YALSA’s 2015 Morris/Nonfiction Reading Challenge Check-In #4

I didn’t make much progress on the Challenge this week. I started reading Ida M. Tarbell: The Woman Who Challenged Big Business—and Won! by Emily Arnold McCully.

She’s sort of the most famous woman you’ve never heard of. Born in 1857 and raised in Pennsylvania oil country, Ida M. Tarbell was one of the first investigative journalists and probably the most influential in her time. Her series of articles on the Standard Oil Trust, a complicated business empire run by John D. Rockefeller, revealed to readers the underhanded, even illegal practices that had led to Rockefeller’s success. So far, although informative, I’m finding it a slow read. It’s not hard, I just don’t feel as though I have the sense of her yet.

This will be the last nonfiction book I comment on. All the others are CYBILS YA nonfiction finalists for which I am a judge. I’ll be rereading and blogging about the Morris Award finalists, though.

2015 Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award

The 2015 finalists are:

Laughing at My Nightmare written by Shane Burcaw, and published by Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan’s Children’s Publishing Group;

This one was not even on my radar, but I now have it on hold at the library.

 

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia written by Candace Fleming, and published by Schwartz & Wade, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books;

Ida M. Tarbell: The Woman Who Challenged Big Business—and Won! written by Emily Arnold McCully, and Published by Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers.

I’ve seen this one around, but hadn’t paid it much attention. It’s now on hold, too.

The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights written by Steve Sheinkin, and published by Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan’ Children’s Publishing Group;

Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek written by Maya Van Wagenen, and published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group.

 Check them out if you haven’t done so yet.