SJPL Picks: YA Historical NonfictionLike this list

20 items

• Rising From the Ashes

  Los Angeles, 1992 : Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, and a City on Fire

  Yoo, Paula,

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  Also available as an eBook. In the spring of 1992, after a jury returned not guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the brutal beating of a Black man, Rodney King, Los Angeles was torn apart. Thousands of fires…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Whose Right Is It?

  the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equality

  Bajramovic, Hana,

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  This important and timely investigation of the Fourteenth Amendment, born in the years after the Civil War, and the impact it's had — and continues to have — on our rights as citizens looks at three famous cases, separated by decades, that…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Shift Happens

  the History of Labor in the United States

  Mann, J. Albert,

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  Also available as an eBook and eAudiobook. This eye-opening and engaging history of the worker actions that brought us weekends, pay equality, desegregation, an end to child labor and more documents how the labor movement has shaped…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• American Wings

  Chicago's Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky

  Smith, Sherri L.,

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  Available as an eBook and eAudiobook. A nonfiction account of a group of determined Black Americans who created a flying club and built their own airfield on Chicago's South Side in the period between World Wars I and II.

• America Redux

  Visual Stories From Our Dynamic History

  Aberg-Riger, Ariel,

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  Available as an eBook and eAudiobook. America Redux explores the themes that create our shared sense of American identity and interrogates the myths we've been telling ourselves for centuries. With iconic American catchphrases as chapter…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• 83 Days in Mariupol

  a War Diary

  Brown, Don, 1949-

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  Graphic Novel. Also available as an eBook. Focusing on the siege of Mariupol (Feb '22 - May '22) and the brave people who stayed to defend their city against Russian forces as well as the resulting effects on global politics.

• Terrible Typhoid Mary

  a True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America

  Bartoletti, Susan Campbell,

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  Also available as an eBook. With archival photographs and text, among other primary sources, this riveting biography looks beyond the tabloid scandal of Mary's controversial life. How she was treated by medical and legal officials reveals…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Brontës of Haworth Moor

  How the Three Daughters of a Country Parson Became the Most Revolutionary Novelists of Their Time

  Browning, Diane,

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  Also available as an eBook. This fascinating work shares the intimate details of the Brontë sisters' lives and reveals how their imagination, creativity, and passion helped them achieve their childhood dreams of being published authors.

• Men of the 65th

  the Borinqueneers of the Korean War

  Aikens-Nunez, Talia,

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  Available as an eBook. Learn about Puerto Rico's 65th Regiment, one of the US Army's most decorated regiments. Author Talia Aikens-Nunez shares the history of these soldiers and the discrimination they faced as they served their country…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Women Who Built Hollywood

  12 Trailblazers in Front of and Behind the Camera

  Rubin, Susan Goldman,

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  In the early twentieth century, women from all walks of life fought against sexism and racism to succeed in Hollywood as actors, directors, costume designers, editors, and stunt women. From well-known, glamorous starlets like Mary Pickford…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• American Murderer

  the Parasite That Haunted the South

  Jarrow, Gail,

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  Available as an eBook and eAudiobook. Imagine microscopic worms living in the soil. They enter your body through your bare feet, travel to your intestines, and stay there for years sucking your blood like vampires. You feel exhausted. You…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Heroines, Rescuers, Rabbis, Spies

  Unsung Women of the Holocaust

  Swartz, Sarah Silberstein, 1947-

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  Discover nine ordinary women who took extraordinary measures to save lives during the Holocaust, resisting terror and torture while undercover or in hiding, in concentration camps, in forests, and in exile.

• From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry

  the Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial That Galvanized the Asian American Movement

  Yoo, Paula,

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  Also available as an eBook and eAudiobook. Paula Yoo has crafted a searing examination of the killing and the trial and verdicts that followed. When Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to manslaughter and received only a $3,000 fine and three…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• With Their Eyes

  September 11th, the View From a High School at Ground Zero

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  Also available as an eBook. The students of Stuyvesant High School, located a few blocks away from the World Trade Center, provide a dramatization of the events of September 11, 2001 from their perspectives.

• Flowers in the Gutter

  the True Story of the Edelweiss Pirates, Teenagers Who Resisted the Nazis

  Gaddy, Kristina R.,

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  Available as an eBook and eAudiobook. The Edelweiss Pirates were a loosely organized group of working-class young people in the Rhine Valley of Germany. They faced off with Nazis during the Third Reich and suffered consequences for their…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People

  Mendoza, Jean,

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  Also available as an eBook. Going beyond the story of America as a country "discovered" by a few brave men in the "New World," Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh

  Fleming, Candace,

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  Available as an eBook and eAudiobook. A riveting biography of one of America's most celebrated heroes, and most complicated, troubled men, Charles Lindbergh.

• Fever Year

  the Killer Flu of 1918 : a Tragedy in Three Acts

  Brown, Don, 1949-

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  Graphic Novel. New Year's Day, 1918. America has declared war on Germany and is gathering troops to fight. But there's something coming that is deadlier than any war. When people begin to fall ill, most Americans don't suspect influenza.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Grand Escape

  the Greatest Prison Breakout of the 20th Century

  Bascomb, Neal,

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  The story of a group of Allied POWs in WWI who dared to escape from Germany's most notorious prison camp, Holzminden.

• Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan

  the True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate

  Bowers, Rick, 1952-

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  Also available as an Audio CD. This book tells a group of intertwining stories that culminate in the historic 1947 collision of the Superman Radio Show and the Ku Klux Klan. It is the story of the two Cleveland teenagers who invented…Read moreRead more of this annotation