Update June 24, 2024: My thinking about nonfiction classification has evolved since I wrote this post, but I’ve decided not to delete it because there’s value in looking back at my past ideas. For my current thinking, please see the book 5 Kinds of Nonfiction as well as information on my website.
In December 2017, I published this post with my view of the nonfiction
family tree, showing how nonfiction for children has evolved and blossomed over the last couple of
decades.
popular posts EVER on this blog.
As time has passed, interest in the classification continued to grow, and in 2021, literacy educator Marlene Correia and I published 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books. The book also has chapters with activities for teaching text structures and nonfiction craft moves as well as ideas for introducing and celebrating nonfiction with students.
If you haven’t had a chance to buy the book yet, I’d like to answer the two questions I hear most often:
Q: Do all nonfiction books really
fit neatly into one of these 5 categories?
are definitely books that cross categories, and that’s a good thing! So why
have categories at all? Because as students try to make sense of the wide world
of nonfiction, it helps to have general categories that are easy to understand.
Then, as children become more sophisticated readers and thinkers, they can explore
the exceptions. The idea of students debating the various ways a particular
nonfiction title might be classified makes my heart sing.
but some of these other terms are new to me. Can you provide some exemplar
titles?
Nonfiction
These books feature short blocks of text and they’re chock
full of photos and text features. They’re a fact-loving kid’s dream come true.
Readers can dip in and out or read the book cover to cover.
Eyewitness Books series
Little Kids First Big Book of Birds by Catherine D. Hughes
Candlewick’s -Ology series
The Discovery Channel’s Sharkopedia
Active
Nonfiction
highly interactive and/or teach skills readers can use to engage in an
activity. This category includes how-to guides, cookbooks, field guides, craft
books, toy-book combinations that involve building a model, etc.
Jennifer Swanson
The Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes by Doug Stillinger
Minecraft: Construction Handbook by Matthew Needler
Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes by Josie Fison and Felicity Dahl
Sewing School: 21 Sewing Projects KidsWill Love to Make by
Andria Lisle
Try This! 50 Fun Experiments for the Mad Scientist in You by
Karen Romano Young
Nonfiction
books feel familiar and comfortable to people who have a natural love of
stories and storytelling (most editors, book reviewers, librarians, literacy
educators, etc.). Narrative nonfiction tells a true story or conveys an
experience. It includes real characters and settings; narrative scenes; and,
ideally, a narrative arc with rising tension, a climax, and denouement. The scenes,
which give readers an intimate look at the events and people being described,
are linked by transitional text that provides necessary background while
speeding through parts of the true story that don’t require close inspection.
Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion by Chris Barton and Victo Ngai
Grace
Hopper: Queen of Computer Code by Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu
The Hidden Life of a Toad by Doug Wechsler
How the Cookie Crumbled: The True (and Not So True) Stories of the Invention of the Chocolate Chip Cookie by Gilbert Ford
Vincent
and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman
The World is Not a Rectangle: A
Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid by Jeanette Winter
Expository Literature
These high-quality books explain, describe, or inform in ways
that appeal to many young readers. In fact, a recent study shows that more than 75 percent of students like expository books as much as or
more than narrative titles, and 42 percent have a moderate or strong
preference for expository nonfiction (Repanskey, Schumm, &
Johnson, 2017).
dynamic design, rich engaging language, and some of all of the following text characteristics: strong voice,
innovative point of view, carefully-chosen text structure, and purposeful text
format. You can find a lengthy list of expository literature in this Nerdy Book Club post, but here are
some of my recent favorites:
Anything
by Steve Jenkins (I might just be his biggest fan.)
A Beetle is Shy by Dianna Hutts Aston
A
Hundred Billion Trillion Stars by Seth Fishman and Isabel
Greenberg
Lesser Spotted Animals by
Martin Brown
Pink Is for Blobfish: Discovering the World’s Perfectly Pink Animals by
Jess Keating and David DeGrand
The Street Beneath My Feet by
Charlotte Guillain and Yuval Zommer
Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky
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18 Responses
Your examples are so helpful! I've been reading as many as I can. Thank you!
I love, love, love this, Melissa!
Love this post and the examples for each category. Thank you so much.
This is wonderful!! Thank you for sharing, Melissa!!
Thanks for your insight and all the great titles!
You might consider non-fiction poetry as a category. Check out work by Leslie Bulion.
Thank you as always Melissa! My teachers love learning from you!
Thanks for your support, JoAnn.
Thanks, Donna. so glad you find it useful.
You're welcome. Good luck with your writing.
Lots of folks asked for sample titles. I'm glad they're helping.
I love, love, love Leslie's books and am looking forward to her upcoming Leaf Litter Critters.
There seem to be two schools of thought regarding poetry.
1. It's neither fiction nor nonfiction and would have it's own family tree.
2. It could be classified as either narrative (if it tells a story or conveys an experience) or expository literature if it explains, describes, and informs.
A book like Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson or Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome would be narrative, and books by Leslie Bulion or Joyce Sidman would be expository literature.
Thanks for spreading the word, Jenny. Happy New Year!
Thanks, Melissa Off to the library !
This is such a helpful post! Thanks, Melissa!
Thank you Mellissa – I've ordered each of the Expository Literature ones from the library and these different definitions REALLY help.
This is great! As a librarian and aspiring kid's writer, so helpful.
Thank you Thank you! Being one of those story loving librarians, I've not thought (or read very much) non-fiction. I do purchase high interest and award winning titles but now I have some categories to guide my purchasing and a great new lesson to share with my students to promote reading some great titles.