Recently, I posed this question on social
media: It’s relatively easy for educators to identify great narrative
nonfiction because these books receive plenty of starred reviews and win lots
of awards, but how do you find high-quality expository nonfiction—active,
browsable, traditional, and expository literature—to add to your collection?
School librarian Marcie Flinchum
Atkins had so many terrific ideas that I invited her to share them her on my
blog. Thank you, Marcie! This is such helpful information.
Nonfiction is genuinely loved by young readers,
and expository nonfiction is much more popular than we might first think.
Students often explore traditional nonfiction
texts when they are doing research on a particular topic, but they also just
like to read lots of different kinds of expository nonfiction. The active nonfiction titles,
like cookbooks and how-to’s on video games are always fully checked out in my
library. The browseable books
published by National Geographic, DK, and Guinness Book of World Records are in
high demand. And plenty of kids gravitate toward expository literature
too.
Back when I was a classroom teacher,
I’ll admit that I had very little expository nonfiction in my classroom collection
because of the expense—100% of my classroom books were paid for out of my own
paycheck. If you are classroom teacher or a librarian on a shoestring budget,
consider applying for grants specifically for increasing the expository
nonfiction in your collection.
Once you have a budget in place, you
can use these tips to find the expository texts young readers are looking for.
1) Make friends with your school and public librarians.
Librarians have access to
professional reviews and often keep up with what’s new and coming out.
2) Find out what your students want to read about.
You can use a survey like this one to
find out what kids want to read about. I would NEVER want to read a Minecraft
how-to book or a field guide to the snakes of North American, but I know
students who love to read about them and become experts in these topics very
quickly.
3) Use Scholastic Book Fairs and
Book Club Flyers
Scholastic often features browseable
and active books in their fairs and flyers. I’ve bought the Guinness Book of
World Records (browseable) and Brain Games by Jen Swanson (active) at
the book fairs in the past.
4) Follow your favorite nonfiction
authors on Amazon.
I’m not saying to BUY your books
here, but if you follow authors on Amazon, you will get an email when they have
a new book out, and that will help you stay on top of what’s coming out.
5) If your favorite authors have newsletters, subscribe.
They will likely let you know when
they have a new book out. Plus, many of them offer cool freebies or fun news
and book recommendations.
6) Subscribe to your local indie bookstore newsletter.
They feature new books in their
newsletters. Don’t have a local indie but want good children’s literature
content? Politics and Prose in DC has a newsletter that
always features kids’ books. You can scan it for new titles.
6 ½) Bonus tip: Overwhelmed by amount of email?
Create a separate email just for the newsletters. This way you check it on your
schedule. Check it every few weeks or when you’re ready to make some new
purchases.
7) Follow Nonfiction Awards & Lists
Not all of these awards focus exclusively on expository nonfiction, but there are
usually a few expository titles in there. I read the lists every year, and I
always find new books to read.
- Sibert Informational Book Medal
- Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction
- AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prizes for Excellence in Science
Books - Green Earth Book Award
- Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
(NCSS and CBC) - Russell Freedman Award for Nonfiction, SCBWI (coming
in 2022)
8) Follow Nonfiction Book Bloggers
There are lots of nonfiction writers that have blogs about writing nonfiction,
so feel free to subscribe to those too, but the bloggers below often feature
new nonfiction books.
9) Read
Professional Reviews
Most library catalogs, Amazon, and many vendors have the reviews linked right
in the catalog, so if you don’t subscribe to the journal, you can still read
many of the reviews. Also, most public library catalogs or book vendors include
the text of the reviews.
School Library Journal
Booklist
Kirkus Reviews
Publishers Weekly
The Horn Book
10) Find Ways to Preview Books
Some of the frustration in selecting expository nonfiction books is that
it’s sometimes harder to find professional reviews on them. For many of us, reading
professional reviews is a key part of our collection development. But what if
there aren’t many or any at all? See if you can preview the book itself to help
you make an informed decision.
Catalogs—Educational publishers still send out paper catalogs, or you can
download them online. Check out catalogs from ABDO, Rosen, Lerner, and Capstone.
NetGalley—Sign up is free. You can read books before they are
published. Often you do this in exchange for a review on Amazon, GoodReads,
etc.
Edelweiss
+—This is a site used by booksellers.
You can apply for a free account. Many books are available either in full or
partial. Not all expository nonfiction books will be on this site as many indie
booksellers don’t stock school-library books in their store. However, it is a
good place to find books on occasion. Even if the full book is not available,
you can see a preview of many titles.
Vendors—Some of the book vendors that schools use will have a preview available.
For example, my school district buys from Mackin and many of the expository titles
have a free preview of a few pages.
Amazon—Amazon will give you a preview of many of the books.
Ultimately,
you want to decide what books to buy based on what the needs are in your school
and classroom. Every school I’ve worked in has had different curriculum and
different student needs. Also remember that, even with a book budget, this is a
years-long process. Each year, I pick a different area of my library to focus
on.
The
tips I’ve provided have helped me as I track down great expository titles for
my students. If you have other great ideas for finding these books, please leave
your tip in the comments below. We have so much to learn from each other.
Marcie
Flinchum Atkins
is a teacher-librarian by day and a children’s book writer in the wee hours of
the morning. She holds an M.A. and an M.F.A. in Children’s Literature from
Hollins University. Wait, Rest, Pause:
Dormancy in Nature (Millbrook Press, 2019) is her most recent book. You can
find her online at www.marcieatkins.com and on Twitter and
Instagram as @MarcieFAtkins.
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2 Responses
Terrific advice, Marcie!!
Great article, Marcie. And I appreciate getting to be the demo for the "follow your favorite authors" suggestion!