The group’s system
consist of seven categories, and today I’m going to look at four that may take
a bit of time and thinking to digest. For the last few years, most of us have
lumped all kinds of non-expository nonfiction books into the narrative
nonfiction category, even though they may not have truly fit.

Narrative nonfiction
tells a story. It has a narrative arc that employs alternating bits of scene
and summary to present a topic. If a book doesn’t do that, it isn’t narrative
nonfiction, but it may not be expository or data either.

The Uncommon Corp has
teased apart everything we’ve tried to heap in the narrative nonfiction pile
and found four groups that they think (and I agree) should be considered on
their own terms.

How did nonfiction
offerings become so diverse in such a short time?  Because authors have been experimenting. The
excitement of narrative nonfiction made authors giddy, and they began to play.
They began to think about structure as adaptable, depending on the facts
available and the story they wanted to tell.

Why has this
tinkering been embraced by publishers? There are two important reasons.

— By the mid-2000s, straightforward,
kid-friendly information was widely available for free on the Internet. That
made books written in a straightforward way less marketable.

–The No Child Left
Behind Act 2001 caused schools to change how they spent money. Many school
librarian positions were cut, and book budgets were slashed.

Suddenly, the demand
for nonfiction books decreased, and publishers had to find new ways to make
their books stand out. In other words, competition fueled innovation.

As authors searched
for ways to make their writing as engaging as possible, four new kinds of books
emerged, and now they finally have names.

Books
in the Disciplinary Thinking (Experts at Work) category reveal how scientists
and historians ask questions, evaluate evidence, and form theories.

In
Inquiry (Ask and Answer) Books, the author begins with a question and then
takes readers along on the journey to find answers.

To
write Interpretation (Point of View) Books,
authors research a topic widely, find their own meaning in the information,
and present the content from that point of view. As I said in a previous post,
I think we’ll see more of these books in the future because this type of
presentation directly supports Common Core.