Arc of Justice: A saga of race, civil rights, and murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle

I picked this book up for my woefully unfinished 999 Challenge. It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2004, which is why it made it onto my list. (You can look at my whole list here. I think I've only read about 10% of them!) It also finishes off my New Author Challenge, which is exciting. Good thing that one doesn't take nearly as much work.
Arc of Justice is the story of Ossian Sweet and his family, and the murder trial they become involved in when the Sweet family attempts to move into a part of Detroit where they are not welcome. The Sweet family is black, and in 1920's Detroit, this means they cannot live where they choose, especially following the race-related violence of 1924 and 1925. When a mob gathers outside of their new home and begins throwing rocks and getting more and more violent, shots are fired, although by whom it is never fully clear. Dr. Sweet had filled his house with friends to help defend it from the violence he knew was coming. When one man in the mob dies after being shot from the house, the eleven people in the house, including Ossian's wife and two of his brothers, are taken into custody and eventually charged with murder.
This book is not just the story of the Sweet family and the trial, however. It is a story of race relations in the northern urban areas of America in the 1920's. Boyle does a tremendous job bringing all aspects of the story together to educate us on this issue. I am continually amazed by how little I know about the history of race relations in this country. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about our recent past.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz, illustrated by Robert Byrd

This was one of those books I read over the summer for my Tween Materials class. I picked it up because it was a Newbery Medal winner (2008) and also because it was non-fiction. For the final project for the class I had to read and review 50 books and other materials for tweens, half of which had to be fiction. The majority of my books were fiction, so I needed a few non-fiction titles to break it up.
As I obviously am not reviewing every book that I read this summer here, I chose to review this one for a specific reason. That reason is the honesty of the portrayal of medieval life, made accesible to kids. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! is written in an interesting format - it is a series of plays (mostly monologues, but a few for two people) written for students at a Middle School. Each of these plays is a portrait of an individual in this medieval village, all of which are first-person accounts by narrators that can be assumed to be the same age as the students reading the book. I expected something fun and light-hearted, and what I got was a very good lesson in what medieval life might really have been like. Not really fun and light-hearted at all, but difficult in many ways, even for the young people of the time. In addition to the plays, Schlitz also includes background information to help young readers learn more about the time period. This is truly an excellent book to include in any lesson about medieval history, or to give to any young person who wants to learn more about this time period.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

The Worst Hard Time: The Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl was everything that I'd hoped for in a non-fiction title. Egan begins his tale by introducing us to many of the characters who will populate his history: real people who lived through the Dust Bowl in the No-Man's Land of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and the southeastern corner of Colorado, with some stories of northeast New Mexico and southern Kansas thrown in as well. The Dust Bowl is not a respecter of state lines.
The chronological story begins with the wheat boom that brought settlers to the plains. Egan tells us how they were lied to to get them to stay, and how they convinced themselves that agriculture could work on the land. It is tremendously sad, reading how the buffalo were destroyed and the Native Americans removed from their lands. Egan then goes on to describe the first changes, the beginning of the drought, when people did not yet know that disaster was coming. This is a profoundly moving book, as we get to know each of the families - you see how they suffer, how they stick through the worst times, or leave in order to save their lives. It's hard to imagine living through something so terrible, but I suppose that we always want to believe that it can't get any worse. This book is highly recommended for anyone who enjoys reading about history.
I picked this book up because it won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2006. I am reading award winners for my 999 Challenge. You can see my whole list here. Timothy Egan is a new author for me, so here's another one for the New Author Challenge.

Women in Early Medieval Europe 400 - 1100 by Lisa M Bitel

This was my third book read for the Medieval Challenge, and the second of the non-fiction books I have read about this time period. Actually, the other non-fiction book I read discussed the true medieval time period, 1040-ish to the 1500's, and this book obviously covered an earlier time period, 400 to 1100. But as they focused on different topics, there would not have been much overlap anyway.
I have to say that I loved this book. I have not read a history book that I enjoyed so much in a long time. Women in Early Medieval Europe could easily be used as a textbook for a class on either early medieval history or women's studies. It is an extensively researched and well notated book that focuses solely on women, and their impact on the history of this time period, as well as the time period's impact on them. Bitel does an excellent job of finding the stories about women from the little that is said about them. She points out that the histories written during this time period are by men, and women are only discussed if they are somehow connected to the male main characters, as mothers or wives. The only women that merit real attention are those that either break the rules set for them by society, or who are especially pious and noble, and therefore used by the historians as examples of what women should or should not be.
In addition to the histories written during these time periods, Bitel examines records of laws and accounts, often finding evidence of women when it is not explicitly stated. And of course we know that women existed, because people continued to procreate and extend their reach over the land. Bitel discusses the reasons for why women were included or left out of records to great extent. This is a fascinating book both on the level of women's history and early european history.
Women in Early Medieval Europe is part of the Cambridge Medieval Textbook series. For anyone interested in good non-fiction about this time period, I would recommend checking out any books in this series.
I am also using this book for my first read in the Dewey Decimal Challenge. I am a little bit confused by the way this challenge is structured, but it looks like I can read the books out of order (thank goodness). So this book is for the 900's category - Geography and History (this book's specific Dewey number is 940.1).

Medieval Britain: The Age of Chivalry by Lloyd and Jennifer Laing

This book is my second read for the Medieval Challenge, and the first of the non-fiction books that I have chosen to read for it.
Medieval Britain: The Age of Chivalry is laid out like a text book, and covers the time period from the Norman Conquest in the 1000's to the 1500's. Each chapter focuses on a different area of Medieval life, focusing on Britain, but also giving details about Europe at points. The chapter headings are Society; Castles; The Countryside; The Church; Towns; Trade and Communications; Science and Technology, Superstition and Medicine; Leisure and Fashion; and Intellectual and Artistic Endeavor. This gives you an idea of what information this text has to offer.
Although the information given in this book is interesting, I found it to be too broad of an overview for what I was hoping. This book is definitely a good starting point for someone looking to read more about medieval times. I will have to explore further for a book that delves more deeply into this time period, however.