2007 ALA Best Books for Young Adults (Non-Fiction)
Discover the 2007 ALA Best Books for Young Adults (Non-Fiction)—curated list of top non-fiction titles for teens. Explore award-winning reads that inspire, educate, and captivate young minds.
Book
Freedom Riders
by Ann Bausum
Explores the Civil Rights movement and the young people who called themselves Freedom Riders.
Book
Men of Salt
by Michael Benanav
Century after century, camels and their drivers have traveled the sands between the fabled city of Timbuktu and the infamous salt mines of Taoudenni, hauling supplies from the proverbial end of the earth to an even farther-flung outpost, deep in Mali's slice of the Sahara. They return laden with tombstone-sized slabs of solid salt. While nearly all of the great trans-Saharan trade routes have disappeared, the Caravan of White Gold--so called because the salt was once literally worth its weight in gold--marches on, spared by unmatched isolation. Hearing that the caravans were threatened by the introduction of trucks, author Benanav joined a caravan, becoming one of the few Westerners to do so. He visited the modern city of Timbuktu, a sprawling, dilapidated town of mud-brick dwellings, and haggled to join a caravan to a destination once used as a jail, the salt mines. Following his amused guide, Walid, Benanav lived for weeks among the camel drivers, marching eighteen hours a day for nearly a thousand miles through sandstorms and searing heat. Along the way, he learned how to care for and ride camels, mastered the threecup morning tea ceremony, and played doctor to impoverished salt miners. A gripping narrative of the unique Islamic culture, at a time when Western access to the Islamic world is increasingly limited, Men of Salt is a revelation, and an important addition to the literature of history and of travel.
Book
The Poet Slave of Cuba
by Margarita Engle
A portrait in poems of Juan Francisco Manzano, the poet who was born a slave in Cuba in 1797.
Book
Escape!
by Sid Fleischman
Who was this man who could walk through brick walls and, with a snap of his fingers, vanish elephants? In these pages you will meet the astonishing Houdini—magician, ghost chaser, daredevil, pioneer aviator, and king of escape artists. No jail cell or straitjacket could hold him! He shucked off handcuffs as easily as gloves. In this fresh, witty biography of the most famous bamboozler since Merlin, Sid Fleischman, a former professional magician, enriches his warm homage with insider information and unmaskings. Did Houdini really pick the jailhouse lock to let a fellow circus performer escape? Were his secrets really buried with him? Was he a bum magician, as some rivals claimed? How did he manage to be born in two cities, in two countries, on two continents at the same instant? Here are the stories of how a knockabout kid named Ehrich Weiss, the son of an impoverished rabbi, presto-changoed himself into the legendary Harry Houdini. Here, too, are rare photographs never before seen by the general reader!
Book
5000 Miles to Freedom
by Judith Bloom Fradin
Ellen and William Craft were two of the few slaves to ever escape from the Deep South. Their first escape took them to Philadelphia, then on to Boston pursued by slave hunters, and finally 5000 miles across the ocean to England, where they were able to settle peacefully.
Book
Freedom Walkers
by Russell Freedman
Covers the events surrounding and including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the end of segregation on buses.
Book
Letters to a Young Brother
by Hill Harper
Straight talk and inspiring advice for America's youth is offered by the powerhouse public speaker and star of "CSI: NY." 8-page color insert.
Book
Up Before Daybreak
by Deborah Hopkinson
Read about the importance of cotton in America's history and learn about the lives of people who picked it and worked with it.
Book
Last Chance in Texas
by John Hubner
A powerful, bracing and deeply spiritual look at intensely, troubled youth, Last Chance in Texas gives a stirring account of the way one remarkable prison rehabilitates its inmates. While reporting on the juvenile court system, journalist John Hubner kept hearing about a facility in Texas that ran the most aggressive–and one of the most successful–treatment programs for violent young offenders in America. How was it possible, he wondered, that a state like Texas, famed for its hardcore attitude toward crime and punishment, could be leading the way in the rehabilitation of violent and troubled youth? Now Hubner shares the surprising answers he found over months of unprecedented access to the Giddings State School, home to “the worst of the worst”: four hundred teenage lawbreakers convicted of crimes ranging from aggravated assault to murder. Hubner follows two of these youths–a boy and a girl–through harrowing group therapy sessions in which they, along with their fellow inmates, recount their crimes and the abuse they suffered as children. The key moment comes when the young offenders reenact these soul-shattering moments with other group members in cathartic outpourings of suffering and anger that lead, incredibly, to genuine remorse and the beginnings of true empathy . . . the first steps on the long road to redemption. Cutting through the political platitudes surrounding the controversial issue of juvenile justice, Hubner lays bare the complex ties between abuse and violence. By turns wrenching and uplifting, Last Chance in Texas tells a profoundly moving story about the children who grow up to inflict on others the violence that they themselves have suffered. It is a story of horror and heartbreak, yet ultimately full of hope.
Book
Something Out of Nothing
by Carla Killough McClafferty
Meet Manya Sklodowska, better known today as Marie Curie, the co-discoverer of radium, and who became the first woman awarded the Nobel prize for her work on the discovery. Learn what life was like for Marie, and the effect her discovery had on the world.
Book
One Kingdom
by Deborah Noyes
Photographer and former zookeeper Noyes delivers an artfully designed photo essay that examines the ways humans' lives have overlapped with animals throughout history and embarks on a quest for understanding the "other" kingdom. Photos.
Book
Robert E. Lee
by James I. Robertson
Provides young adult readers with a comprehensive look at the life and accomplishments of this famous Confederate General of the Civil War, enhanced with period photos, illustrations, and source notes.
