YALSA Nonfiction Award Shortlist

As you may remember, I was on last year’s committee for YALSA’s Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

This year’s committee just released it’s shortlist. Here are the titles, from YALSA’s the Hub:

Titanic: Voices from the Disaster, written by Deborah Hopkinson, published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic

Bomb: The Race to Build — and Steal — the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, written by Steve Sheinkin, published by Flash Point/Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. From my review: “One of the reasons I like non-fiction is it shows why spoilers don’t matter. Most readers will know that the Americans were indeed the first to create and use the atomic bomb; so it’s not about whether it happens, but how and why.”

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95, written by Phillip Hoose, published by Farrar Straus Giroux, an imprint of Macmillan children’s Publishing Group

Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different, a biography by Karen Blumenthal, published by Feiwel & Friends, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group

We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March, written by Cynthia Levinson, published by Peachtree Publishers.

As you can see, I’ve only read 1 of the 5 titles so I’ve got some work to do before the winner is announced at the Youth Media Awards at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting on January 28.

More on the Award is at the YALSA website.

YALSA is doing a Morris/NF Reading Challenge — I usually try to read all the nominated titles so will be participating in this.

A big thank you to the members of the 2013 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults award committee: Chair Angela Frederick, Nashville (TN) Public Library; Ruth Allen, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR; Roxy Ekstrom, Schaumburg (IL) Township Library; Angie Manfredi, Los Alamos (NM) County Library System; Judy Nelson, Pierce County Library System, Tacoma, WA; Maren Ostergard, King County Library System, Issaquah, WA; Laura Pearle, VennConsultants, Carmel, NY; Adela Peskorz, Metropolitan State University Library, Saint Paul, MN; Jennifer Rothschild, Arlington (VA) Public Library; Sara Morse, Nashville (TN) Public Library; and Gillian Engberg, Booklist, Chicago.

Filed under: Reviews