Alison's Teen Titles of the Week! Today's topic: NONFICTION

Many of you have told us you’d like help finding recommendations of great books that will engage your teen readers. As usual, we want to help!

Meet Alison Morris, our new Senior Director of Publisher and Author Relations! She’s a veteran bookseller with 15 years’ experience matching books to readers and endless enthusiasm for books. For the next four weeks she’ll use this space to recommend terrific titles for teen readers – many of them hidden gems you probably haven’t discovered.

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I love this book!

If you’re working with teens who think nonfiction is dry or boring, hand them John Fleischman’s Phineas Gage: A Gruesome But True Story About Brain Science and prove them wrong! This is a truly fascinating account of an incident (and injury) that was – and still is – hugely important to our understandings of the human brain.

In 1848 Phineas Gage was working as a railroad construction foreman when a sudden blast sent a 3 ½ foot rod through his cheek and out of the top of his head. While Phineas was knocked to the ground, he never lost consciousness, never suffered from infection, and fully survived the incident. BUT (and here’s where things get really interesting!) his personality completely changed. Photos, charts, and diagrams appear alongside Fleischman’s well-organized account to help readers understand how Phineas went from being a level-headed, likeable guy to a very unstable person, and teach them which areas of the brain control their behavioral, medical, and emotional functions. This is a genuinely interesting book that will get teens thinking about the way their own minds work and (hopefully!) spark their curiosity to learn still more.

More of my Non-Fiction favorites:

Getting Away With Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case

by Chris Crowe

An eye-opening, moving account of an appalling tragedy.

King of the Mild Frontier

by Chris Crutcher

The stories of sibling rivalry in this hilarious memoir will make you LOL!

Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream

by Tanya Lee Stone

Inspiring! A great book about following one’s passion and triumphing over prejudice.

What do you think of this weeks titles? What titles would you and your teens choose?
Let us know at tellus@firstbook.org!