IRL: Resources for Teaching YA Nonfiction

April 12, 2018 Enchanted Air by Margarita Engle Reviewed by: Daisy Larios, Kevin Jung, Jane Lee, and Vanessa Luna. Review: Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers in 2015, Margarita Engles memoir titled  Enchanted Air: Two Cultures Two Wings tells an autobiographical tale that takes readers along the journey of Margarita Engles’s life as a Cuban American growing up during the Cold War. Rather than chapters, the story is divided by dates followed by a collection of poems that describe personal experiences of living between two cultures. While the majority of the memoir is in poetic form, the beginning of the novel opens with a short paragraph describing the relationship between her Cuban mother and American father. This beginning helps set the stage for the emotional and dualistic poems that follow. The first sets of poems describe Engle as someone who is in touch with both sides of her culture as she feels proud of both her American and Cuban identity. Howeve...

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives   Written by: Dashka Slater Project Created by: Mark Bibian, Sarah Bidgoli, Sara Brune & Nataly Casillas Review: Imagine deciding to take a nap on the bus from your commute back home from school after a long day, only to be woken up by an assortment of flames burning your legs. That’s precisely what happened to Sasha one day as she rode the 57-bus home. Dashka Slater’s “The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives” recalls the events leading up to the moment when Richard set Sasha’s skirt on fire, changing both of their lives forever. Richard and Sasha had always taken the same bus and had crossed paths on multiple occasions. On this particular day, Richard saw Sasha in their skirt and decided to set it on fire as a small practical joke. The Oakland High School Wellness Center's support of "NoH8" Unfortunately, the...

https://www.amazon.com The Reason I Jump  By Naoki Higashida Reviewed by: Breanna Ohler, Shalynn Pace, Michael Morello, and Anakaren Navarro Review: https://www.vam.ac.uk/ When reading The Reason I Jump , it is important to keep in mind that the book was written by a then 13-year-old Naoki Higashida. Higashida was diagnosed with autism at the age of five. Due to his condition, Higashida often found it hard to communicate vocally so he leaned towards written communication instead. He learned to write with Japanese characters and quickly began expressing himself through fiction and nonfiction works. The Reason I Jump is a nonfiction book leading into Higashida’s mind as he tackles questions commonly asked about children with autism. The book is neither a memoir nor an autobiography but rather a sort of Q&A between Naoki Higashida and his uninformed (perhaps curious) audience. The structure of the book allows it to be read as a rather casual walk of kno...