We continue with a look at highlights from School Library Journal‘s 2010 Best Books list with a review of some of the nonfiction titles on the list that are also available at CA Library. The full list is available here.

THEY CALLED THEMSELVES THE K.K.K.: THE BIRTH OF AN AMERICAN TERRORIST GROUP by Susan Campbell Bartoletti — Uses personal accounts unearthed from oral histories, congressional documents, and diaries, to unveil the creation of the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee, and its spread across the American South.

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS: WORLD WAR I by Russell Freedman — An introduction to World War I explains its relevance as a conflict that involved many nations and casualties while introducing modern weaponry and military strategies that have shaped all subsequent wars.

TIME YOU LET ME IN: 25 POETS UNDER 25 selected by Naomi Shihab Nye — An anthology of twenty-five poets under the age of twenty-five includes contributions from Gray Emerson, Talah Abu Rahmeh, and Michelle Brittan.

We don’t have nearly as many from the nonfiction best books lists as we do the fiction lists, which is indicative of the changing nature of the types of books that circulate at the library. 5 years ago, when we first started keeping records for this sort of thing, the ratio of books leaving the library was roughly 70% nonfiction, 30% fiction. 5 years later, those numbers are reversed — 70% of the books we loan from the library are fiction titles.

This reflects not only a rise in the popularity of young adult fiction, but also a change in the way we deliver nonfiction information: electronically, via databases, websites and media outlets that can be updated to keep up with the changing nature of information.

In the next post, I’ll highlight the best books of 2010 as selected by teen readers.