'easy nonfiction'

Hello again, and welcome to this edition of Campbell Unclassified! 

It’s a brand new year, full of new horizons to explore, new challenges to overcome, new books to read! Have you made a reading goal for yourself this year? Maybe you want to try revisiting all your old favorites. Or head off on wild adventures with some epic fantasy. You could try some new skills with some how to books and our Library of Things. Read every James Patterson novel? Check out our new travel guides and plan your dream vacation? Try one of those “100 books to read before you die” challenges? 

Whatever your fancy, one of the first decisions many people make is whether or not they are going to read fiction or nonfiction. Me? I say, “why not both?!”

With that in mind, I would like to share some great book pairings with you; books that go together like Doc and Marty, peanut butter and jelly, Kirk and Spock, like wine and cheese!

Fans of Bridgerton Unite!

Whether you first met Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton family on Netflix or in the novels, you may be interested in The Time Traveler’s Guide to Regency Britain: a handbook for visitors to 1789-1830 (for other novels set in Regency Britain, try authors Mary Balogh or Georgette Heyer).

American Tragedy

I highly recommend The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Then check out The White House Boys by Roger Dean Kiser--on which it was based--and We Carry Their Bones: the search for justice at the Dozier School for Boys, a new book detailing the recent forensic work done on the ground of the old reformatory school.

Journey to the Red Planet

There is a lot of great science fiction out there about space travel. For adventures on our planetary neighbor, try The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury or The Martian by Andy Weir. Then pick up Packing for Mars (comes in a children’s edition, too!) or Dinner on Mars if you’d like to know about the science behind making a visit to Mars possible.

Digging Up Dinosaurs!

Who DOESN’T love dinosaurs?! We have so many books about dinosaurs, you’re sure to find something you like, but have you read about Mary Anning? Check out Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures for a tale of female friendship and fossils, and The Fossil Hunter: dinosaurs, evolution and the woman whose discoveries changed the world by Shelley Emling. Share her story with the kids with these children’s books: Mary Anning’s Curiosity, Dragon Bones, or Fossil Hunter!

Crime on the American Frontier

The infamous Bloody Benders are thought to be responsible for the gruesome murders of over a dozen men and one infant in Kansas between 1872 and 1873. The excellently researched Hell’s Half-Acre by Susan Jonusas is thoroughly engrossing. I can’t wait to check out the novel All the Blood We Share by Camilla Bruce!

You can check out more fiction/nonfiction pairings online!

Happy reading!

In a perfect world, children would never be exposed to difficulties and hardships. They would never have to grow up too soon or feel unsafe. They could simply be kids. Unfortunately, life doesn’t discriminate. When these struggles arise, it can be difficult to find a way to answer questions or work through their feelings in an age appropriate way. 

Books can be a great tool to help children (and adults!) find the words for their feelings and cope. Whether it is for more common obstacles like bullying and divorce or other sensitive issues like, poverty, domestic violence, immigrating to a new country, or death of a loved one, books can help provide advice and comfort. Picture books are also a great way to encourage empathy for others in children that may be living these situations. 

These books are best read together with plenty of time afterwards for questions. With books that deal with sensitive subjects, it is always good practice for a grownup to read the book beforehand, and determine if there is a struggle that you or your child is facing, there is a book to help.

Home Life

• The Big Bad Wolf In My House by Valérie Fontaine
  Topic: Domestic violence // Easy FONTAINE
• It’s a No-Money Day by Kate Milner
  Topic: Food banks, poverty // Easy MILNER
• Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept by Jayneen Sanders and Craig Smith
  Topic: Child sexual abuse // Easy 362.76 SANDERS

Divorce

• Dinosaurs Divorce by Laurie Krasny Brown
  E 306.89 BRO
• Divorce is the Worst by Anastasia Higginbotham
  Easy 306.89 HIGGINBOTHAM

Death / Loss

• Death is Stupid by Anastasia Higginbotham
  Easy 155.937 HIGGINBOTHAM
• Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs by Tomie dePaola
  Easy DEPAOLA
• Bear Island by Matthew Cordell
  Topic: Pet loss // Easy CORDELL 
• Arno and His Horse by Jane Godwin and Felicita Sala
  Topic: Toy loss // Easy GODWIN

Bullying

• Confessions of a Former Bully by Trudy Ludwig and Beth Adams
  Topic: How to start being a better friend // Easy LUDWIG
• The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad, S.K. Ali, and Hatem Aly
  Topic: Hijab, Islam, school // Easy MUHAMMAD
• You, Me, and Empathy by Jayneen Sanders and Sofia Cardoso
  Topic: Teaching empathy // Easy SANDERS

Immigration

• The Color Collector by Nicholas Solis and Renia Metallinou
  Topic: Homesickness, friendship // Easy SOLIS
• My name is Sangoel by Karen Lynn Williams, Khadra Mohammed, and Catherine Stock
  Topic: Refugee, names // Easy WILLIAMS
• Home is in Between by Mitali Perkins and Lavanya Naidu
  Topic: Traditions, culture // Easy PERKINS

People with Disabilities

• What Happened to You? by James Catchpole and Karen George
  on order
• It’s Okay to Ask! by Nancy Carlson
  Easy CARLSON

Adoption

• Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell
  Easy CURTIS 
• We Belong Together by Todd Parr
  Easy PARR
• Goyangi Means Cat by Christine McDonnell, Lou Fancher, and Steve Johnson
  Topic: English as a second language // Easy MCDONNELL

Are you singing the right lyrics to the songs you learned as a kid? I love to hear children sing. If the words aren’t quite the ones I remember, that doesn’t matter. They sing with their hearts and I can hum along, but do I remember the lyrics?

For the life of me, I cannot remember the lyrics to Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I obviously made up some words as a kid and that is how I remember it. Though sometimes, my curiosity (or the funny looks of my grandchildren) will cause me to find the original lyrics to some of my favorites.

The Library can come to the rescue for lots of those songs especially in the Easy section. We can find Home On the Range edited by Barbie H. Schwaeber. It is based on a poem written by a Kansas homesteader, Dr. Brewster M. Higley. Others have tried to take credit for it and have tried to change the words. Ranchers, farmers and cowboys adopted the song as an unofficial anthem for the American West. Kansas adopted it as their state song. But how did it get to be so well known?

The story behind a song can be a lot of fun. Another book by the same title, Home On the Range: John A. Lomax and His Cowboy Songs by Deborah Hopkinson tells how as a young man, John went out with an old-fashioned recording device in the early 1900s to capture songs that were sung by cowboys. Then he wrote them down for us. He went out again later in life and captured more songs. Many of his recordings of singing cowboys are stored at the Library of Congress. I bet those cowboys would be surprised to know their voices live on in such a prestigious place!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game by Jack Norworth is another unofficial anthem. Baseball games would not be the same without this song even though we only sing one of the three verses. How many of us know the words to the other two?

To help us remember songs from our youth, the Library has a wonderful selection of DVDs called Sentimental Sing-Alongs. Their topics range from patriotic to romance and from locations all over the country.

We do grow up and discover new songs and with them singers who become favorites. Some write their own music and others have lyricists that create the words for them. There are those who redo an old classic with their own personality by changing up the music, but the lyrics live on.

Lyrics catch attention so they’re often used as titles like in these books owned by the library:

• True Colors (Cyndy Lauper) by Kristin Hannah
• Message in a Bottle (Sting) by Nicholas Sparks
• Devil in a Blue Dress (Shorty Long and Mickey Stevenson) by Walter Mosley
• Night Shift (Walter Orange-Commodores) by Steven King