My Favorite Research Story by Suzanne Slade
Today we continue the series in which award-winning nonfiction authors discuss the joys and challenges of the research process with an essay by Suzanne Slade. Thank you, Suzanne. While writing the picture book, Daring Dozen: The Twelve Who Walked on the Moon, I had an out-of-this-world research adventure. As a mechanical engineer who’s worked on rockets, […]
My Favorite Research Story by Ray Anthony Shepard
Today we continue the series in which award-winning nonfiction authors discuss the joys and challenges of the research process with an essay by Ray Anthony Shepard. Thank you, Ray. Researching nonfiction stories can spring from public history displays—monuments, plaques, street signs, and old tombstones. That was the case for my three biographies. Now or Never! 54th Massachusetts […]
My Favorite Research Story by John Rocco
Today we continue the series in which award-winning nonfiction authors discuss the joys and challenges of the research process with an essay by John Rocco. Thank you, John. When I was writing and sketching the first draft of my book How We Got to the Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity’s […]
My Favorite Research Story by Gail Jarrow
Today I continue the series in which award-winning nonfiction authors discuss the joys and challenges of the research process with an essay by Gail Jarrow. Thank you, Gail. As an author of nonfiction, I can’t rely on my imagination the way novelists do. Because my books usually take place in the past, I have to do […]
My Favorite Research Story by Laura Purdie Salas
Today we continue the series in which award-winning nonfiction authors discuss the joys and challenges of the research process with an essay by Laura Purdie Salas. Thank you, Laura. I have a confession: I hate interviewing people. Although I’ve asked a NASA astronaut about his space boots and discussed chipmunk torpor with a hospital-ridden scientist, […]
My Favorite Research Story by Carole Boston Weatherford
Today we continue the series in which award-winning nonfiction authors discuss the joys and challenges of the research process with an essay by Carole Boston Weatherford. Thank you, Carole. I owe my interest in picture research to one book—The Black Book. Conceived and edited by Toni Morrison, the 1974 coffee-table book compiles artifacts, images, and primary […]
My Favorite Research Story by Steve Sheinkin
Today we continue the series in which award-winning nonfiction authors discuss the joys and challenges of the research process with an essay by Steve Sheinkin. Thank you, Steve. “I always start with a book,” I tell students at school visits. “I’m not just saying that because your librarian is listening.” I’d like to say this gets […]
My Favorite Research Story by Barb Rosenstock
Today we continue the series in which award-winning nonfiction authors discuss the joys and challenges of the research process with an essay by Barb Rosenstock. Thank you, Barb. As a nonfiction researcher/writer, I run into the problem of too little information all the time—interesting topics that have a single book written about them (or no books), […]
My Favorite Research Story
Back in 2016, middle school librarian Ellen Brandt showed me this word cloud, and I was gobsmacked. Why, I wondered, did these students have such a negative attitude toward a process I relish? The more I talked to educators about my concern, the more I realized that Ellen’s students aren’t an exception. They’re the rule. To […]
How the 5 Kinds of Nonfiction Can Enrich Student Writing
Imagine this scenario: A second grader named Kiyana has seen ladybugs in her yard and is excited to write a report about them. Since she doesn’t know much about these little insects, she begins her research process by reading Zoom in on Ladybugs by Melissa Stewart. This traditional nonfiction (all-about) book features information about where ladybugs […]