Nonfiction Monday: Their Skeletons Speak

Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World Sally M. Walker

We're almost done looking at the long list for YALSA's Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Sally Walker had two books on the list this year-- big congratulations to her!

Like her Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland, Walker looks at the history and science and significance of several sets of remains. This time, she focuses on the oldest skeletons found in the Americas.

The book mostly focuses on 9,000 years-old Kennewick Man, how we was discovered on a riverbank in 1996 and how much we have discovered about where we came from.

I'm a huge fan of Bones and so I love of Walker shows us how the reconstruction and renderings work in real life. I find such things fascinating. I also like how Walker looks at a range of finds and how they all relate to each other in forming a unified theory of early human life in the Americas. I hope Walker continues to write books on using forensic science and history-- wonderful stuff.

Today's Nonfiction Monday round up is over at Stacking Books. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher for awards consideration.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Nonfiction Monday: Blizzard of Glass

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 Sally M. Walker

As regular readers may remember, last year I was on the committee for the Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. In addition to our winners and finalists, the committee also publishes a list of vetted nominations (what I like to call the "long list.") I'm in the process of highlighting these titles during Nonfiction Monday.

In December 1917, war was raging in Europe. In Halifax Harbor, two ships were on their way to the action, one on it's way to pick up relief supplies, the other full of munitions. The two ships collided, causing a fire. As the munitions ship drifted, fire on its deck, it crashed into the pier and exploded, leveling most of of the harbor area and creating a shockwave that blew out almost every window in Halifax proper. 2000 people died, 9000 more were injured. Rescue and relief efforts were further dampened when a blizzard blew in the next day and dumped over a foot of snow on the area.

Until the advent of nuclear weapons, the Halifax explosion was the largest man-made explosion ever.

Walker tells this story (one that's very well known in Canada, but not so much in the US) through the eyes of children who lived around the harbor at the time. Children getting ready for school, running errands, and going about their day. She weaves these daily accounts in with the context of shipping lanes and traffic, and what was happening in the Harbor. Walker also covers the communities on the other side of the Harbor who were affected by the explosion, resulting shock wave, and tsunami. The book is also very good at detailing what happened after the explosion to everyone.

Fun fact: The Halifax coroner's office had a tested system in place to deal with a mass casualty event like this. It had been developed 2 years earlier, when they brought in the bodies from the Titanic.

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at a wrung sponge. Check it out.

Also check out today's YA Reading List post, in honor of Yom HaShoah.

Book Provided by... the publisher, for award consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Nonfiction Monday

So, the Cybils shortlists are out, which includes the shortlist for Middle Grade and Young Adult Nonfiction, which I was privileged to help put together. While there are many nominated titles that I haven't reviewed yet (and they are coming) there was only 1 from the short-list that I hadn't actually reviewed yet.

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland Sally M. Walker

So, I was sick over the holidays and spent a lot of time on the couch watching TV, where I became addicted to Bones. But even better? When they were doing all their medical mumbo-jumbo (the bones haven't fused yet, so this was obviously a younger person who...) I knew what they were talking about, just because of this book.

Yes, I'm a little partial to it because, for me, it's local history (and I learned SO MUCH that I didn't already know!)

Walker follows around a team of forensic anthropologists as they look at up colonial remains and try to discover who these people were, how they lived, and how they died.

There is one major missing factor in this, and it's one the author addresses up front-- the information is only about the colonists (both European and African.) There is nothing on the lives of the Native Americans who were already living here. This is because of cultural and religious concerns of several Native American tribes about the handling of remains. As Walker says in the introduction, "This choice [to not include Native Americans] is meant not to diminish the importance of Native Americans in the history of the Chesapeake region, but rather to respect the desire of their descendants to see their remains treated in a manner that respects cultural customs."

But, what it does cover is how scientists excavate remains and what different clues tell us. When Walker talks about how you can tell if it's a child or adult by fusing of the bones, she gives the readers pictures so we can see what fused and unfused bones look like. There's a picture of a female and male skull, which arrows pointing out the differences.

We learn about the science of forensic anthropology, as well colonial history-- burial customs, work customs, diet, and all sorts of other things.

Parts of it are not for the squemish, but it's a great book for your science kids and your history kids. I kept telling Dan what I was learning and showing him the pictures. A fantastic book in a year of fantastic nonfiction for younger readers.

Round up is over at Whispers of Dawn!

Book Provided by... the publisher, for Cybils consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.