I blogged about the importance of balancing nonfiction books with fiction books (and poetry) in our home library. Just when it was beginning to slip my mind, I remembered an opinion piece I recently came across from The New York Times about the importance of kids reading nonfiction for summer reading. Though my little one is years away from summer reading book lists, I thought it was worthy of sharing a link to the piece in this forum.
Some Books Are More Equal Than Others
By Claire Needell Hollander
Sun., 6/24/12
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Published by Stacey Shubitz
I am a literacy consultant who focuses on writing workshop. I've been working with K-6 teachers and students since 2009. Prior to that, I was a fourth and fifth-grade teacher in New York City and Rhode Island.
I'm the author of Craft Moves (Stenhouse Publishers, 2016) and the co-author of Jump Into Writing (Zaner-Bloser, 2021), Welcome to Writing Workshop (Stenhouse Publishers, 2019), and Day By Day (Stenhouse, 2010).
I live in Central Pennsylvania with my husband and children. In my free time, I enjoy swimming, doing Pilates, cooking, baking, making ice cream, and reading novels.
View all posts by Stacey Shubitz
Raising Literate Humans 
It’s funny because when my daughter was in 1st grade and I started thinking about how I wanted to buy more non-fiction books for her, I started to realize that she was already bringing home a really nice balance from her classroom library. Then I paused and thought about how she did the same with her selections when we would go to the public library. I smiled thinking about how choosing a blend was natural for her, so my role shifted to making sure that I continue to support and encourage her to do so, rather than trying to find ways to motivate her to read both.
Thank you Stacey. Since our school bases so much on the individual unit topic choices, our students do read lots of non-fiction, both in their choosing of the topics, then for the research. It is an important part of our reading instructions as well, approaching non-fiction texts, etc. I will share this with the staff!