Non Traditional Story Telling: Some Favorite Reads

Everyone and their mom has been talking about this book and it's sequel

Illuminae is the first book of a trilogy told through documents ranging from interviews, classified documents, schematics, encyclopedia pages, emails, medical files, IMs, and personal journal entries.

This is not the first book to make use of non-traditional story telling. These books are perfect for reluctant readers, readers who are looking for a fast read, and readers who are intrigued by the format. Here are some of my favorites. 

TTYL was the first book told entirely through IM. I devoured this book, loving the different format. I gave this one to a bunch of teens. It's still circulating in my library today. 

PostSecret: takes postcards from readers created with words, text, poems, and art work. A perfect blend of pictures and texts. Who doesn't love hearing someone's secret? There are several of these books.

Cathy's Book created an interactive mystery complete with an Evidence file for readers to sort through. I never read this one, but it seemed really cool.

What My Mother Doesn't Know was the first novel in verse that I read. I loved it. I handed this one out like candy - along with several others written in verse.

Maze of Bones: The first in the 39 Clues series which was written by several different authors, allowing books to come out every three months. It also included an online game and cards. I was addicted to to these books - so much action and danger. These kept me on the edge of my seat and I was thrilled they came out every three months and not once a year. Also it's the first series I remember reading that was written by different big name authors. I couldn't keep these books on the shelves.

Those were some of the biggest ones I remember. Now, more and more of these books pop up everywhere.  Here are some more favorites:




This one I'm going to read next and it's perfect for this  time of year