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Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World Sally M. Walker

We're almost done looking at the long list for YALSA's Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Sally Walker had two books on the list this year-- big congratulations to her!

Like her Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland, Walker looks at the history and science and significance of several sets of remains. This time, she focuses on the oldest skeletons found in the Americas.

The book mostly focuses on 9,000 years-old Kennewick Man, how we was discovered on a riverbank in 1996 and how much we have discovered about where we came from.

I'm a huge fan of Bones and so I love of Walker shows us how the reconstruction and renderings work in real life. I find such things fascinating. I also like how Walker looks at a range of finds and how they all relate to each other in forming a unified theory of early human life in the Americas. I hope Walker continues to write books on using forensic science and history-- wonderful stuff.

Today's Nonfiction Monday round up is over at Stacking Books. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher for awards consideration.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 Sally M. Walker

As regular readers may remember, last year I was on the committee for the Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. In addition to our winners and finalists, the committee also publishes a list of vetted nominations (what I like to call the "long list.") I'm in the process of highlighting these titles during Nonfiction Monday.

In December 1917, war was raging in Europe. In Halifax Harbor, two ships were on their way to the action, one on it's way to pick up relief supplies, the other full of munitions. The two ships collided, causing a fire. As the munitions ship drifted, fire on its deck, it crashed into the pier and exploded, leveling most of of the harbor area and creating a shockwave that blew out almost every window in Halifax proper. 2000 people died, 9000 more were injured. Rescue and relief efforts were further dampened when a blizzard blew in the next day and dumped over a foot of snow on the area.

Until the advent of nuclear weapons, the Halifax explosion was the largest man-made explosion ever.

Walker tells this story (one that's very well known in Canada, but not so much in the US) through the eyes of children who lived around the harbor at the time. Children getting ready for school, running errands, and going about their day. She weaves these daily accounts in with the context of shipping lanes and traffic, and what was happening in the Harbor. Walker also covers the communities on the other side of the Harbor who were affected by the explosion, resulting shock wave, and tsunami. The book is also very good at detailing what happened after the explosion to everyone.

Fun fact: The Halifax coroner's office had a tested system in place to deal with a mass casualty event like this. It had been developed 2 years earlier, when they brought in the bodies from the Titanic.

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at a wrung sponge. Check it out.

Also check out today's YA Reading List post, in honor of Yom HaShoah.

Book Provided by... the publisher, for award consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Before we get to the reviewing, just a reminder about my other project, YA Reading List, where I post a themed reading list EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure Martin W. Sandler

I'm covering the books that were on the 2013 long-list for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. For those who don't know, I was on this committee and I really want to highlight these other titles that we loved.

Off the coast of Alaska, the winter of 1897 came early, trapping eight whaling ships in the ice. There was a small settlement on shore, but between the ships and the settlement, there were not enough provisions to get through the winter, and no way to get more. (One ship managed to not be trapped, and was able to let people know what was going on, but there wasn't enough time to get back via ship for a rescue effort before winter hit full force.) President McKinley had a plan and sent three men to get them food-- they'd travel through the state and buy reindeer herds along the way, and herd the reindeer to where the men were stranded. Meanwhile, at the ships, morale and discipline were running just as low as the food.

Sandler does an excellent job of describing the conditions and tensions that run through this story. From a modern vantage point, the situation is hard to wrap your head around, but Sandler explains it really well and will have you on the edge of your seat, shivering through the Arctic reader with the whalers and their rescuers. There are several photographs and primary sources illustrating the text. It also gets high marks for some truly excellent maps and excellent back matter-- including a comprehensive "what happened next" for the people involved.

Today's Nonfiction Monday is over at Wendie's Wanderings. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher, for award consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity Elizabeth Rusch

I'm back looking at more the books on YALSA's Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults long-list.

This is another great addition to the always excellent Scientists in the Field series. Steven Squyres is a geologist who wanted to study the rocks on Mars. He came up with the idea to send a robotic geologist in his place. The Mars Rovers went up in 2003. Spirit and Opportunity were supposed to last about 3 months. They lasted for years. Opportunity is *still* going and doing science.

I really enjoyed the way the book follows the Rovers and the team on Earth. It does a great job of showing how the scientists on the ground had to often quickly build a "fake Mars" to figure out if there was a way they could get a rover out a jam-- up a hill, or out of a sand dune. It's also so well that I almost cried when Spirit went quiet. No little robot who's lasted years longer than you should, don't die!

It also does a great job of explaining why this type of exploration is important and why we're so obsessed with studying Mars.

You can follow the Mars Rovers on NASA's website.

Update: I forgot to link to today's Nonfiction Monday roundup! It's at Perogie's and Gyoza.

Book Provided by... the publisher, for award consideration.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy and Alison Blank.

I'm back taking a closer look at the long list of this year's YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

Murphy and Blank do a wonderful job of weaving in multiple strands of the TB story. There's the story of the disease itself, starting in prehistory and going until today, how it affects the body, how it kills, and how we've come to the drug-resistant types we have today. There's the story of those searching for a cure, the doctors with medicine, the quacks with schemes, what has worked, what hasn't, and where we are today. Then there's the story of TB's role in pop culture and policy-- the romantic idea of the consumptive waif, border closings to quarantine areas, the way it spread through centers of urban poor. Lastly, but most importantly, it's the story of those who have suffered from this disease, from prehistoric times until today.

They dip in and out of these stories seamlessly and tying it all together as they follow TB across time and space. It gets scary at the end, when they talk about TB's comback and how what little we had to combat it is no longer working.

It's fascinating and medical and social history at its best.

Amazingly, after I read this, I discovered that I actually know several people with TB. I was even able to explain the reasons behind some of the more annoying parts of their treatment!

Today's Nonfiction Monday is over at Supratentorial. Check it out!


Book Provided by... the publisher, for award consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

It's Nonfiction Monday! I'm still highlighting the books that made this year's YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults vetted nominations list.


Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World Sy Montgomery

Temple's father wanted to institutionalize her, but her mother stood up for her and tried to find her all the help she could. Growing up with autism is rarely, if ever, easy, but when Temple did it (born in 1947), it didn't even had a name yet. But Temple found a way to get what she needed and managed to turn her love of cows into a career that has completely changed the way we handle livestock, especially cows.

Montgomery's biography does a wonderful job at explaining how Temple's mind works, really giving readers a sense of what it's like to be in her head. She also does a great job of explaining Temple's work and why it's important.

It's a fascinating book, written in a very engaging style. I think Temple's story of how she changed life for cows and how cows behave would be interesting on its own, but with the story of how her brain works and the obstacles that has put in her path it adds an extra level.

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at Wrapped in Foil. Check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher, for awards consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

The Amazing Harry Kellar: Great American Magician by Gail Jarrow.

I'm covering all the books on the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults list of vetted nominations. Here' the next one!

Harry Kellar was amazingly famous in his time, one of the world's first superstars, but outside of magic circles, he's almost entirely unknown today.

The large, heavily illustrated format of this book may want you to put it with the picture books, and younger kids will enjoy it, but I think teens will love it. It's heavily illustrated with Kellar's advertising posters. Kellar was a master at PR, and the posters don't have the same effect if they're reproduced on a smaller size.

In addition to telling Kellar's life and career, Jarrow excels at explaining why magic and spiritualism were so popular at the turn of the 19th century. She also breaks the magician's code and tells us how many of his illusions and tricks worked.

It's a fun and fascinating book, with a really cool design that will appeal to a really wide range of readers. I think it will be avoided because of its size, but take a second look, and you won't be disappointed.

Today's Nonfiction Monday Roundup is over at Abby the Librarian. Check it out!


Book Provided by... the publisher, for awards consideration.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Yesterday, YALSA announced the shortlist of the Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

This is why blogging has been slow these past few weeks-- I've been busily reading and re-reading the nominees over and over again to help whittle down the list to these 5. I'm so excited about the 5 books we chose-- they are all excellent.

1. Titanic: Voices From the Disaster Deborah Hopkinson

This book may have ruined all other Titanic books for me. Seriously. I was listening to the audio version of The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf. It's a WONDERFUL book and the audio is fantastic, but... about halfway though I realized all I really wanted to do was reread the Hopkinson book. So I did.

2. Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon Steve Sheinkin

Sheinkin has a gift for making history really come alive. This one follows several different storylines in the US and Europe as scientists and spies try to make an atom bomb, keep the other guys from doing it, and/or just stealing their research.

3. Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 Phillip Hoose

Red Knot Rufas are small birds that migrate every year from the Canadian Arctic to Tierra del Fuego. And back. B95 is one bird that's done the journey so many times, that he's flown enough miles to get to the moon. More than following this one bird, Hoose describes bird conservation and tracking efforts and the complicated inter-tangled issues at play. Now, based on that plot description, I'd be like "eh" but he does it in a way that's utterly fascinating. Plus, really wonderful maps.

4. Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal

Using a commencement address as a framing device, Blumenthal paints great warts and all biography of on of Steve Jobs. I learned so many interesting things about Jobs (when he was a young man he was on a weird diet and thought that because of this he didn't need to shower. Anyone who smelled him disagreed) and about Apple (a great explanation of why the ad campaign was Think Different instead of Think Differently. And the letters they'd get from irate English teachers.) Plus, the photographs of a young Steve Jobs makes me feel much better about the fact that Ashton Kutcher is playing him in the biopic.

5. We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March Cynthia Levinson

In 1963 over 4000 children were arrested marching for their civil rights. They woke up in the morning, packed what they'd need for jail, and march, knowing they wouldn't be sleeping at home that night. Levinson follows a few of these children (some teens, some much younger) from different walks of life, how they got involved with the movement, their experiences and what happened next. It's inspiring and eye-opening.

The winner will be announced at the Youth Media Awards at the end of January. And NO! We haven't decided who's won yet! Stop asking!


And... seems I'm talking about committee stuff and I don't think I've mentioned this on the internets yet, when this committee wraps up in January, my next assignment begins. I'm the incoming chair of for Outstanding Books for the College Bound. I'm very excited for a million reasons, not least of which is that it's a huge change of reading material for the next year!

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.