The Nonfiction Detectives' Year in Review

2014: A Year in Review

by Cathy and Louise

Today is the last day of 2014, so we thought it would be fun to look back over the past twelve months and highlight some events and posts from the year.

Nonfiction Writing Styles

In February we wrote about nonfiction writing styles and gave examples of books representing each style.

Summer Reading

One of our most popular posts was the summer reading list we published in May.

Common Core IRL

We wrote posts for two installments of Common Core IRL: In Real Life with Mary Ann Sheuer from Great Kid Books, Alyson Beecher from Kid Lit Frenzy and Amy Koester from The Show Me Librarian blog.

Common Core IRL- Baseball

Common Core IRL- Colonies

2014 Blog Tours

We took participated in several blog tours:

Historical Heartthrobs

The Family Romanov

Wild Things

Be a Changemaker

Schneider Family Book Award 10th Anniversary Blog Tour

We also celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the Schneider Family Book Award by reviewing two past winners as part of a blog tour organized by Alyson Beecher.

Blog Award

Our blog was named one of the 15 Best Kidlit and YA Book Review Sites by Children's Book Insider in June. 

ALA Annual Conference

In June we both traveled to the ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas where we took part in a panel presentation on Common Core State Standards and nonfiction texts along with Mary Ann Sheuer and Alyson Beecher.

Best Nonfiction Books of 2014

Over the past year we reviewed 78 nonfiction books for children and teens. Here is our list of the Best Nonfiction of 2014.

Thanks for a great year! We're looking forward to more blogging adventures in 2015.