Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Nonfiction for Middle School & High School

Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March
- Lyda Blackmon Lowery
A 50th-anniversary tribute shares the story of the youngest person to complete the momentous Selma to Montgomery March, describing her frequent imprisonments for her participation in nonviolent demonstrations and how she felt about her involvement in historic Civil Rights events.
A 2015 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Honor recipient.

Tommy: The Gun That Changed America - Karen Blumenthal
John Taliaferro Thompson had a mission: to develop a lightweight, fast-firing weapon that would help Americans win on the battlefield. His Thompson submachine gun could deliver a hundred bullets in a matter of seconds, but didn't find a market in the U.S. military. Instead, the Tommy gun became the weapon of choice for a generation of bootleggers and bank-robbing outlaws, and became a deadly American icon. Blumenthal tells the history of this famous and deadly weapon.

Women in Black History: Stories of Courage, Faith and Resilience - Tricia Williams Jackson
Explores the lives of fourteen African-American women, including writers, athletes, singers, activists, and educators whose courage, faith, and resolve paved the way for others to follow.


Breakthrough!: How Three People Saved "Blue Babies" and Changed Medicine Forever
- Jim Murphy
In 1944, a groundbreaking operation repaired the congenital heart defect known as blue baby syndrome. The operation's success brought the surgeon Alfred Blalock international fame and paved the way for open-heart surgery. But the technique had been developed by Vivien Thomas, Blalock's African American lab assistant, who stood behind Blalock in the operating room to give him step-by-step instructions. The stories of this medical and social breakthrough and the lives of Thomas, Blalock, and their colleague Dr. Helen Taussig are intertwined in this nonfiction narrative.

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