Five Kinds of STEM-themed Nonfiction Books for Kids

It’s a great time for children’s nonfiction! In recent years, these books have undergone exciting and dramatic changes, evolving into five distinct categories. Who can benefit from understanding the characteristics of these categories?

Teachers and parents: Different kids prefer different kinds of nonfiction books. Understanding the five categories can help teachers and parents guide children toward the kind of nonfiction they’ll enjoy reading the most.

Children’s book authors: Certain topics are better suited for a particular nonfiction category. Understanding the categories can help professional scientists and science enthusiasts interested in writing children’s books frame the ideas and information they are passionate about in ways that are likely to catch an editor’s attention.

Transcript

I co-wrote the book Five kinds of Nonfiction with literacy educator Marlene Korea. And it introduces a system for classifying nonfiction by its characteristics. And there are five, and I will start out by talking a little bit about traditional nonfiction. These are the kinds of nonfiction books that we all grew up with, but they have been evolving all the time. And this is one of my new brand-new favorites. This book just came out recently.

Traditional nonfiction books are a broad introduction, a general introduction to a topic. They can be part of a series. They have an expository writing style. They often have various text features. They are looking at a broad topic and using clear accessible expository language. And so that kind of nonfiction has been around since probably the 1950s in the children’s market. What has come, there have been some newer kinds of nonfiction that have been introduced over the last 20 to 30 years.

And the first of these is narrative nonfiction. So narrative nonfiction started out in the adult world in the 1960s or maybe early 1970s. And it started to appear in the children’s world in the 1990s. And see, these are books that tell a story or convey an experience. They are often biographies or books about historical events, and they have all the characteristics of the story except everything is true. So there’s a real character, there’s real settings, there’s real dialogue. And so these books are great for kids that really connect strongly to stories. Studies show that some children do and some children don’t. Traditional, I didn’t mention this before, but traditional nonfiction is great in the early part of the research process where you’re just sort of reading around a topic and trying to decide what you want to focus in on.

And then a little bit later in the process, the research process, it’s great to use some browsable nonfiction. So these came into play in the early 1990s. They were invented really by Dorling Kindersley when they created their Eyewitness Books. And books have a lot of text features. They have a lot going on on each spread. They have a lot of little images, they have a lot of different text blocks. And these are great books for kids to share as a group. They also have tantalizing tidbits. And because they have all those text features, you can find specific information easily, which makes them great for more targeted research.

Another category, a newer category that started to appear in the 2000s is called expository literature. And these books were really a reaction to what was happening in society and in publishing at that time. It was when No Child Left Behind was introduced, and a lot of money was taken away from school libraries to use to fund that programming.

So we lost school libraries lost their budgets. A lot of school librarians lost their jobs. And at the same time, the rise of the internet made it pretty easy to get an article on. Let’s say you were writing about volcanoes or the Boston Tea Party, if you wanted just kind of that general introduction, you could probably find it on the internet. So nonfiction authors and publishers really needed to raise their game. And so expository literature still has an expository writing style, but it is more creative, it’s more focused. And because of that, it has richer language, it has strong verbs, it has all those characteristics that we think of when we think of writing craft. And so a few examples of that is this is a brand new book that I love, and a lot of expository literature books have illustrations, but this one actually has photos. So there are small groupings of text or less text on a page. There’s a really strong interplay between the art and the words. Here’s another example that also has two layers of text.

And this one, the main text has a rhyming structure to it. And then there’s some secondary text. So these are really more literary than the other kinds of expository nonfiction.

And then finally, we have active nonfiction, which is, can be part of it can teach a skill or it can be part of an activity. So for example, there are birds, this supports birdwatching. This is a great hands-on book about experimenting with matter. This is really well done. And so these can be also, they can be books that come packaged with a little model that kids build, or they can be cookbooks or they can be a book on creating origami. So there are all these different kinds of nonfiction that can be used in different ways at different times. And different kids enjoy reading different kinds of books personally themselves. And so when kids know the kind of nonfiction that they gravitate to the most, they can use that to fuel their independent reading.

Traditional nonfiction

Up until the 1990s, children’s book publishers were producing just one kind of nonfiction — traditional nonfiction. These survey books, sometimes called “all about” books, provide a general overview of a topic and are often published in large series. They emphasize balance and breadth of coverage, have an expository writing style that explains, describes, or informs, and feature language that’s clear, concise, and straightforward.

Characteristics of traditional nonfiction

Survey (all-about) books
Overview of a topic
Part of a large series
Expository writing style
Clear, straightforward language

Examples of traditional nonfiction

About Birds: A Guide for Children (opens in a new window) by Catherine Sill and John Sill (Peachtree, 2013)
Galaxies, Galaxies! (opens in a new window) by Gail Gibbons (Holiday House, 2018)
Mountain Gorillas: Powerful Forest Mammals (opens in a new window) by Rebecca E. Hirsch (Lerner, 2015)
Water (opens in a new window) by Seymour Simon (HarperCollins, 2017)

Browse-able nonfiction

Thanks to the invention of desktop publishing software, Dorling Kindersley was able to develop its innovative Eyewitness Books series in the early 1990s. These beautifully designed, lavishly illustrated books include short blocks of expository text that offer fact-loving kids an engaging way to access information. Readers can dip in and out, focusing on the content that interests them most, or they can read the books cover to cover. Today many publishers and media companies are creating books in this category.

Characteristics of browse-able nonfiction

Beautiful design, lavishly illustrated
Short blocks of text
Expository writing style
Can read cover to cover or skip around
Great for shared reading

Examples of browse-able nonfiction

Big Book of Why: Revised and Updated (opens in a new window) by the Editors of Time for Kids (Time for Kids, 2016)
Eyewitness Books: Rocks and Minerals (opens in a new window) by Dorling Kindersley (Dorling Kindersley, 2014)
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Birds (opens in a new window) by Catherine D. Hughes (National Geographic Children’s Books, 2016)
Smithsonian Human Body! (opens in a new window) by Dorling Kindersley (Dorling Kindersley, 2017)

Narrative nonfiction

In the mid-1990s, children’s book authors began experimenting with narrative nonfiction — prose that tells a true story or conveys an experience. Like fiction, narrative nonfiction includes characters; settings; scenes; and, ideally, a narrative arc with rising tension, a climax, and denouement. The scenes, which give readers an intimate look at the world and people being described, are linked by transitional text that provides necessary background while condensing parts of the true story that aren’t relevant to the author’s purpose.

Although narrative nonfiction is most commonly utilized in biographies and books that recount historical events, it also works well for animal life stories and books that describe journeys of discovery or natural processes.

Characteristics of narrative nonfiction

Narrative writing style
Tells a story or conveys an experience
Real characters, settings, scenes, and narrative arc
Chronological text structure
STEM biographies or journeys, life cycle stories, or books about natural processes

Examples of narrative nonfiction

Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-Sea Submersible ALVIN (opens in a new window) by Michelle Cusolito and Nicole Wong (Charlesbridge, 2018)
The Hidden Life of a Toad (opens in a new window)by Doug Wecshler (Charlesbridge, 2017)
Life on Surtsey: Iceland’s Upstart Island (opens in a new window) by Loree Griffin Burns (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017)
Warbler Wave (opens in a new window) by April Pulley Sayre with Jeff Sayre (Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster, 2017)

Expository literature

Expository literature came on the scene in the mid-2000s. In many ways, it was a reaction to shrinking school library budgets and the rise of the internet, which offers facts for free. Unlike traditional nonfiction, which provides a broad introduction, expository literature presents narrowly-focused topics, such as STEM concepts, in creative ways that reflect an author’s passion for the subject. These books typically feature an innovative format, a carefully chosen text structure, a strong voice, and rich, engaging language.

Characteristics of expository literature

Expository writing style
Narrowly-focused topics presented in creative ways
Innovative format and carefully chosen text structure
Strong voice and rich, engaging vocabulary

Examples of expository literature

Animals by the Numbers: A Book of Animal Infographics (opens in a new window) by Steve Jenkins (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016)
A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars (opens in a new window) by Seth Fishman and Isabel Greenberg (Greenwillow, 2017)
Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractals in Nature (opens in a new window) by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell (Boyds Mills Press, 2014)
Pink Is for Blobfish: Discovering the World’s Perfectly Pink Animals (opens in a new window) by Jess Keating and David DeGrand (Knopf, 2016)

Active nonfiction

Active nonfiction has been around since the 1990s, but it really hit its stride in the last few years. These browse-able books are highly interactive and/or teach skills that readers can use to engage in an activity. Written with an expository writing style, these field guides, books of scientific experiments, book-model combinations, etc. are currently extremely popular with young readers.

Characteristics of active nonfiction

Highly interactive and/or teach skills for engaging in activities (inspired by the maker movement)
Expository writing style
Can read cover to cover or skip around
Field guides, books of projects or experiments, and books with models

Examples of active nonfiction

Brain Games: The Mind-blowing Science of Your Amazing Brain (opens in a new window) by Jennifer Swanson (National Geographic Children’s Books, 2015)
Dig In! 12 Easy Gardening Projects Using Kitchen Scraps (opens in a new window)by Kari Cornell and Jennifer S. Larson (Millbrook Press, 2018)
Look Up!: Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard (opens in a new window)by Annette LeBlanc Cate (Candlewick Press, 2013)
Try This: 50 Fun Experiments for the Mad Scientist in You (opens in a new window) by Karen Romano Young (National Geographic Children’s Books, 2017)

Additional classroom resources

The Five Kinds of Nonfiction (opens in a new window) (School Library Journal)

Gateway Nonfiction and the Nonfiction Continuum (opens in a new window)(Celebrate Science Blog)

Teaching the 5 Kinds of Nonfiction (opens in a new window)(Melissa Stewart)

Our video interview with Melissa Stewart

Children’s nonfiction writer Melissa Stewart has published more than 200 books on a wide range of science and nature topics. Melissa says she writes for children because books for young people can change the way that they see themselves and the way that they see the world. Watch the interview

Teaching nonfiction tips with Melissa Stewart

About the author

Melissa Stewart (opens in a new window) is the award-winning author of more than 180 science books for children, including Can an Aardvark Bark?; No Monkeys, No Chocolate; and Feathers: Not Just for Flying. She holds a degree in biology from Union College in Schenectady, NY, and a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. Melissa maintains the highly regarded blog Celebrate Nonfiction (opens in a new window) and serves on the board of advisors for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

This article was retrieved from PLOS Blogs: Five Kinds of STEM-themed Nonfiction Books for Kids. (opens in a new window)

About the Author

Children’s nonfiction writer Melissa Stewart has published more than 200 books on a wide range of science and nature topics, including the Sibert Medal Honoree Summertime Sleepers: Animals that Estivate. She co-wrote 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books and edited the anthology Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep: 50 Award-winning Authors Share the Secret of Engaging Writing.

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Five Kinds of STEM-themed Nonfiction Books for Kids

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Transcript

Traditional nonfiction