Review of Diamond Fever! by Steve Sheinkin

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Diamond Fever!

A True Crime Story in the Wild West

by Steve Sheinkin
with comics and art by Jon Chad

Roaring Brook Press, 2026. 240 pages.
Review written August 30, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here’s a true crime story told with all the drama of a novel. It’s suitable for middle school or upper elementary kids, though teens will like it, too. I’ll list it on the Children’s Nonfiction page, but this isn’t a picture book – it’s an adventure tale of the Wild West.

The story is of a dramatic and complicated swindle involving a diamond mine. We know it’s a crime from the title, and the author doesn’t hide that from the beginning, but we don’t know what was done or how they pulled it off until the end.

Interesting to me is that the criminals got away with it. Essentially, they duped famous and powerful people, who didn’t want it to get out that they had been swindled. It’s a long and involved swindle, and Steve Sheinkin takes us every step of the way.

He starts us off with two men in San Francisco in 1870, bringing a bag of rough diamonds to a mine investor for safe keeping. They say they found a diamond field when out prospecting. The investor checks, and these are real diamonds.

And so begins a long adventure involving multiple investors and multiple expeditions to the secret diamond field in the middle of the country. Before it’s done, they’ve pulled in the rich and powerful and have throngs in San Francisco interested in investing, planning to strike it rich. They even have to be stealthy about visiting the site, because others will want to stake a claim first.

How is it a crime? Who’s responsible? How did they pull it off? Where did the actual diamonds in that bag come from? The author skillfully spreads out the answers to keep us wanting to find out more. And there’s some nice pointers about not falling for scams at the end. It can even happen to the rich and powerful!

Some of the key scenes are shown with comics, and this tale is spun in a way that keeps you turning pages.

stevesheinkin.com
jonchad.com

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Review of We Carry the Sun, by Tae Keller, illustrated by Rachel Wada

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Science, Starred Review 0

We Carry the Sun

by Tae Keller
illustrated by Rachel Wada

Norton Young Readers, 2025. 48 pages.
Review written 2/6/26 from a library book.
Starred Review

This is a nonfiction picture book about the history of solar power. The illustrations are lavishly beautiful, and I like the way the author addresses the reader as we – talking about humankind’s collective efforts to harness the power of the sun.

And I had no idea the long history and the wide scope of efforts to produce solar power. She mentions ancient peoples who built their homes to be cooler in summer and warmer in winter. And then goes on to the people who figured out how to make solar panels – and the many people after them who kept refining the design.

It’s a story of people working across the globe, using ideas of others, improving on them, for the good of all. Tae Keller and Rachel Wada capture this idea in their “We”-centered text and stunning illustrations.

There’s a timeline at the back that gives more information about the specific scientists featured. Especially interesting are recent developments – including a scientist in Mexico who makes biodegradable solar panels and scientists in Korea, Germany, China, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore working with perovskite solar panels which are transparent and can be used in place of glass.

All sorts of fascinating information here – told in a way children can understand – and be inspired to wonder what they might do to add to the progression of science improving our lives.

Here’s the last page of the main text:

How does an idea grow?
With people bouncing off one another
like photons,
teaching and inspiring,
listening and learning.
Across the world,
we turn to one another and say,

We are incredible.

Look at all we can do.

We reached into the sky
and carried the sun home —

and what if we could do even more?

rachelwada.ca
taekeller.com
nortonyoungreaders.com

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Review of Basket Ball, by Kadir Nelson

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Basket Ball

The Story of the All-American Game

by Kadir Nelson

Little, Brown and Company, 2026. 104 pages.
Review written August 10, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Like Kadir Nelson’s stunning We Are the Ship from many years ago, his oversize paintings of players are the stars of this book. The book is large and square, as big as a picture book, but packed with text that’s full of information. The detailed text is broken up with a large, magnificent painting on every spread, as if the players are standing there ready to throw you the ball.

He’s got information about how basketball was invented and how it caught on, how and why the rules changed, how it slowly became integrated, and the various leagues over the years. One section highlights star players over the history of the game.

There’s a chapter at the end about women’s basketball. My one quibble is I would have liked this information included with the rest of the book. The author did a good job covering the times when there were separate leagues for African Americans – it would have been interesting to mention how Women’s Basketball fit into that in the same timeline.

But that’s a minor quibble for this strikingly beautiful book. I make no secret that I’m not a sports fan – but reading this had me riveted. I learned much about basketball that I didn’t think I cared about before picking up this book.

kadirnelson.com

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Review of My Bicentennial Summer, by G. Neri, illustrated by Corban Wilkin

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

My Bicentennial Summer

True Adventures from the Most Epic Family Road Trip of All Time

by G. Neri
illustrated by Corban Wilkin

Candlewick Press, 2026. 88 pages.
Review written July 21, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

First, sorry about not getting this read before the Semiquincentennial.

As he did in My Antarctica, G. Neri makes his own travels the center of this nonfiction story, illustrated with plenty of photos, but also illustrations drawn over them. However, this time the travels happened when he was a kid. His family took six weeks and drove and camped all across America in honor of the Bicentennial in 1976.

Now, I was twelve years old in 1976. (It looks like the author is just a bit younger than me.) I remember all the hype about the Bicentennial. It makes me a little sad that not nearly as much happened for the 250th. But our family didn’t do an epic road trip like this, and it was super fun to read about and remember the hype.

I love the way the author points out the people and the cool things they saw as they drove through so many states. He talks about the history behind the Bicentennial, the ideals of democracy that we’re still striving toward, and brings it together with fun things about his own experiences in a pop-up camper with his family.

The end result is that as well as reading a fun story that’s surprising in many places – and true – you also come away proud to be part of this great big, quirky, and diverse country. We’ve come a long way in fifty years, but we’re still an incredibly diverse bunch of people with interesting local traditions in every part.

gregneri.com

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Review of Angry Girls Will Get Us Through, by Rebecca Traister

History, Teen Nonfiction 0

Angry Girls Will Get Us Through

by Rebecca Traister
read by Cynthia Farrell

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2026. 6 hours, 52 minutes.
Review written July 20, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.

This book takes Rebecca’s 2018 book for adults: Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, updates it for 2026, and directs it to teen girls, to encourage them to use their anger to fight injustice.

Angry Girls Will Get Us Through points out that the Declaration of Independence was fueled by anger – as evidenced by the list of grievances it includes. But that anger – from white men – has always been more acceptable than anger coming from women or any other group.

From there, this is a book of history, a history of how women channeled their anger, through all the years of American history, to make a difference.

An obviously large topic was the fight for women to get the vote, but women of the time also worked for abolition and for temperance. The author makes the point that the temperance movement was mainly to protect women from alcoholic husbands – and outlawing alcohol was a more feasible goal at the time than changing the laws around marriage that gave men complete control over their wives.

But then the book looks at more modern times, at the first women to run for president and be in Congress. How even in modern times, a woman shedding tears, even angry ones, could ruin her chances of winning elections, and how Hillary Clinton and women like her had to always be careful of how they expressed what in a man would be called “passion.”

And then it brings us to the present day, including the second election of Donald Trump. We get the encouraging news that Hillary Clinton’s defeat and the Women’s March prompted a new wave of women entering politics. We hear about the effects of Black Lives Matter and the Me Too Movement. I was disappointed that the Epstein files were not mentioned, but that is even still unresolved, so I can understand leaving it out.

By the end of the book, despite my upbringing that anger is an emotion good people avoid, I was convinced: Anger at injustice can lead to good things, good that can reach many more people.

I hope that young women who read or listen to this book will take that message to heart. For that matter, I hope I will take this message to heart and not be as quick to stuff down anger at injustices I hear about in the news.

rebeccatraister.com

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Review of Notre-Dame, by Lynn Curlee

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Version 1.0.0
Notre-Dame

The World’s Cathedral

by Lynn Curlee

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2026. 44 pages.
Review written July 7, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here is another book by artist Lynn Curlee about one of the important structures of the world. Although it is illustrated with big, beautiful paintings, those accompany a full text, so this book is more for upper elementary and middle school readers than your usual picture book crowd.

Is it safe to say that most people who have seen Notre Dame de Paris love this cathedral? I don’t think it’s just me. I’ve visited it several times, and each memory of that place is precious. So my heart was broken when the cathedral burned in 2019.

This book begins with the fire, explaining how it happened and the heroic efforts to save as much as possible. Then it goes back and gives the history of the cathedral. I didn’t realize it was the first truly Gothic cathedral, and we get detailed explanations of what that means.

Gothic cathedrals are among the most complex and ambitious structures ever conceived. It is simply mind-boggling to realize that they were constructed completely by manual labor, without the aid of machines of any kind. There were obviously no computers for design work, mathematical calculations, or virtual modeling, and no electric, hydraulic, or steam-powered devices to make things easier. All they had were hand tools like chisels, mallets, handsaws, levers, winches, and pulleys. Building materials were transported by boat or by oxcart. Probably the most complicated device they used was like a big hamster wheel, large enough for several men to operate by walking inside, for hoisting heavy loads high into the air.

Notre Dame has been around for nine centuries, and was ransacked at different times and then restored and added to. The French Revolution left it in disrepair, but then Victor Hugo’s popular novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, aroused interest in restoring it. That restoration was when the gallery of chimeras was added – the wonderful gargoyles on the bell towers.

The book concludes by telling of the amazing restoration work after the fire, with paintings of workers suspended from ropes.

The catastrophe of April 15, 2019, and the campaign of reconstruction riveted the attention of people from all over the world. By almost losing it forever, we gained a new appreciation of Notre-Dame’s importance as the ultimate example of a Gothic cathedral. As a monument of three different eras – the Middle Ages, the nineteenth century, and now the twenty-first century – the newly refurbished cathedral has reclaimed its official place as the Cathedral of Paris, a symbol of France, a great milestone in the cultural heritage of humanity, and one of the most popular tourist attractions on Earth. And unofficially, more than ever before, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame may be celebrated as the World’s Cathedral.

This tribute to the World’s Cathedral makes you feel like you’re there.

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Review of Airports: Behind the Scenes, illustrated by Maxim Usik

Children's Nonfiction Review, History 0

Airports

Behind the Scenes

by Anna Ridley
illustrated by Maxim Usik
consultant Laurence Hardisty

Thames and Hudson, 2026. 48 pages.
Review written June 1, 2026, from a library book.

Taking a trip with kids? Here’s a detailed and fascinating in-depth look at what goes on behind the scenes. I still recommend The Airport Book, by Lisa Brown, for very young children and preschoolers. But for kids who are reading on their own and love poring over detailed pictures, this oversized book will be ideal preparation. Okay, it’s really too big to conveniently carry with you – but kids will enjoy it so much in preparation for a trip, it’s worth it.

The book goes through the different parts of an airport – ticketing, security, baggage conveyor systems, through activity on the ground around the plane, air traffic control, and how things work inside the plane.

There are kid-centered questions throughout the book: “Do suitcases get mixed up?” “Why can’t I ride on the luggage carousel?” “Can I take snakes on a plane?” “Can a body scanner see me naked?” “Why is that airplane being towed?” “Who flies the plane when the pilot needs to go to the bathroom?” “How many planes are in the air at one time?” “Why can’t we fly with the windows open?” and “Why do I feel like farting?”

The whole book is filled with detailed pictures, answers to questions like those above and lots more, and plenty of information even I hadn’t known before I read this book. (So it wasn’t just that I ate the wrong thing before the flight!)

I like that this is a modern book, with modern scanners and security requirements, likely to match what a child will see at the airport today.

Interesting and informative, and a great way to get thinking about my upcoming trip to France!

maximusik.art

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Review of How the Word Is Passed, by Clint Smith, adapted by Sonja Cherry-Paul

History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

How the Word Is Passed

Remembering Slavery and How it Shaped America

by Clint Smith
adapted for young readers by Sonja Cherry-Paul

Little, Brown and Company, 2025. 305 pages.
Review written May 27, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

I’m going to put this on my Teen Nonfiction page of the website, but it’s appropriate for upper elementary school on up. I didn’t feel talked down to when I was reading it, and it was interesting and engaging all the way.

This is a book about how we tell the story of slavery. And I’m afraid there were many eye-opening facts I didn’t know. The author visits seven historic sites and talks with the curators there about the history of slavery at that place – and how it’s smoothed over or how people are trying to confront it. He tells us about each visit and the people he met, and the book is a fascinating melding of the past and the present – helping the reader better understand just how much slavery underpins our lives today.

For the first stop at Monticello, the author went on a tour specifically about Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with slavery. This book doesn’t have a lot to say about Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings – probably because it’s a children’s book. But it still has plenty to say about the contrast between Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence and the way he treated his slaves.

Though Jefferson understood the devastating impact that selling an enslaved person to another plantation could have on the rest of the enslaved population, he still sold more than one hundred people over the course of his life. He separated children as young as thirteen from their parents by sale, he bought children as young as eleven, and he separated children under ten from their families by transferring them between his own properties or giving them to his own family members as gifts.

Jefferson believed that he might free himself from any guilt over the brutality of slavery by avoiding its most extreme forms of physical violence. But as an enslaver, there was no such thing as avoiding the violence of slavery – to own an enslaved person was itself to make yourself a participant in the inherent violence of the institution. Additionally, when he felt it necessary to maintain the order that made his life possible, Jefferson did engage in some of the very brutal practices he claimed to so deeply loathe.

When an enslaved man who worked in Monticello’s nail factory was caught a year after he escaped, Jefferson wrote, “I had him severely flogged in the presence of his old companions.” Although he attempted to create distance between himself and the abuse by assigning the whipping to an overseer, Jefferson knew, just as slave holders throughout the South knew, that the spectacle of public assault was a means of both asserting authority over, and maintaining order among, enslaved workers.

The other places the author visits include Whitney Plantation, where they attempt to show what plantation life was like for the enslaved people; Angola Prison, where mostly Black men are incarcerated, and where they try to smooth over the history of enslavement in that place; Blandford Cemetery, where Confederate soldiers are honored with beautiful stained-glass windows but don’t talk about what the Confederacy stood for; Galveston Island, where they reenact the story of Juneteenth, when enslaved people in Texas first learned they’d been freed; New York City, where enslaved people were auctioned off, and where a Black settlement was leveled to create Central Park; and finally Gorée Island in Senegal, where human beings were shipped across the ocean, passing through the Door of No Return.

I like the way the book is filled with facts, but it’s told as an absorbing story. He interacts with people who live in each place and talks with them about what that history means to them.

This ends up being a powerful book. I’m glad this information has been put in a form accessible and interesting to children, because this is an important part of our national history, and shouldn’t be glossed over. So far, I’m going to recommend this book to kids from about fifth or sixth grade up – but also to adults. Is this more concisely told than the adult version? I’m going to put that one on hold to see, but so far this one is packed with a satisfying amount of information, told in an absorbing way.

clintsmithiii.com
sonyacherrypaul.com
lbyr.com

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Review of Black History Is Your History, by Taylor Cassidy

History, Teen Nonfiction 0

Black History Is Your History

by Taylor Cassidy
illustrated by Adriana Bellet

Atheneum, 2025. 192 pages.
Review written May 17, 2026, from a library book.

Taylor Cassidy is a popular TikTok creator of the series “Fast Black History.” She’s in her early twenties and already very popular. This book is a compilation of bios of Black people who did notable things, told in a conversational style. Let me note right up front that I’m an older white lady, and I am not in the intended audience! She takes a very casual tone, as I’m sure works beautifully on her TikTok channel, talking firsthand with teens.

In every chapter, she includes a sort of sidebar with a different color background and the heading “Tay Story.” She tells about something in her own life that relates to what the person featured in that chapter went through – and how she learned from them and you can, too.

I’m not very near to the trials of high school, so I wasn’t as interested in those parts as in the bios they were interrupting, but I think teens will relate to most of the things she describes. And that got me thinking about something in my life, so it seems only fair to insert this:

Sondy Story

Last summer, I went to a Christian writers’ conference, and one of the editors who was speaking said that everybody’s first Christian book is a memoir.

And I had to plead guilty. I have a book about Psalms (and I recently signed with a literary agent!) – and I illustrate each type of Psalm by telling my own story and how different types of Psalms were helpful at different times.

But the editor continued. It’s okay to include your own story if it illustrates something bigger. Strangers don’t necessarily care about your life – but if you can use it to illustrate something bigger, that can work and add a personal touch. I think I’ve managed that in my Psalms book.

***

And I also think Taylor has managed it in her book. Her stories show teens how the qualities found in these Black heroes can inspire you to get through difficulties in your own life. I wouldn’t want to read a straight memoir from Taylor – She’s so young! But a series of profiles of Black heroes peppered with personal experiences that relate? It ends up being an interesting and readable book.

As a librarian, I’d like some notes in the back as to her sources, but she did try to include in the text where she got a lot of the information. This is Black History that is the opposite of a textbook, and I think kids from middle school up will enjoy her fresh take – and probably learn even more on her TikTok channel.

simonandschuster.com/teen

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Review of Stealing Little Moon, by Dan SaSuWeh Jones

Audiobooks, History, Teen Nonfiction 0

Stealing Little Moon

The Legacy of the American Indian Boarding Schools

by Dan SaSuWeh Jones
read by Shaun Taylor-Corbett

Scholastic Audio Books, 2024. 6 hours, 10 minutes.
Review written April 8, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.

Stealing Little Moon is a story about American Indian Boarding Schools, but also a family story. Dan SaSuWeh Jones’s grandmother was taken from her family at gunpoint when she was four years old. Her name was Little Moon There Are No Stars Tonight. She arrived when Chilocco Indian Agricultural School had just opened – and the author was a maintenance worker after the school closed. In between, four generations of his family attended the school.

I expected a story of horrific abuse in the Indian Boarding Schools. I had no idea that children as young as four years old were taken, which adds to the horror, but I wasn’t exactly surprised by stories of abuse, poor nutrition, hard work, lack of medical care, and a refusal to let the children speak their own languages – yes, horrified, but not surprised. (The Witness Blanket, by Carey Newman and Kirstie Hudson, gave me a powerful overview of what happened in the schools.)

However, this book contained much more than that. The author would often digress, telling about notable people who attended the Indian schools, telling about legislation that tried to erase them, and also telling about steps taken to fight back and reclaim the schools as a positive force in Indian lives. It was after Native Americans themselves were in charge of the schools that they were forced to close. But their legacy lives on, in both good and bad ways.

Listening to this book as an audiobook, it felt pretty unorganized because of all the digressions. I think if I’d had the book in front of me and the chapter headings in mind, it would have felt less so. But still, the digressions were all very interesting. They often had a personal touch with the author’s family. I did like how he pointed out that by bringing children from many different Indian nations together, they gained new solidarity with one another and this shared experience – traumatic in many ways, but also with some positives.

Above all, he demonstrates how the United States government tried to wipe out the indigenous people and make them assimilate – but they failed in that goal.

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