NONFICTION Book List

NONFICTION Book Suggestions

I've included lexile levels for most of the books. If the level isn't included, or if you need more information, go to:  www.lexile.com/

American History

Dear Miss Breed                                       Lexile - 1040

Joanne Oppenheim (Scholastic Nonfiction, 2006)
The chronicle of a San Diego librarian who corresponded with Japanese-American children in internment camps in the early 1940s

 

Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy        Lexile - 1000

Albert Marrin (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2011)
An examination of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City

Up Before Daybreak: Cotton and People in America     Lexile - 1060

Deborah Hopkinson (Scholastic Nonfiction, 2006)
A tale of slaves, sharecroppers, and mill workers whose lives tell the history of the cotton industry in America

 

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland

Lexile - NC 1140 (NC - non-conforming) The text is easier to read than the lexile level indicates

Sally M. Walker (Carolrhoda, 2009)
Scientists study skeletons to learn about the people of America’s colonial past.

 

Biography

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart      Lexile - 930

Candace Fleming (Schwartz & Wade, 2011)
A compelling chapter book details Earhart’s life and her mysterious disappearance.

  

 The Notorious Benedict Arnold                     Lexile - 990
Steve Sheinkin (Flash Point, 2010)
Examines the adventurous life of America’s most infamous traitor

 

Civil Rights

 Black and White                              Lexile - 1150

Larry Dane Brimner (Boyds Mills Press, 2011)
A spotlight on two key figures in the struggle for civil rights in Alabama

 Freedom Riders                               Lexile - 1090        

(National Geographic Children’s Books, 2005)
Details the courageous lives of two Freedom Riders whose passion for justice changed the course of American history

 

We’ve Got a Job                                Lexile - 1020
Cynthia Levinson (Peachtree Publishers, 2012)
The story of four of the nearly 4,000 children who boycotted school and marched in protest of segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963

 

Wheels of Change                            Lexile - 1280
Sue Macy (National Geographic Children’s Books, 2011)
A perspective on how women’s use of the bicycle helped bring about social change

 

Natural Resources

 

 Sugar Changed the World
Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos (Clarion, 2010)
A global history of sugar and its influence on historical events

 

Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story             Lexile - 1170

Michael Collins (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994)
An astronaut describes his extraordinary experiences in space—and the sacrifices that made his career possible.

 

 Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon
Catherine Thimmesh (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
A behind-the-scenes look at the herculean efforts to make the 1969 Moon landing a reality

Young People In History

 
Hitler Youth: Growing Up In Hitler’s Shadow   Lexile - 1050
Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Scholastic Nonfiction, 2005)
The chilling story of Nazi Germany’s Hitler Youth groups during World War II

 

Navajo Code Talkers                                            Lexile - 1170
Nathan Aasent (Walker Childrens, 1994)
How a once-scorned group became among the bravest, most valuable, and most loyal U.S. soldiers during World War II

 

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood            Lexile - 870

Ibtisam Barakat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007)
A groundbreaking memoir set in Ramallah during the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War