee of the event. Despite all efforts, languages are becoming extinct at an ever increasing rate, and unfortunately this doesn’t attract quite as much attention as pictures of cute or not so cute animal. Schools and other educational institutions are complicit in this – something I’ve been banging on about for years, the lack of multiple-lingual home and heritage language education I still see as a failure of imagination rather than a failure of resources in this day and age. Ok, off my soap box and back to the practical.
These lists started with a casual conversation with KD as to what I had planned for the day, as my passion for language is well known. Which led to a discussion on which books one would consider and then, as usual things got a little out of hand and now I have 9 pages of posters of books that feature language. Language in all its glorious and inglorious forms. Learning language, struggling with a language, speaking or not speaking. Sign language. Heritage language. Language and thought, language and power or control. Selective mutism. Denial of language, erasure and extinction of language.
As for what to do – if I were here, these are the things I would do.
Have big sheets of paper our where the community could write down the languages they speak / read / write. The languages they’re learning. The languages of their fathers, mothers, grandparents.
I’d have them make a language family tree. Have a poster with a QR code that led to this quirky test on Language.
As usual here is the link to the template / books used. In return I’d love some comments on the books you recognise and the link to language! And any displays or activities you’re planning. And of course if you have suggestions of books I’ve missed I’d appreciate you adding them in a comment.
I was just passing our picture book shelf and decided the nonfiction picture books need a bit of love and attention. Here are a few I love for their amazing illustrations and beautiful messages written all within a couple of handfuls of pages.
Picture books are so like poetry – so much can be said with so few choice words. Which reminds me of a beautiful piece I read recently about poetry by Larson Langston
In English, we say: “I miss you.” But in poetry, we say: “I trace the shape of your absence in the spaces where your laughter used to linger, and let the echoes of you fill the hollow hours.”
In English, we say: “I don’t know how to let go.” But in poetry, we say: “I carry you in my chest like a stone— heavy, unyielding, and carved with the sharp edges of what once was.”
In English, we say: “I feel lost.” But in poetry, we say: “The compass of my heart spins wildly now, its needle drawn to places it can no longer call home.”
In English, we say: “I wish it were different.” But in poetry, we say: “I water the garden of could-have-beens with tears, waiting for flowers that refuse to bloom.”
In English, we say: “I hope you’re happy.” But in poetry, we say: “May the sun that warms your days be as kind to you as the first kiss of dew on the dawning light upon the leaves of the laurel that we once made love under”
In English, we say: “You hurt me.” But in poetry, we say: “You planted thorns in my chest with hands I once trusted, and now every breath feels like an apology I shouldn’t owe.”
In English, we say: “I wanted to stay.” But in poetry, we say: “I lingered at the edge of your world, a star burning quietly, unnoticed in your vast, indifferent sky.”
In English, we say: “I’m trying to move on.” But in poetry, we say: “I untangle your name from my veins each morning, only to find it woven into my dreams again at night.”
In English, we say: “I’ll be okay.” But in poetry, we say: “I gather the shattered pieces of myself like broken glass, knowing someday, even scars can catch the light.”
With poetry I write paths through gardens of grace with words in ways my body dare not go as a whole.
Our G6 students are currently studying Ancient Greece and will soon be embarking on a week long “week without walls” trip around Greece. Besides our nonfiction books on the City States and other aspects of Ancient Greece here are some more titles the “riff on the theme”.
Of course an easy hit are those around the Greek Myths, and yesterday and today I went to the social studies classes and with a trolley full of Greek Myth books, in particular the multiple copies we have of the 12 George O’Connor Olympians series and each student could check a book out. Not depicted on the poster but one of my absolute favourites series are the “Brick Books” where various classic tales are depicted with Lego Bricks. Unfortunately many of the series are now out of print, but in previous libraries I’ve had the full set of Shakespeare plays, fairy tales etc.
When I wrote the series of blogs in December for GLLI many people asked about displays so I remembered to take a picture of a couple of our displays of last week. We have two main spaces downstairs for display, one as you walk into the library and one against the wall. So one was dedicated to ancient Greece and the other to our Ecosystems projects.
Mediating between curiosity and research, curriculum and pleasure By Nadine Bailey and Katie Day
In the summer of 2024 we asked International School Middle School librarians to tell us the story of nonfiction in their libraries. We wanted to know their ambitions, frustrations, organisation and display as well as their collection development and usage plans. All books recommended in this article can be found tagged in our LibraryThing Shelf (https://www.librarything.com/catalog/middleNF).
Curriculum and Research
Educators and librarians who have been around for a while know and recognise the pendulum of ideas and practice that upend things first in one direction and then another. Nonfiction is one of those things where some of the momentum is now moving back to the practice of reading subject matter in physical form. Many librarians responded that in a post-covid learning environment both they and the teachers they work with were moving back to giving information in print form – mainly books where they were available, but also printing out articles from online sites such as Britannica and Newsela in order to encourage deep reading, avoid distractions and teach nonfiction reading skills that could be later transferred to online reading.
Schools following the IBO (International Baccalaureate Organisation) programmes (PYP/MYP) had particular interest in “transdisciplinary” and cross curricula books that would offer broader perspectives on curriculum or unit themes. Many librarians were investing in books that would support inquiry into aspects of the United Nations SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). There was also a keen interest to ensure that sufficient “local” (country where the school is located) and “diverse” (countries of students’ origins) content was available in the library.
Many librarians have quite heavily weeded their nonfiction sections and are now looking to re-stock them based on this renewed interest in physical books. But it appears that publishers are not necessarily aware of what is happening on the ground and are not always updating and bringing out new editions of popular texts.
On the other hand, most respondents remarked on how much progress had been made in the last few years on the design, layout and illustrations in recent nonfiction texts. There was also a shoutout for the increase in different formats including “Oversize books” (see the books of “Big Picture Press – Welcome to the Museum”); Graphic and Manga imprints (series such HowToons; Cells at Work; and authors such as Don Brown and Jim Ottaviani); infographics (Infographic guides; ) Subject Summaries (The Big Fat Notebook series), Picture books (see this 2024 SLJ list) and Subject Overviews or introductions (DK Eyewitness, and DK Big Ideas).
Where curriculum and research is concerned, students can now often choose their favourite medium of access through a variety of formats.
Foster the flame of curiosity
Somewhere on the way to middle school, students amend their passions to fit in with their peers and ensure a sense of belonging. So out go the dinosaurs and big trucks to be replaced with their favourite sports personalities, music stars, books about their sports (soccer and basketball seem to be hits). Puberty hits this group hard and fast and strategic placement of sensitive materials can put paid to rumours and myths. It is also a time of self-absorption and worry about their physical and mental health – books on health and well being, relaxation, anxiety, meditation as well as psychology, are popular and an area of growth in most libraries.
Given the demographics of our schools, students of this age are already taking a keen interest in finance, aspects of wealth and investment as well as entrepreneurship. They’re also interested in personally exploring hobbies and activities they may see online such as cooking, sewing and knitting or other crafts.
History – particularly the world wars and more recent conflicts continue to fascinate and appal in equal measure – often mediated by historical fiction texts students may encounter in their literature studies or English classrooms and what they see on the news or social media.
Shelving, organisation and display
In order to make nonfiction appealing and accessible, quite a few of our respondents mentioned they either had or were in the process of rethinking the way that nonfiction was shelved, organised and displayed in their libraries. There is a continuum from pure DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) to a range of Book Shop or genrified models. Librarians were more interested in getting books seen and read than in a hypothetical need for their audience to be able to navigate a university library later. One of our respondents coined the lovely phrase of “emotional accessibility” in this respect.
Of course most libraries have already taken the first step of putting “literature” or novels out of a straight Dewey 800 section into a fiction collection – genrified or or not. Other common “extractions” from the main Dewey structure include:
Taking Biographies, collective biographies and memoirs out of 910/920 and putting them in a separate section. Some libraries put collective biographies at the start of the section they pertain to (i.e. famous musicians go to 780).
Travel Books
Poetry
Drama and playscripts
Graphic Novels and Manga
Narrative nonfiction
Myths, Legends and Fairytales
Parenting
Well Being
Professional Development
Sports
Country specific collections
A specific nonfiction series that’s popular
Photo: American School of Dubai MSHS Sport Section
In the absence of permanently pulling out a section – many librarians make use of rotating “dynamic shelving” or temporary topical displays. The guideline here appears to be to follow the needs and interests of the community – teenagers want to be able to independently navigate the library without adult intervention that may be embarrassing.
Photo courtesy of Ashley SimmonsPhoto courtesy of Ashley Simmons
Related to that – signage and signposting was an area that nearly all librarians were investing in. Many mentioned significant weeding that had resulted in more space for forward facing displays and carving out sections of interest.
Recommendations
To support the discovery of nonfiction titles for middle school, we’ve curated a shelf of 389 (and growing) books on Librarything that we consider to be worth investing in. It’s an ongoing labour of love, so not every book has been tagged at this point yet.
Examples of Some of the tagging we’ve employed are (not an exhaustive list):
Narrative nonfiction
Manga
Graphic
Topic_
WW2
Women
Science
Mathematics
Religion
History
Climate
SDGxx
Activism
Wellbeing
War
Technology
Sustainability
Sports
Space
Social Media
Geo_
Southeast Asia
China
USA
Europe
UK
Australia
Edition
Young Reader
Since such lists can quickly go out of date, we’d also like to generalise with some series, authors, titles and publishers that we recommend.
Great AUTHORS
Marc Aronson
Don Brown
Marc Favreau
Candace Fleming
Russell Freedman
Yuval Noah Harari
Deborah Hopkinson
Tanya Lloyd Kyi (Canadian)
Randall Munroe
Jim Ottaviani
Elizabeth Partridge
Gillian Richardson
Steve Sheinkin
Cory Silverberg (Puberty)
Dashka Slater
Tanya Lee Stone
Pamela S. Turner
Great PUBLISHERS
Annick Press (Canada)
DK (Eyewitness; Big Ideas; Children’s Timelines; How Things Work; How Stuff Works)
First Second (MacMillan)
National Geographic for Kids
Usborne (UK)
Crabtree Publishing Company
Flying Eye Books
Great SERIES
DK Eyewitness
DK Big Ideas
DK Children’s Timelines
DK How Things Work / How Stuff Works
From Playground to Pitch
HowToons
Hazardous Tales (Nathan Hale)
Little Histories
World Citizen Comics
UN sustainable development goals
Great TITLES
There’s been a recent shift toward publishing a Young Adult version of popular nonfiction titles either simultaneously or shortly after the Adult version. These can be found by searching for “Young Readers” or “Young Reader’s edition” / “Young Reader’s Adaptation”.
Last but not least, pairing a nonfiction book with a novel can enhance both texts.
I initially started putting a fiction book on this libguide followed by suggestions of nonfiction, https://asdubai.libguides.com/ms/reading/nonfiction. I’ve now moved away from that somewhat and have started curating “Read Around the Curriculum” posters where either a curriculum topic is highlighted with fiction and nonfiction, or an “If you like / want to know more” poster is made of one of our book club fiction books with suggestions for finding out more about the context with other fiction/nonfiction books on the topic.
Katie Day and I would love to hear your suggestions for more nonfiction books, and perhaps we can expand the list to High School. Many of the books suggested in our list are suitable for High School and upper elementary as well.
Comments and suggestions much appreciated.
NOTE: Since the publication of this post we have been approached by commercial entities about using the list. While we cannot prevent the list from being used commercially this is our wish:
This list was created in order to freely help librarians all around the world. It was a labour of love which took a lot of our personal vacation time to create. If you are part of a commercial organization and you will be using the list commercially we would request that you attribute us and make a suitable donation in our names to “Biblioteca di Lampedusa” which serves refugees from around the world in their Silent Book initiative, https://www.facebook.com/BiblioLampedusa/ or the “IBBY Children in Crisis Fund”: https://www.ibby.org/awards-activities/ibby-children-in-crisis-fund. Thanks. Nadine & Katie
The best compliment I’ve received in the last two years was from one of my (non reading) grade 8 books who said to me during an athletics event, “you know miss – I used to think you’re just the librarian, but now I know you’re so much more”. The history behind that is that after many years of being a middle of the pack longer distance runner (i.e after each event I was pretty much very much in the middle for my age group and distance), our athletics director at WAB was looking for some more coaching volunteers and I did some online certifications in track & field and cross country and joined the after/before school coaches as an extra warm body in Beijing. Here in Dubai I’ve mainly done track and in contrast with my teams in Beijing who were primarily the more academic types, I’m finding myself amongst some great kids who are very athletic but have an aversion to reading. Have I performed any miracles in making them readers? Well no, I don’t really think so. But I’d like to think I’ve gained some credibility and relationships that can open up conversations around what they could be reading. And it’s helped me in creating a new blended section in the library – our sports section.
New genre – sports
It started with noticing a lot of students were asking for books about “basketball” or “soccer” during our library classes, so initially a new genre of “sports” books was created split out of our realistic fiction section. That helped some during the first year in the new library. Then students were asking for more biographies of their favourite sports people and more books (nonfiction) on their favourite sports. Our nonfiction section in that regard needed some boosting, so we bought more books.
A new blended section – Sports
Since nonfiction, memoirs and biographies were upstairs and fiction sports downstairs it seemed logical to move them all to one place. So we trialed putting all our sports books together in a dedicated area. That meant pulling fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, biography, graphic novels and manga and sorting them by sport. Our poster was made in Canva in our library colours and is 3 panels representing the sports of our three sports seasons (template link). Our book spines have a small sticker of the sport represented to help with shelving.
We’ve probably doubled the circulation of our nonfiction sports books and it’s an area that garners a lot of attention. Unfortunately it is still really hard to find good fiction with sports themes. There are more good biographies and a small uptick in graphic novels and manga. Here are some of our best circulating titles.
Fiction
As you can see it’s heavily dominated by Jason Reynolds and Kwame Alexander. How I wish there were more authors writing shorter easy to ready and/or verse novels without naff babyish covers for this demographic!
Ghost – Jason Reynolds
The crossover – Kwame Alexander
Booked – Kwame Alexander
World in between : based on a true refugee story – Kenan Trebinčević
Patina – Jason Reynolds
Rebound Kwame Alexander
Stanford Wong flunks big-time – Lisa Yee
Defending champ – Mike Lupica
Boy 21 – Matthew Quick
Sunny – Jason Reynolds
Memoirs & Biographies
In particular the series by Matt and Tom Oldfield (from the playground to the pitch) and any of the Luca Caioli books are popular. And if you’re wondering who the GOAT is according to our students – Neymar and/or Ronaldo books outrank all the others.
Nonfiction
Anything soccer seems to dominate with basketball and F1 making an appearance. I was pleased to see one of my personal favourites – “The boys in the boat” tying with “The Barcelona complex” for 10th place as I’ve been promoting it heavily this year – I’m hoping the release of the movie will help it along as well.
Stars of world soccer – Jökulsson Illugi
The official history of the FIFA World Cup – FIFA World Football Museum
Outcasts united : the story of a refugee soccer team that changed a town – Warren St. John
THE FOOTBALL BOOK : the leagues, the teams, the tactics, the laws – David Goldblatt
Return of the king : Lebron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the greatest comeback in NBA history – Brian Windhorst
The rise : Kobe Bryant and the pursuit of immortality – Mike Sielski
All thirteen : the incredible cave rescue of the Thai boys’ soccer team – Christina Soontornvat
F1 : the pinnacle : the pivotal events that made F1 the greatest motorsport series – Simon Arron
The race of the century : the battle to break the four-minute mile – Neal Bascomb
The Barcelona complex : Lionel Messi and the making–and unmaking–of the world’s greatest soccer club – Simon Kuper
The boys in the boat : the true story of an American team’s epic journey to win gold at the 1936 Olympics – Daniel James Brown (we have both the YA and the original version)
What are we missing?
All the books by Mike Lupica / John Feinstein / John Coy are unfortunately showing their age now and are also very much written for an American rather than international audience.
We’ve had some more interest in cricket recently and just haven’t found enough books – fiction or nonfiction to meet that need. While there are more graphic novels coming up we need more of them.
If you have any great suggestions I’d love to hear them.
Initially I thought of perhaps going through the DDC systematically from 000 to 999 and writing about some of the books I’ve loved / used / displayed, but then I spent the day yesterday re-reading Zen by Shabnam Minwalla and decided randomness, chaos and interest was infinitely preferable to order and sensibility.
There’s something amazing about books that manage to evoke a sense of time and place both through words and cultural references to music, poetry, quotes etc. And the books I’ve been reading and promoting for our middle school have been great at this. How many others sit with a book in one hand (or audio in one ear) and youtube open in the other to look up the songs you don’t know or listen to old favourites while reading?
I remember back when I first started out as an intern under KD at UWCSEA East making a libguide page (see “other interesting stuff” in the tabbed box) to support John Green’s amazing “The Fault in our Stars“. (cringe moment at how bad I was at that time in making good looking libguides!). When I introduce books with musical elements now to my students, I like to have some music playing in the background when they enter. Some more great ones include Ready player one, Red White and Whole, The thing about Jellyfish and Wink .
And here is a list of more from “Middle Grade Carousel” many of which ended up in one of the displays this year. Another display that worked really well for my “Swifties” was to match the song names in her latest album to other “related” titles (in the broadest sense of the word). There were chocolates on offer!
And that’s all for today. Please reply with your favourite fiction or nonfiction books on music!
PS
Two things I meant to put in and then forgot about:
uplifting music
According to a study conducted by cognitive neuroscientist Jacob Jolij of the University of Groningen, Don’t Stop Me Now’ by Queen is the most encouraging track in the world.
The research analyzed various factors, including the beats per minute, the key, and the chords of the song. Here are the top 10 songs that put you in a good mood (and the youtube versions):
Queen, “Don’t Stop Me Now”
ABBA, “Dancing Queen”
Beach Boys, “Good Vibrations”
Billy Joel, “Uptown Girl”
Survivor, “Eye of the Tiger”
The Monkees, “I’m a Believer”
Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”
Bon Jovi, “Livin’ on a Prayer”
Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive”
Katrina & the Waves, “Walking on Sunshine”
seismic music
Something that combines a bit of geoscience and music – according to seismologists at the British Geological Survey (BGS) earthquake activity was clocked during the Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Edinburgh and the most seismic activity was caused by the song “… Ready for It?” .
(Found this unpublished from 23 Jul 2022 – no idea why I didn’t publish it!)
Just as an aside – I’ve been having the most fantastic summer since I don’t know when – well definitely way before covid with reunification with my children after one and two years respectively as well as with so many friends from around the world that our home is nearly needing a booking calendar – such a wonderful thing! I’ve been trying to avoid my computer and work as much as possible, but I had to work on a questionnaire for possible participation on a possible book on “Innovative Marketing, Branding & Community Engagement Programmes Amongst Leading National, Public, and Academic Libraries Worldwide” so I decided it was time to round of this series of three posts on nonfiction (see parts one: “Waves of nonfiction” and two: “Nonfiction’s right to exist“)
If you build it will they come?
As discussed previously it takes considerable time, effort and resources to build and maintain a good nonfiction collection. But the existence thereof does not presuppose its use. Just as we cannot assume that the fact as our students have laptops they know how to use them (the digital native myth) so too we cannot assume that teachers and students know how to get the most out of a nonfiction collection just because they can read. In fact it’s something that I’ve had to learn as a teacher librarian and something I’m still consistently engaging in and learning more about.
I’m going to highlight a few things that have helped me in my learning.
Probably the most transformational book I read on helping students to scaffold their reading of nonfiction and be able to develop the critical skills they need to navigate today’s information society was Kylene Beers “Reading Nonfiction”. It’s not only helped my thinking about reading nonfiction but also the approach of every teacher who has allowed me to eulogise the approach and incorporate it into their teaching.
The signposts consist of five items to look out for in a text and how to recognise them and approaches to thinking about the texts. It goes beyond the usual acronyms for assessing the reliability and credibility of a text into some pretty good meta-cognition and thinking skills. The signposts are:
Contrasts and Contradictions
Absolute and Extreme Language
Numbers and Stats
Quoted Words
Word Gaps
The way I usually introduce them to students is through a workshop where I give them a Newsela article – my favourite is “How now digital cow” which I like as it includes all the elements and because it’s fun and from my motherland. Using a Newsela article allows me to also have the article available at a number of different levels so it can be accessed by all students no matter their reading / English level.
I print it out, explain the signposts briefly and students in groups of 5 each get a copy to read and a different coloured highlighters to highlight the text pertaining to the signpost they’re looking at. They read the text with a particular interest in “their” signpost. They can then defend their choice in their group and meet up with students in other groups with the same signpost to compare. An alternative is to have the signpost questions on posters and students read the article and then do a poster walk and write their findings after reading the article on the posters. I’m not going to link to any resources on TpT or other sites besides that of the publisher because unfortunately this is one of the most plagiarised and abused resource in the educational community. So I’d encourage you to purchase copies and read the book because it’s more than just a bunch of nice posters and bookmarks.
Elements of nonfiction
Now here is where a great many people are going to cry foul and say “not true”, but I’m afraid it is. Most students do no know the elements that comprise nonfiction, and even if given a list of the names of the elements cannot correctly identify them in a nonfiction book. There are 22 features that I identified and teach to students using the very simple technique of taking a nonfiction book and taking pictures of the elements and adding them to a google slide – see this
Once students understand the elements of nonfiction in print you can start relating those to their digital counterparts, making links between informational ecosystem – eBooks, physical books, videos, databases,
Here are some ideas on ways to promote your nonfiction collection from librarian Kerry O’Malley Cerra. Besides that I’ve found bringing some new and exciting books to any meeting or event – not just planning meetings but also coffee mornings, parent-teacher conferences, PD, etc along with a mobile scanner so people can check them out immediately works really well. This blog by Melissa Stewart is well worth subscribing to for great ideas and also thoughts about the relevance of nonfiction and it’s place in the lives of our students. The SLJ has a section called “nonfiction notions” that addresses new book reviews and how to use nonfiction.
I’ve always been a huge fan of picture books. I’m the librarian that will read “Maia and what Matters” to a group of Middle School teachers and struggle to continue through tears. I spend a reasonable chunk of my budget on picture books (or as some librarians like to refer to the “sophisticated picture books (SPB)” I’ve never see a book deal with anxiety with as much compassion and understanding as Mel Tregonning’s “Small Things”. I maintain a libguide for Social Emotional Learning (SEL) that relies heavily on the work of Dr. Myra Bacsal and her SEL booklists.
So what is the problem? I’m worried that publishers are becoming complacent about plugging the gaps in information / knowledge / awareness of really big and worrisome things by having a picture book in that space. A case in point is my (and most librarians) quest to curate books related to the Sustainable Development Goals. And I’m afraid even the UN with it’s SDG book club plays into this.
It is easy enough to find a picture book about Wangari Maathai, about the plastic bags of Gambia. It is way harder to get a good (recent) nonfiction book geared at 11-14 year olds on deforestation or plastic bags for example. It seems the nonfiction publishing cycle is around 8-10 years (I found plenty from 2009-2011) between updates whereas the actual issues are accelerating faster.
As mentioned in my previous blog – a big change has occurred in the presentation and design of nonfiction books, so it is important not only from an “up to date facts” point of view that we have these books, but also from an “enticing to read” point of view. When new books exist in a space (trees in this instance) they are truly fantastic. Like “Can you Hear the Trees Talking” by Peter Wohlleben – the young reader version of “The Hidden Life of Trees”. But that’s not really about deforestation, just a very positive reminder of why trees are so awesome and special and worth saving. Or Annick Press (one of my favourites) with Kevin Sylvester’s “Follow your Stuff” an exceptional book for the humanities tracing common items including T-shirts; Medications; Technology; books through geography, production, labour and economics.
The last thing I was looking for included something on sustainable cities and homes. The books in my collection were from 2007 and sorely needed updating. As is the case when a book is older than the students reading it. It’s a fascinating area. It’s something that most major cities in the world are pouring money and resources in. But you can find lofty tomes, heavy text books, coffee-table photo books and very little else. A fellow librarian pointed me to “No small Plans” which looks amazing, but very specific to Chicago, and not so easy to get to China.
Rebecca Sjonger has written a new series of books around the UN Sustainable Development Goals which combines goals and is an overview. I’d argue that’s a good beginning, but actually each goal merits a well researched, curated and presented book for each of the different levels of education. Our world in Crisis is another recent series that covers pollution, poverty, health & disease, civil war & genocide, immigration and terrorism in an age appropriate but informative way.
So there is a huge amount of hope and great steps in the right direction. But if we want to keep middle graders curious and inquiring beyond the hook of picture books, we need to keep feeding them nonfiction of this high calibre in all and any direction they want to research further.
I want it to be that the picture books are the appetiser and a couple of Youtube videos are the amuse bouche but that excellent nonfiction books are the main course, supplemented by databases (for context) and news (for the latest updated information).
What are your favourite books to support understanding the SDGs in Middle School?
I was showing a fellow librarian around “my” new library today and we were chatting and discussing various aspects of middle school librarianship. We got to the nonfiction section and both sighed. I started that mine probably needed some significant weeding and that I’d made a start. I pointed out a few particularly nice books in the collection (Annick Press still does nonfiction well, the newish Theodore Gray Molecules and Reactions). But so much ages so badly and so quickly. And in an inquiry based system where one wants to encourage systems thinking and embrace the idea of interconnectivity it is almost anachronistic to maintain Dewey divisions and populate them with single topic books.
Gone are the days when teachers gave the librarian a content based topic and you could wheel a collection of books that covered the length and breadth of what there was to know at a specific grade level about that topic. Done and dusted. Now you’re not so much discussing WW1, so much as conflict, with WW1 as the bare-bones scaffold of the topic. There aren’t that many books that deal well with the nuances of conflict in an age appropriate, stimulating but accurate, culturally sensitive manner. One such book is Global Conflict, from the Children in our World series by Louise Spilsbury. No, it probably isn’t written with 14 year olds in mind. And I had to offer it somewhat apologetically to one of the teachers and say I thought it actually covered the ground fairly well, and everything else on offer was probably pitched at a much too high level.
Besides which, students aren’t reading books anymore. The books I pulled out on WW1 for a display remained unread, un-borrowed. I dare not investigate too closely where they got their information for their assessment from, since, looking at the database statistics it wasn’t from databases either.
A month or so ago, I had a look at our “country” books – they ranged from 1999-2005. A lot has happened since 2005. So they had to go. But what to replace them with – if anything? I checked the curriculum, spoke to the lead of the one grade doing something on national cultures and offered a collection I’d made in Epic! that could cover it more or less. There are no students pouring over country books or atlases like perhaps we would have done. If they need information there’s wikipedia or facts on file.
All this time I’m reading “Reader Come Home” (it sure is taking a long time, but I’m distracted myself) and the issue of shallow reading and attention and focus and digital media. And I wouldn’t worry if it weren’t for the fact that the problem doesn’t seem to just be shallow reading, it seems to be a great divide between reading a lot, and not reading at all. I ran some statistics last night. Our top (G6) class read 4x as much as our bottom (G8) class (at least books from the library – to which everyone says “oh but they may be reading books at home – to which I say “evidence?”). But that’s not the problem – looking through numbers student by student so so many hadn’t borrowed even one book. I’m about to self-flagellate at this point and worry what I’m doing wrong. I need more data and then I need a strategy.
There’s no doubt quite a bit of the nonfiction must go – but what should I be replacing it with? Middle schoolers are just that little bit young to place popular nonfiction in – the Malcolm Gladwells and the like. What is everyone else doing?
Informative Flights - Musings of a Teacher Librarian 