Student Annotations: Nonfiction

Tonight's class is on nonfiction readers' advisory.  That is a big topic I know.  To help, we break it up into narrative nonfiction, biography, and memoir, but that is still just the tip of the iceberg.

In terms of resources, there are 2 specific nonfiction RA books out there:

• The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction by Neal Wyatt
• The Real Story: A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests (Genreflecting Advisory Series) by Sarah Statz Cords

Speaking of Sarah, she also has a nonfiction blog called Citizen Reader and those of you who live in the Chicagoland area, ARRT is hosting Sarah in April at the Deerfield Public Library.  You can click here to register-- all are welcome.  Here are the details:

Please join us at the Deerfield Public Library, 920 Waukegan Road, on Wednesday, April 27, from 1:30-3:00, for a program titled The Second Stacks: Life Stories, presented by Sarah Statz Cords. The topic of her presentation is Nonfiction Reader’s Advisory, specifically biography, memoirs and travel narratives. For librarians who lead book discussions, this talk should help you to generate ideas for titles to use and should be helpful to anyone working in Reader’s Advisory. The program will be from 1:30 – 3:00 and then there will be refreshments.

Ms. Cords reviews books for Library Journal and Bookslut.com, and has taught a course on adult reading interests at the University of Wisconsin - Madison School of Library and Information Studies.   She is the author of The Real Story:   A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests and is an associate editor for Reader’s Advisory Online and the co-author of Now Read This III: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction.

I also highly suggest Rick Roche's long running blog, ricklibrarian.  Rick works in a library in a town neighboring mine, he writes about nonfiction and more.  He also wrote Real Lives Revealed: A Guide to Reading Interests in Biography (Real Stories) which is part of Sarah's series.

Try these resources, but don't forget to also check out what the students read and wrote about this week on the class blog.