Young Adult Nonfiction: A Readers’ Advisory and Collection Development Guide

Those readers who are familiar with Elizabeth "Betsy" Fraser's 2008 Reality Rules! and 2012's Reality Rules II will feel quite at home when they open the pages of Young Adult Nonfiction: A Readers’ Advisory and Collection Development Guide as it maintains the successful organizational structure utilized in the two earlier titles. And, as before, the essential starting point, especially for those who haven’t encountered Fraser’s previous titles, is the content of the “Introduction”. There, Fraser clarifies that her definition of a young adult encompasses those between the ages of 12 and 18 and that the book’s contents are “primarily intended to offer choices for recreational reading”. In defining nonfiction, Fraser includes “genres and formats that are highly appealing to young adults...including graphic nonfiction, poetry, and a wide variety of how-to and craft books.” Note that, while Young Adult Nonfiction does include Canadian authored books, they are not identified as such.

Young Adult Nonfiction should be seen as a companion to the two Reality Rules! titles, not a replacement. Fraser explains, “The titles included in this book have been published since 2012, with exception of a small number of classic titles that remain mainstays of curricula and public library shelves”, and they “have been included as ‘Now Try’ titles to give librarians an option to pair titles when offering books to readers. An example of this pairing is seen in the entry to Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s 2018 graphic memoir, Hey Kiddo, where, following the annotation, the “Now Try” suggests David Small’s 2009 published Stitches.

The contents of Young Adult Nonfiction, like the earlier titles, are divided into three major sections: Part 1, Nonfiction Genres includes two chapters, True Adventure and True Crime; Part 2, Life Stories, also contains two chapters, Memoirs and Autobiographies, and Biography, and Part 3, Nonfiction Subject Interests. This final segment is once again the longest and contains seven chapters: History; Science, Math, and the Environment; Sports; All About You; How To; The Arts; and Social Justice and the World. As before, each chapter begins with a definition of the nonfiction area, a statement of its appeal to adolescents, and then an explanation of how the particular chapter is organized. For example, the contents of Chapter 2 – True Crime are divided into Cons and Crimes: Solved and Unsolved, Crime and Crime Science and Intrigue and Espionage. Each chapter concludes with sections labelled “Consider Starting with?” and “Fiction Read-Alikes”. According to Fraser’s “Introduction”, the former “lists a selected number of popular, highly accessible titles from the chapter” and “have been chosen as starting point for people who would like more information about or who are unfamiliar with any particular genre.” The latter section, “Fiction Read-Alikes”, is a terrific bridging inclusion as it suggests a number of novels whose contents can be connected to the chapter's nonfiction focus. For example, Chapter 2's , “Fiction Read-Alikes” section contains seven suggested novels, with two of them being authored by Canadians, Ellen Cook’s The Hanging Girl and Tim Wynne-Jones’ The Ruinous Sweep. For teen males, whose recreational reading interests often reside largely in nonfiction, this connection to related fiction might provide them with the impetus to continue to incorporate fiction as part of their reading diet.

Within each subgenre, entries are arranged alphabetically by the authors' last names while books in a series written by more than one author are listed under the series title. Entries include the book's author, title, publication date, and number of pages. Each book has also been given (a) symbol(s) to suggest its reading level(s): M - middle school, grades 6-8; J - junior high, grades 7-9, and H - high school, grades 10-12. Up to three symbols could appear in front of a book’s title. A “ribbon” would indicate a book has won one or more awards. The letters A/YA alert readers that this title would appeal to both teens and adults while GN designates graphic nonfiction. If a book is an award-winner, an acronym or short form of the award’s name appears at the end of the annotation, with the “Key” to the 16 awards’ full titles being found in the “Introduction”. One of the cited awards is Canadian, the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction that is administered by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. Also following a book’s annotation are a number of Keywords [think “subject headings”] that describe that book’s contents. So, for example, if a teen reader had enjoyed the titles in the Rogue and Espionage section of Chapter 2 and wanted more books about espionage, librarians could turn to the “Subject Index” of Young Adult Nonfiction where they would find three other titles that contained aspects of that theme but which were located in other sections. In this case, one of the titles was Eric Braun’s The Deep State Conspiracy which was part of Chapter 11's Social Concerns and Issues” section. The annotations which accompany each of the entries are truly fresh, informative and engaging. I would be tempted to leave this book in a public space where teens could pick it up and browse its contents as the annotations almost serve as mini booktalks.

End matter includes three appendices, with the first being an annotated five-page “Nonfiction Readers’ Advisory Resources for YA Librarians”, the second a listing of four American and five Canadian “Library Vendors and Wholesalers’ and the third a 13-item “Bibliography”. An “Author/Title Index” (including the titles of series) and a “Subject Index” bring the book to a close.

My concluding assessment of Young Adult Nonfiction: A Readers’ Advisory and Collection Development Guide mirrors that I gave the two Reality Rules! books. Betsy Fraser, a selector with the Calgary Public Library, has once again compiled a superb reference work/selection tool that should be owned by all public library systems and school divisions in Canada. Additionally, librarians-in-training, whether school or public, could use the contents of Young Adult Nonfiction as a most engaging introduction to the wide range of nonfiction that responds to teens' recreational reading interests.