As part of Nonfiction November, I’m trying my hand at some fiction-nonfiction pairings from my reading life.

 

 

Week 2: (Nov. 5 to 9) – Fiction / Nonfiction Book Pairing (Sarah’s Book Shelves): This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story.

Talk about a hard prompt but a really fun one. I dug through my nonfiction reads and paired them up with a fiction title that shared some similar themes or feelings to them. I hope this might inspire some new reading ideas. I think in reading pairs a lot, in part because of how my librarian-trained mind works when it comes to books. But I don’t think about reading pairs in nonfiction-fiction quite enough, and this was a great reminder that that’s a thing worth considering as well.

The titles below are adult and young adult, both on the fiction and the nonfiction side. This is what I read, and I feel the audiences on all of these is perfectly crossover.

 

 

If You Like This, Try…

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung and  See No Color by Shannon Gibney

Chung’s memoir explores growing up the Korean child of white adoptive parents and the complicated space she occupied as the only Korean girl in her community. Gibney’s novel is about a transracially adopted teen girl who works to find her own place within her adoptive family. Both are moving and heartfelt, and both give powerful voice to not just to those who’ve been adopted, but those who are from an different race and background from the families adopting them.

 

Columbine by David Cullen and That’s Not What Happened by Kody Keplinger

Cullen’s work is an investigative of what did — and did not — happen at Columbine the day of the mass shooting. It digs into the rumors and works to distinguish truth from the mythology. Keplinger’s novel is told from the perspective of the teens who survived the mass shooting at their high school when they’re nearing graduation. The novel focuses on what the truths were, and it digs into who gets to control the narrative of a disaster.

 

Dead Girls by Alice Bolin and  Sadie by Courtney Summers

Bolin’s collection of essays examines what it is culturally that makes us fascinated with stories about dead white girls. It’s about how we consume them, how we profit from them, and what that says about whose story is really told. Summers’s novel is told from two perspectives: a true crime podcast and Sadie’s, both unraveling in parallel timeframes. The podcast is the consumption of the story of Sadie and her quest to seek revenge for the murder of her sister. Sadie’s perspective is that: her perspective.

 

A Dream Called Home by Reyna Grande and  I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L.Sánchez

What does it mean to be Mexican American? Both Grande’s memoir and Sánchez’s novel take that question to heart, exploring the space of being a first-generation American. Grande’s story is also a story of what happens after she’s successfully crossed the border, which is laid out in her first memoir, but this second memoir is her young adulthood and staking claims of her own. Both dig into complicated family relationships and what it means to come of age, knowing you want to hold on to your heritage and also build your own legacy.

 

 

Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang and Girls on the Line by Jennie Liu

What does life look like in modern China for girls? Chung’s book explores that in her nonfiction title from a few years back, and Liu explores this same question in her fiction title. Both are about young girls and factory life.

 

 

Fly Girls by  P. O’Connell Pearson and Mare’s War by Tanita S. Davis

Both Pearson and Davis explore the stories of women pilots in World War II. Pearson’s is a YA nonfiction title and Davis’s story takes the fictional approach. An additional title that would fit well with this pairing is Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith.

 

The Ghost With Trembling Wings by Scott Weidensaul and Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

Weidensaul’s book is among my favorites of all time. It’s a book about animals that are extinct or rare (as in rarest of the rare) that people believe are still around or that they’ll be able to see and share stories about. It’s about extinction. There’s a section about the ivory-billed woodpecker in here, and when I read Whaley’s book, immediately, the two books connected in my mind. Whaley’s book is told in two different voices, and one of them is a man on a quest to find the legendary ivory-billed woodpecker. These two books are in a fascinating conversation with one another.

 

It’s Getting Hot In Here by Bridget Heos and Dry by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

Heos gives the science of climate change while the Shusterman duo give the human side of it. As our world continues to get hotter, human needs like water will become more scarce. Both of these books are a wakeup call for changing the way we engage with the Earth and a rally cry to demand action at a higher level.

 

Juveniles in Justice by Richard Ross and We’ll Fly Away by Bryan Bliss

Ross’s self-published book earned a host of accolades the year it released and for good reason: it’s an unbelievably insightful look at young people in the justice system. It gives them time to have a voice and share their stories. Bliss’s novel, long listed for the National Book Award, is about two best friends and how it came that one of them ended up on death row as a teenager.

 

Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube by Blair Braverman and Up To This Pointe by Jennifer Longo

How about two books about young women learning how to be young women in worlds of extreme temperature? Braverman’s memoir is set in Alaska, while Longo’s novel is set in Antarctica. Both are cold, both are insightful, and both are about navigating extreme elements of nature to better find out who they truly are.