I’ve wanted to participate more fully in Nonfiction November in the blogging world for long time, but I’ve always been involved in reading furiously for Cybils in November in past years. This year, sadly, I’m taking a break from Cybils, although I’m still reading a lot of 2019 middle grade fiction for some other projects that are ongoing. So, I do have a little reading space for Nonfiction November, and I’m happy to be participating this year. The prompt for this week of nonfiction focus is:

Week 1: (Oct. 28 to Nov. 1) – Your Year in Nonfiction (Julie @ Julz Reads): Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? Do you have a particular topic you’ve been attracted to more this year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

I’ve read quite a bit of nonfiction this year, more than usual. I’ve particularly been attracted to the series of biographies published by Julian Messner in the fifties and sixties. These biographies, written for middle school and high school students, have just the right level of detail and story while leaving out the salacious gossip and speculation that might be inserted into any biography written nowadays for adults. If I really want to read more, I can try to find a more comprehensive biography, but these Messner biographies contain about the right amount of information for me. And they are quite well written, interesting and absorbing.

Biographies and Memoir That I Read in 2019:
With a Song in his Heart: The Story of Richard Rodgers by David Ewen.
Twentieth-Century Caesar Benito Mussolini: The Dramatic Story of the Rise and Fall of a Dictator by Jules Archer. (Messner biography)
Ernest Thompson Seton: Naturalist by Shannon Garst. (Messner biography)
Joseph Pulitzer: Front Page Pioneer by Iris Noble. (Messner biography)
In the Steps of the Great American Herpetologist, Karl Patterson Schmidt by A. Gilbert Wright.
The Discoverer of Insulin: Dr. Frederick Banting by I.E. Levine. (Messner biography)
The Ghost Lake: The True Story of Louis Agassiz by John Hudson Tiner.
Sun King: Louis XIV of France by Alfred Apsler. (Messner biography)
Great Men of Medicine by Ruth Fox Hume.
The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir by Ruth Warriner.
Young Man in a Hurry: The Story of Cyrus W. Field by Jean Lee Latham.
Canoeing with the Cree by Eric Sevareid.
Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was and Who God Has Always Been by Jackie Hill Perry.
Abe Lincoln’s Other Mother: The Story of Sarah Bush Lincoln by Bernadine Bailey. (Messner biography)
Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened By the Moon by Leonard S. Marcus.
Ferdinand Magellan: Master Mariner by Seymour Gates Pond.
Little Giant Stephen A. Douglas by J.C. Nolan. (Messner biography)
The Doctor Who Saved Babies: Ignaz Phillipp Semmelweis by Josephine Rich. (Messner biography)

Although I really enjoyed reading about Ignaz Semmelweis and about Cyrus W. Field and about Dr. Frederick Banting, my favorite of these biographies was not a Messner title and not a juvenile or young adult biography. I really liked Leonard Marcus’s biography of Margaret Wise Brown, the picture book author who was so prolific and so talented that she changed the art of the picture book forever. Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon is a must-read for those who are interested in the history of children’s literature or in the writing and publishing scene in New York in the first half of the twentieth century. This biography was my favorite of the year so far, but I would point out that the year is not over yet.