This morning we announced that in fall 2018, Scholastic will be launching Scholastic Focus, a brand-new imprint for narrative nonfiction books.
The mission of Scholastic Focus is to provide middle-grade and young adult readers with thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and thoughtfully designed narrative nonfiction that will help them make sense of the world, its history, and their place within it.
This new imprint will offer nonfiction books by both new and established talents that are both timely and timeless, that will help readers to make connections between history and the present day, that will illuminate corners of the nation and the world that do not always receive the attention they deserve. Titles published under Scholastic Focus will present momentous topics and crucial debates in an edifying and gripping way.
Below is a sneak peek of what's coming from Scholastic Focus in Fall 2018:
THE GRAND ESCAPE: THE GREATEST PRISON BREAKOUT OF THE 20TH CENTURY by NEAL BASCOMB At the height of World War I, as battles raged in the trenches and in the air, another struggle for survival was being waged in the most notorious POW camp in all of Germany: Holzminden. A land-locked Alcatraz of sorts, it was home to the most troublesome Allied prisoners—and the most talented at escape. The Grand Escape tells the remarkable tale of a band of pilots who pulled off an ingenious plan and made it out of enemy territory in the biggest breakout of WWI, inspiring their countrymen in the darkest hours of the war.
UNPUNISHED MURDER: MASSACRE AT COLFAX AND THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE by LAWRENCE GOLDSTONE On Easter Sunday of 1873, just eight years after the Civil War ended, a band of white supremacists marched into Grant Parish, Louisiana, surrounded the courthouse, set it on fire, and massacred over one hundred African Americans. Yet, following one of the most ghastly and barbaric incidents of mass murder in American history, not a single person was convicted. In this remarkably compelling and thoroughly researched volume for young readers, Lawrence Goldstone traces the history of the court case and the actions of the figures involved, and presents the extraordinary story of how the Supreme Court allowed post-slavery discrimination against black Americans to become institutionalized and entrenched in the American justice system.
D-DAY: THE WORLD WAR II INVASION THAT CHANGED HISTORY by DEBORAH HOPKINSON The WWII invasion of Allied troops into German-occupied Europe, known as D-Day, was the largest military endeavor in history. Acclaimed author Deborah Hopkinson details not just the accomplishments of the offensive’s major players, but the courageous contributions of commanders, service members, African-Americans, women, journalists, and others to this critical battle. Her remarkable research and masterful weaving together of official documents, personal accounts, and archival photographs into a clear and compelling tapestry brings this key battle to vivid, thrilling life.
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