Books for Young Friends and their Friends
Compiled by Chris Erb
Key:
* In OCMM library.
? Looks good, I haven’t read it yet.
OP Probably out of print, look in the library
Patricia Polacco often writes/illustrates good children’s books which are respectful of
differences and promote good values. Other award-winning authors I trust include
Mordicai Gerstein, Emily McCully (Columbia Co. resident), and Katherine Paterson.
Sandy E. Sasso and Lawrence Kushner are rabbis who offer non-denominational,
multicultural books for younger readers about God and the Bible.
Quakerbooks.org (Friends General Conference) is a good source for many books.
Boardbooks for babies and toddlers
Everywhere Babies. Meyers. Babies in all kinds of families.
What is God’s name? Sasso
What Does God Look Like? Kushner
Prayers - Picturebooks
*A Child’s Book of Blessings. Dearborn.
*Be Blest: A celebration of seasons. Owens. OP
*In Every Tiny Grain of Sand: A Child’s Book of Prayers and Praise. Lindbergh. Prayers
and poems from many cultures.
*Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message by Chief Jake Swamp.
*Circle of Days. Lindbergh. St. Francis’s hymn.
My Book of Thanks. Hennessy.
I See the Moon. Appelt.
Bless Us All. Rylant.
Quaker Practices (loosely defined!) - Picturebooks
*I Wanted to Know All About God. Kroll. The many ways we “see” God.
*The Other Way to Listen. Baylor. Truly listening. Can be used to talk about the silence
in meeting.
Beatrice’s Goat. McBrier. and *Boxes for Katje. Fleming. Helping others.
My Heart Will Not Sit Down. Rockliff. A Cameroon girl assists Americans during the
Depression, based on a true story.
God’s Quiet Things. Sweetland. Nature’s beauty.
The Flying Boy by McConnachie. Excellent and easy to understand, about helping
others, and listening to the “inner light” (though that phrase is never used) OP
*The Goat Lady Bregoli. Understanding different kinds of people.
Thy Friend Obadiah. Turkle. Several stories based on a Nantucket Quaker boy.
Shoemaker Martin Hanhart. Based on a Tolstoy story.
*The Song of Francis and the Animals. Mora. and *Saint Francis and the Wolf. Egielski.
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St Francis’s 800th? anniversary. Some great wolf pictures.
*Peace Book. Parr
The Quiet Book. Underwood.
Because of You. Hennessey. OP
How Does God Listen? Lindahl.
The Empty Pot. Demi. Seeking truth. Also by Demi: *Gandhi, *Buddha, *Muhammad.
And to Think that We Thought We’d never be Friends. Hoberman. Family peacemaking.
Because Nothing Looks Like God. Kushner.
The Animal Book. Johnson. Outstanding illustrations and information about all creatures.
Lifetimes. Mellonie. Gentle, thoughtful book about death, using images from nature.
How to Heal a Broken Wing. Graham.
Unspoken: A story from the underground railroad. Cole.
*God’s Paintbrush. Sasso.
?Can You Say Peace? Katz.
?What does Peace Feel Like? Radunsky.
?Whoever You Are. Fox.
?A Little Peace. Kerley.
?All the Colors of the Earth. Hamanaka.
People who inspire us - Picturebooks
*Martin’s Big Words (Martin Luther King) Rappaport.
The Story of Ruby Bridges Coles. A brave 6 yr old during desegregation.
*The Flower Hunter: William Bartram, America’s first naturalist. Ray. True story of the
adventures of the Quaker botanist, beautifully illustrated.
*Henry Climbs a Mountain. Johnson. Series of books about Thoreau. Tax resistance,
simplified.
*The Boy Who Loved to Draw Brenner. Quaker painter Benjamin West.
*Runaway Jack. Lees. Runaway slave helped by a Quaker.
Aani and the Tree Huggers. Atkins. Rural Indian girl defends her environment.
One Thousand Tracings. Judge. True story of reconciliation between Americans and
Germans after WWII, from the perspective of a young girl (featuring ornithologists!)
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave. Hill.
Moses:When Harriet Tubman Lead Her People to Freedom. Weatherford. Harriet
Tubman hears God speak to her.
Planting the Trees of Kenya by Nivola, Seeds of Change by Johnson, and Mama Miti by
Napoli. These three books are about Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan who founded the Green
Belt Movement and won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Escape of Oney Judge. McCully. A girl enslaved by George Washington escapes,
assisted by abolitionist Quakers. Based on a true story.
Jeanette Winter writes good biographies: ?Malala, a brave girl from Pakistan/Iqbal, a
brave boy from Pakistan, Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A true story from Africa, The
Librarian of Basra, ?Nasreen’s Secret School, The Secret World of Hildegard, etc.
*William Penn. Kroll.
?One Hen: how one small loan made a big difference. Milway.
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Bible stories – Picturebooks
*God’s Little Seeds: A Book of Parables. Le Tord. The sower and the mustard seed. OP
Jonah and the Two Great Fish. Mordicai Gerstein, a Caldecott award winning illustrator,
has retold at least three Bible stories, and this is a favorite. OP The Mountains of Tibet
and Shadow of a Flying Bird are other great picturebooks by Gerstein, both concerning
death.
*Noah and the Great Flood. Gerstein.
*Queen Esther, the Morning Star. Gerstein. Also a favorite at OCMM. OP
*Big Mama Makes the World Root. OP Another OCMM favorite. Great creation story.
*Joseph. Brian Wildsmith has retold a number of Bible stories. Colorful, striking
illustrations.
*First Bible Story Book by Hoffman/Downing and *The Children’s Illustrated Bible.
Hastings (for slightly older children). Beautifully illustrated. Dorling-Kindersley is
known for lavishly photographed books that tend to appeal to shorter interest spans.
Feminist perspective is sometimes lacking, but overall the illustrations and stories are
well done.
*To Every Thing There is a Season. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon using images
from many cultures. If you read this aloud, think ahead about “a time for war”…
*Love Is (1st Corinthians 13). Wordless book, so it takes some imagination to “read”.
A Prayer for the Earth: The story of Naamah, Noah’s wife. Sasso.
Noah’s Ark. One of the best of the Noah books of which there are so many (…and how
do we explain a God who drowns everything, anyway?) Great illustrations by awardwinning African-American illustrator Jerry Pinckney.
Naamah and the Ark at Night. Bartoletti. Naamah is Noah’s wife.
Moses in the Bullrushes. Hutton. Simple, beautiful illustrations. OP
The Story of Christmas. Ray. A dark-skinned Mary who actually nurses… OP
The Golden Rule. Cooper. In many cultures.
*The Light of the World: the life of Jesus for children. Paterson. Beautiful, inclusive
illustrations. Sequel to the usual “Christmas story”.
*Cain and Abel. Sasso.
*Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Ray.
*Miracles: Wonders Jesus Worked and *Parables: Stories Jesus Told. Hoffman.
Adam and Eve’s first Sunset: God’s new day. Sasso and Rothenburg. How they felt when
it first became dark, and thankfulness for the return of the light.
Fiction for Older Children, about age 8-12
Small Acts of Amazing Courage. Whelan. British girl in India at the time of Gandhi.
Birchbark House. Erdrich. First in a series about an Ojibwe girl in the 1850s. Like Laura
Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods etc., but from another perspective.
?Stargirl. Spinelli. And its sequel, ?Love, Stargirl.
Arrow over the Door. Bruchac. Encounter between Abenaki boy and Quaker boy in
1770’s, based on true story, by noted Abenaki writer.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Speare. Newberry Award winner. Girl befriends a Quaker
woman believed to be a witch, in 1687.
Shiva’s Fire. Author Suzanne F. Staples (a former reporter) has a particular gift for the
stories of strong girls in other cultures. This one is about an Indian dancer.
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Shabanu. Staples. Newberry Honor. Pakistani girl’s life. First in an excellent trilogy.
Under the Persimmon Tree. Staples. Afghani girl travels to Pakistan during war.
Standing in the Light. Osborne. Diary of a Quaker girl captured by Lenape in 1763.
?Key to the Prison. Vernon. Two children and George Fox.
Thee Hannah. De Angeli. Quaker girl in 1850’s follows her inner light. Illustrated.
The Breadwinner. Ellis. Afghani girl pretends to be a boy to help her family. “All girls
should read this”—Malala Yousafzai
Home of the Brave. Applegate. A refugee boy from Sudan adjusts to life in Minnesota.
Beautifully written.
The One and Only Ivan. Applegate. Respecting animals. Newberry Award winner.
*Lighting Candles in the Dark by FGC Religious Education Committee. Short stories
about courage and non-violence, love, service, equality and care of the earth.
*God’s Mailbox by Rabbi Marc Gellman. Bible stories retold. Also, Does God have a
Big Toe?
Non-fiction for Older Children, about age 8-12
*Lucretia Mott. Davis. Simple biography for age 7 or 8 and up.
Lucretia Mott. Sterling.
Gandhi: a March to the Sea. McGinty. Illustrated.
Gandhi: India’s Great Soul. Shaw.
A Life Like Mine. Great photos of children in other cultures.
Through My Eyes. Bridges. Desegregation and courage.
Forbidden Schoolhouse. Jurmain. True story of Prudence Crandall, a Quaker who
welcomed African-American girls to her school in 1831.
Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color. By Alexander and
Nelson, two African-American poets. Illustrated.
Who am I? Paterson. Exploring what it means to be a child of God.
Images of God. Paterson. Based on the Bible. Thoughtful. Illustrated.
Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Freedman.
Claudette Colvin: Twice toward Justice. Hoose. Before Rosa Parks, there was teenager
Claudette.
Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak. Ellis.
We are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin. Brimner. Award-winning biography of gay
African-American civil rights pioneer (a regular attender of Quaker meeting).
Freedom riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the front lines of the civil rights
movement. Bausum. A young black man (future Congressman) and young white man
unite in non-violent resistance to segregation. Photos.
*Quakers on the Move by FGC Religious Education Committee. Several generations of
Quaker children tell about history and service from 1652 to today. 16 stories.
Paths to Peace. Zalben. Short biographies of 16 peacemakers.
?Really, Really Big Questions About God, Faith, and Religion. Baggini. “Can a baby
have a religion?” “Could there be more than one God?” “Can we criticize religion?”
“What is the Devil?” No definitive answers, allowing for intriguing discussion
possibilities... Cartoon illustrations contribute to the lightness of tone.”
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Graphic Novels and Memoirs
El Deafo. Bell. What’s it like to grow up deaf? Newberry Honor Book.
Tomboy. Prince. Memoir focusing on gender roles.
Absolutely true diary of a parttime Indian. Alexie. Not quite a graphic novel, but almost.
Race to incarcerate. Jones and Mauer. Understanding U.S. imprisonment.
Persepolis and its sequel Persepolis 2. Satrapi. Growing up in Iran at the time of the
Islamic Revolution.
American Born Chinese. Yang. Being “different”. Also, Yang’s Saints and Boxers tell
the same story of the Boxer Rebellion from opposite vantage points—what is “the true
story”?
Books for age 12 and up
So far from the Bamboo Grove and its sequel My Brother My Sister and I. Watkins.
Semi-autobiographical novel about Japanese girl at the end of WW2. Watkins won the
Courage of Conscience Award, among others.
Seedfolks. Fleischman. Fiction. An urban community garden brings folks together.
No Shame, No Fear and Forged in the fire. Turnbull. Award-winning historical fiction
about what it was like to be one of the very first Quakers ca. 1650. Romance, drama,
fire, plague, imprisonment…
Monster. A boy in juvenile detention. Complex issues of guilt and innocence in this
award-winning novel by noted African-American writer Walter Dean Myers.
Women in the Material World. D’Aluisio. Photographs of women’s roles in many
cultures. Also, Material World by Menzel.
Lives that speak: Stories of Twentieth Century Quakers
We are witnesses: Five Diaries of Teenagers Who Died in the Holocaust. Boas.
Friend: The Story of George Fox and the Quakers. Yolen.
Dear Miss Breed:True Stories of the Japanese Incarceration During World War 2 and a
Librarian Who Made a Difference. Oppenheim. Very well done. Illustrated.
*The Quaker Way. Faith and practice, simplified, illustrated by Quaker cartoonist Signe
Wilkinson.
*George Fox: The Man Who Wouldn’t. Fahs.
Truth of the heart. Chris De Roller says “Good readable collection of George Fox at his
best…[the author] Rex Ambler has some very interesting thoughts about Truth, light and
what George was talking about.”
?Sacred Stories: Wisdom from World Religions McFarlane. “High school. (Previously
titled Sacred Myths), tales from various creeds — Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism,
Islam, Judaism, and Native American religions — are retold in modern language. The
brief, engaging stories are not meant as substitutes for comprehensive overviews of belief
systems, but the informational sidebars and suggested books will inspire curious readers
to dig deeper.”
?Great Peacemakers: True Stories from Around the World. Beller and Chase.
June 12, 2015
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