I noticed a request on another Book Talk thread for titles ALL writers should read and found some great recommends for books on craft. In addition to reading how-to-write books, we can use mentor texts.
During a recent NF conference for newbies, organizer Pat Miller called on us to use mentor texts as roadmaps for learning more about writing nonfiction for younger readers, middle grade and YA.
If you aren't an elementary or secondary educator, mentor texts are models of good writing students read to learn theme, main ideas, voice, word choice, punctuation and parts of speech. New writers by extension can use models of good writing in their genre... not to copy authors whose books are admirable... but as guides for improving their own writing, too.
One of the books I've been using as a mentor text is The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming, a particularly exceptional model for well-researched biography and history in a riveting narrative style.
What mentor texts have you found are models of good writing in your genre?