Best Nonfiction Books of 2017

Louise's favorite titles from 2017!

In past years Cathy and I have worked together to create our list of favorite nonfiction books, but not this year. Because Cathy is serving on a book award committee, she has been unable to publicly review or write about books throughout 2017. I worked solo on this list and made my selections based on books I have read over the past year. Reviews are linked in the list below. 

I am thrilled to announce that Cathy will return to blogging and reviewing for The Nonfiction Detectives in March. Yeah!

The 57 Bus: a True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives

by Dashka Slater

Farrar Straus Giroux

Amazon Adventure: How Tiny Fish Are Saving the World's Largest Rainforest

by Sy Montgomery

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Creekfinding: a True Story by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

University of Minnesota Press

Grand Canyon by Jason Chin

Roaring Brook Press

Here We Are: 44 Voices Write, Draw, and Speak: Feminism for the Real World 

edited by Cell Jensen

Algonquin Books of Chappel Hill

The Hidden Life of a Toad

by Doug Wechsier

Charlesbridge

How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child

by Sandra Uwiringlyimana and Abigail Pesta

Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins

If Sharks Disappeared by Lily Williams

Roaring Brook Press

Impact: Asteroids and the Science of Saving the World

by Elizabeth Rusch

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Life on Surtsey: Isceland's Upstart Island

by Loree Griffin

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Many: the Diversity of Life on Earth by Nicola Davies

Candlewick Press

Margaret and the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Saved the First Lunar Landing

by Dean Robbins

Alfred A. Knopf

Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines 

by Jeanne Walker Harvey

Christy Ottaviano Books/Henry Holt

Meet Cindy Sherman:: Artist, Photographer, Chameleon

by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Roaring Brook Press

Motor Girls: How Women Took the Wheel and Drove Boldly Into the Twentieth Century

by Sue Macy

National Geographic

Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters
by Michael Mahin
Atheneum

The Quest for Z: the True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon

by Greg Pizzoli

Viking

Rivers of Sunlight: How the Sun Moves Water Around the Earth

by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm

Blue Sky Press/Scholastic

Schomburg: the Man Who Built a Library

by Carole Boston

Candlewick Press

Vincent and Theo: the Van Gogh Brothers

by Deborah Heiligman

Godwin Books/Henry Holt

The World is Not a Rectangle: a Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid

by Jeanette Winter

Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster

Writing Radar: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories

Jack Gantos

MacMillan

Thanks, everyone. 

I am looking forward to 2018!

Muddy by Michael Mahin

Muddy: The Story of Blue Legend Muddy Waters

by Michael Mahin; Illustrated by Evan Turk

Atheneum Books. 2017

ISBN: 9781481443494

A must-read for all ages

Note: While Cathy is on sabbatical, Louise is responsible for this blog. Happily, it’s not too much longer before Cathy returns…March, 2018.

Mahin has composed a spectacular picture book biography of one of the greatest blues musicians of all times: Muddy Waters. 

“McKinley Morganfield was never good at doing what he was told.” He loved playing in the mud. After his mother died he went to live with his Grandma Della. She tried to keep him clean, but "finally just started calling him Muddy." 

Muddy grew up in one of the poorest regions in the United States. Western Mississippi was heavily segregated, so when he was older Muddy joined the great migration, a time when many African Americans moved north to major cities to escape the violence and racism of the south. Muddy, with his guitar in hand, moved to Chicago.

Muddy’s courage, some would say stubbornness, never let him sway from playing the music that was inside him. Delta blues. This music was "deep-feeling, gutbucket, gut-aching music full of life and love and trouble and pride. It made people stand up and raise their hands and stomp their feet and laugh and cry and come alive.” 

It took awhile to get a record of his music produced, but Leonard Chess of Chess Records gave Muddy a chance. And, once it happened, within twenty-four hours all three thousand copies were sold out! "Leonard printed more. A lot more"

Mahin’s narrative is coupled with Turk’s glorious illustrations, rendered in watercolor, oil pastel, china marker, printing ink, and newspaper collage, The colors are a mixture of bright and dark. They seem to vibrate across the pages. They are really beautiful. Breathtaking. (Click here to see some of the fabulous interior spreads)

This book is a perfect introduction to Muddy Waters. Despite all his accolades - six Grammy Awards, a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, it was Muddy Waters The Beatles wanted to meet when they made their first visit to American in 1964. How cool is that?

Back matter includes an author's note, bibliography, and suggested compilations to hear Muddy's music. The books' only drawback is the exclusion of any dates to set Muddy's life into any historical context.

One of Muddy's first recordings was, "I Can't Be Satisfied." Go here to listen to this song. Muddy and another great blues musician, Johnny Winter, rock the stage.

To write this review, I borrowed a copy of the book from my local public library.

Impact by Elizabeth Rusch

Impact! Asteroids and the Science of Saving the World

Scientists in the Field series

by Elizabeth Rusch; Photos by Karin Anderson

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2017

ISBN: 9780544671591

Grades 4 and up

Note: Cathy is still on Sabbatical and will return March 2018. Until her return, Louise is managing the blog. 

Approximately sixty-five million years ago, a massive asteroid, “roughly six miles wide, smashed into Earth, sending iridium around the globe and the dinosaurs to their death.” Is it possible another asteroid is headed towards Earth and could end life as we know it? 

In this latest entry in the very popular Scientists in the Field series, award-winner nonfiction writer, Elizabeth Rusch investigates the probability of an asteroid colliding with Earth and what can be done to prevent it by interviewing scientists who study them.

Meteorite hunters are individuals who travel around the globe to areas where meteors have fallen to collect these important space rocks before they start to break down. Studying the actual fragments from an asteroid helps scientists get a more accurate picture of the meteor’s composition and where it might have come from. David Kring, a senior scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas has spent more than a decade studying an area in Arizona named, Meteor Crater. This “550 foot crater, 2.3 miles around, is believed to have been blasted out by an asteroid impact roughly fifty thousand years ago.” 

There are also scientists, and amateurs, who spend their evenings scanning the night skies, looking for moving objects that could be potential asteroids. The key is discovering whether its orbit is on a collision course with Earth. With this knowledge, scientists are making plans to destroy any asteroid on that trajectory. 

As with all books in this series, the writing is engaging and loaded with side bars giving more information on topics discussed within the text. Each page is illustrated with well-captioned, color photographs by Karin Anderson that mirror the text. Back matter includes a bibliography, glossary, source notes, and index.

What I liked is the What You Can Do! section that encourages readers to get involved in discovering, tracking, spotting an asteroid as a flash in the sky, tips for collecting meteorite fragments, and also helping NASA come up with ideas on how to search and destroy (or Deflect) an asteroid.

For science lovers of all grades, because of the chapter on how dinosaurs became extinct would make this book an easy sell to those who love anything about dinosaurs.

To write this review, I borrowed a copy of the book from my local public library.

How To Be An Elephant by Katherine Roy

How To Be An Elephant: Growing up in the African Wild

Written and illustrated by Katherine Roy

David Macaulay Studio: An imprint of Roaring Brook Press. 2017

ISBN: 9781626721784

Grades 1 thru 12

Note: While Cathy is on Sabbatical, Louise is responsible for all the blog's content.  Cathy will return March, 2018.

“They are born wearing wrinkles. They are friendly, but also fierce. They talk in deafening rumbles, and move around on soundless feet. Their noses have fingers, and they wave hello with their ears. They are wild, majestic, unmistakably marvelous, and – in many ways – so much like us.”

Roy has crafted a beautiful tribute to elephants, specifically those who live in Africa. Every aspect of an elephant’s development, from newborn to mature adult, is explained in language understandable to the youngest readers in this colorful nonfiction picture book.

Roy’s research included traveling to central Kenya in 2014 and spending several days with elephant experts in the field and took part on a 10-day safari through parks and reserves.

The text is complemented by Roy’s watercolor illustrations and detailed diagrams.

Back matter includes a heartfelt author’s note, selected resources, scientific articles, further reading, and resources of books, films, and websites. 

Click here to visit the author's web page and see a behind-the-scenes film.

An excellent resources for all ages. 

To write this review, i borrowed a copy of this book from my local public library.