2025 Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List Announced

The Texas Library Association is thrilled to announce the new Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List! The purpose of the Texas Topaz Reading List is to provide children, teens, and adults with recommended nonfiction titles that stimulate reading for pleasure and personal learning. It is intended for recreational reading and is not designed to support any particular curriculum.

Each year, the Texas Topaz Committee considers nonfiction books published three years prior to the release of the list. This year, the committee read 101 books and selected the best of the best for this year’s list. 57 recommended titles were selected for young readers and 35 titles recommended titles were selected for adults. All titles on the new list were published between 2022 and 2024.

Texas Topaz Full List

Topaz Youth Annotated

Topaz Adult Annotated

Below are recommended titles from the new Texas Topaz Reading List the received unanimous votes from the entire Committee.

2025 Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List
UNANIMOUS RECOMMENDATIONS

 Grades K-2

• Daughter of the Light-Footed People:  The Story of the Indigenous Marathon Champion Lorena Ramirez by Belen Medina, illustrated by Natalia Rojas Castro (Antheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, 2024)
• Mushroom Rain by Laura K Zimmerman, illustrated by Jamie Green (Sleeping Bear Press, 2022)

Grades 3-5

• Erno Rubik and his Magic Cube by Kerry Aradhya, illustrated by Kara Kramer (Peachtree Publishing Company, 2024)
• My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story by George Takei, illustrated by Michelle Lee (Crown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2024)
• Small Shoes, Great Strides: How Three Brave Girls Opened Doors to School Equality by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, illustrated by Alex Bostic (Carolrhoda, an imprint of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., 2023)
• The Girl Who Figured it Out by Minda Dentler, illustrated by Stephanie DeHennin (Sourcebooks eXplore, an imprint of Sourcebooks Kids, 2024)
• The Iguanodon’s Horn: How Artists and Scientists Put a Dinosaur Back Together Again and Again and Again by Sean Rubin (Clarion Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2024)
• Thomas Jefferson’s Battle for Science: Bias, Truth, and a Mighty Moose! by Beth Anderson, illustrated by Jeremy Holmes (Calkins Creek, an imprint of Astra Books for Young Readers, a division of Astra Publishing House, 2024)
• Wings of an Eagle by Billy Mills and Donna Jannell Bowman, illustrated by S.D. Nelson (Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc., 2024)

Grades 6-8

• Puzzled: A Memoir About Growing Up with OCD by Pan Cooke (Rocky Pond Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024)
• Uprooted: A Memoir About What Happens When Your Family Moves Back by Ruth Chan (Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited, 2024)

Grades 9-12

• Impossible Escape by Steve Sheinkin (Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership, 2023)
• The Enigma Girls: How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets, and Helped Win World War II by Candace Fleming (Scholastic Focus, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2024)

Adults

• A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Atlantic, 2023)
  A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko (Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC, 2024)
• American Girls: One Woman’s Journey into the Islamic State and Her Sister’s Fight to Bring Her Home by Jessica Roy (Scribner, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, Inc., 2024)
• Birdgirl: Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future by Mya-Rose Craig (Celadon, a division of Macmillan Publishers, 2022)
• Chamber Divers: The Untold Story of the D-Day Scientists Who Changed Special Operations Forever by Rachel Lance (Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC, 2024)
• Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir (Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2023)
• Four Thousand Paws: Caring for the Dogs of the Iditarod: A Veterinarian’s Story by Lee Morgan (Liveright Publishing, an imprint of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2024)
• Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant (Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2023)
• Impossible City: Paris in the 21^st Century by Simon Kuper (Public Affairs, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, 2024)
• It Starts with One: The Legend and Legacy of Linkin Park by Jason Lipshutz (Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, 2024)
• Lost in Austin: The Evolution of an American City by Alex Hannaford (Dey St., an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2024)
• Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart (Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2023)
• Red Dead’s History: A Video Game, and Obsession, and America’s Violent Past by Tore C. Olsson (St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2024)
• The Angel Makers: Arsenic, A Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring by Patti McCracken (William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2023)
• The Einstein Effect: How the World’s Favorite Genius Got into our Cars, our Bathrooms, and our Minds by Benyamin Cohen (Sourcebooks, 2023)
• The King of Diamonds by Rena Pederson (Pegasus Books, and imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2024)
• The Serial Killer’s Apprentice: The True Story of How Houston’s Deadliest Murderer Turned a Kid Into a Killing Machine by Katherine Ramsland and Tracy Ullman (Crime Ink, an imprint of Penzler Publishers, 2024)
• The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History by Karen Valby (Pantheon Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2024)
• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann (Doubleday, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2023)
• Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of our Future by Daniel Lewis, Illustrated by Eric Nyquist (Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster LLC, 2024)
• Walking With Sam: A Father, A Son, and 500 Miles Across Spain by Andrew McCarthy (Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Publishing, 2023)