Welcome to the Dark Side…(queue in your Darth Vader music, Pink
Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, or Black Sabbath; which ever personifies
the dark most for you). Just kidding…or am I?
Young Adult Nonfiction is an interesting and somewhat perilous
category in that it takes a lot of skill in writing to be effective.
The author is speaking to independent young minds on the verge of
adulthood with strong opinions, lots of questions and a discerning eye
for B.S. You can’t talk down to them, you can’t blow smoke and you have
to be engaging in order to grab their attention away from vampires,
zombies or whatever the current trend books their friends are reading.
These young people are learning to master their own minds and have
myriad issues to deal with. Bullying, school shootings, war – all are
on the forefront of their minds. How can we engage them best while
dealing with the subject matter that means the most? Sometimes the
reading can be intense, so in those instances, we are looking for
stellar writing that navigates the hard subjects and steers us away from
despair, yet keeps punching the subject matter home and keeps us
reading and learning.
We are looking for the best of the best for nonfiction. We are
seeking nominations for outstanding nonfiction that reads so much like a
story, readers cannot believe it is nonfiction. Narrative nonfiction
reads like story because the information is blended into a well written
and meaningful text. While textbooks and how to books are great in some
instances, we are not looking for those types of books so please do not
nominate them as they do not fit the narrative nonfiction description.
New this year for YANF is that we will be accepting ebooks as a
way to get more nominations into our judges’ hands. For nonfiction
categories, it is imperative that the text and graphics including
charts, tables and figures are user friendly and display appropriately.
If you have a title that would fit this criteria, and you are willing
and able to provide your nominated title as an eBook, please indicate
which format would be possible.