IRL: Resources for Teaching YA Nonfiction

Presented by Karina Romo, Markus Reynoso, Erick Rivera, & Erika Salgado Review This Land is Our Land: A History of American Immigration by Linda Barrett Osborne is an inclusive, non-fiction, American history novel that provides a critique on the paradoxical nature of United States’ society and government stance on immigration. It explains the oxymoronic pattern followed by the citizens of the country as new generations of immigrants from different parts of the world have and continue to flood our immigration offices, ports and borders. The novel reminds its readers that this land is the melting pot of our world, and will continue to be such for generations to come. This novel does not explore a single story, but rather derives its narrative from many different anecdotes on immigration throughout the last few centuries. It intends to explore the challenges and divides of the United States of America’s immigration in a chronological order, beginning with early European

The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition  by Reyna Grande Reviewed by Jessica L., Catherine L., Lydia L., and Rosangelia L.  Biography: Reyna Grande is an accomplished author of several critically acclaimed novels. She was born in Iguala, Guerrero in Mexico. Her parents immigrated from Mexico to the United States when she was two and four years old. At nine, Reyna followed her parents and made her own way up North, “Al otro lado”, the other side. She traveled North with her father, her older sister and her older brother. Once she reached the United States, she was so shocked to see the tall buildings and palm trees. Once settled in her school in Los Angeles, she was taken aback at how the students there looked like her and had a last name like hers or similar, but they spoke a language she couldn’t understand. Her first few years in school she worked very hard to learn the new language, English. She excelled and got out of the ELA classes within a few years.

Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka Author Biography Krosoczka at a book reading for children. Krosoczka at a book reading for children.Born in Massachusetts in 1977, Jarrett J. Krosoczka turned his innate ability to create art and stories into a best-selling career, having written twenty three books and graphic novels and become world renowned through his community outreach and educational TED Talks. In childhood, Krosoczka’s maternal grandparents were given custody of him due to his mother’s severe drug addiction, which later served to inspire the plot of one of his most emotional works, his memoir Hey, Kiddo . In addition to his writing career, Krosoczka created multiple scholarships, including the Joseph and Shirley Krosoczka Memorial Youth Scholarships for young, underprivileged art students, and does community work including upstarting programs such as the Platypus Police Reading Squad, a group that facilitates the inclusion of police officers r