The new issue of Bookslut is up and includes a feature by me on nonfiction for kids and teens. Here's the intro:

With the holidays coming and the most popular book for teens in America about a vampire and the most passive female character since Joanie blindly loved Chachi, I’d like to point prospective book buyers in the direction of numerous nonfiction titles that children and teenagers will enjoy. They may not carry the sense of impending doom that young love with the undead can suggest, but they will open any number of intellectual doors.

I mean really, when did reading novels - any novels - become better for kids than reading nonfiction?

This is one of those subjects that never seems to go away (at least in the lit blogsphere) so I thought that the best blow I could strike for reading NF was simply to throw out there short reviews of many excellent NF choices. (I did this last year as well in the December issue and it was a big success.) So there are three astronomy titles, three nature books, three biographies of very interesting people and two cookbooks (one of which, the River Cottage Family Cookbook, is the sort of investment that will stay with a ten year old for a lifetime.)

There were a couple of books that showed up after my deadline that I have been enjoying immensely with my son and would also like to point out. Both by Clive Gifford, Ten Explorers Who Changed the World and Ten Leaders Who Changed the World, are the sort of short concise biography collections that will fascinate young readers. They give you a nice chronology of events told in a story-like fashion with big bold realistic illustrations from David Cousens. (They are described as manga-style but I didn't really see that as the people aren't big-eyed freaks.) (That would be my anti-manga bias showing...) I also liked the maps for each explorer's travels - they are a nice touch and provide answers readers are guaranteed to have.

MY column this month is a group of books that impressed me lately in one way or another. There are several novels, David Macaulay's latest and a couple of picture books that impress in different ways. In one way or another, I loved them all and it is so cool to be able to share them this time of year with those of you who are shopping for the children and teens in your lives.

All about Alice tomorrow...........