This book list began with Book by Book: An Annotated Guide to Young People’s Literature with Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution Themes, prepared by Carol Spiegel and published by Educators for Social Responsibility (Cambridge, MA) in 2010. That information is shared with the author’s and publisher’s permission. We have added more recently published books. You will find classics and newer books among the recommendations.
Because of Winn-Dixie
Kate DiCamillo
Candlewick Press, 2000
One summer’s day, ten-year-old India Opal Buloni goes down to the local supermarket for some groceries — and comes home with a dog. But Winn-Dixie is no ordinary dog. It’s because of Winn-Dixie that Opal begins to make friends. And it’s because of Winn-Dixie that she finally dares to ask her father about her mother, who left when Opal was three. In fact, as Opal admits, just about everything that happens that summer is because of Winn-Dixie.
Busybody Nora
Joanna Hurwitz
illus by Debbie Tilley,
HarperCollins, 2001
“What is your name?”
That’s what Nora asks her neighbors as she rides up and down the elevator of her apartment house. She doesn’t mean to be a busybody. She just wants to be like doorman Henry and know all the people in her building — all 200 of them! And then one day Nora gets a great idea: they’ll have a giant party, for everyone in the building!
Charlie’s Raven
Jean Craighead George
Dutton, 2004
Charlie brings home Blue Sky, a baby raven with a big personality. Blue Sky imprints on Charlie and becomes a great friend and a source of amazement to the whole family. Granddad, an old naturalist, is intrigued, and he does seem to get better — at least for a while. But caring for a wild creature is very demanding, and as Blue Sky grows, Charlie must find a way to protect him from the many dangers — both natural and human-made — in the rugged Teton Mountains where they live.
The Great Gilly Hopkins
Katherine Paterson
Thomas Y. Crowell, HarperCollins, 1978
Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she’s hated them all. She has a reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmanageable, and that’s the way she likes it. So when she’s sent to live with the Trotters — by far the strangest family yet — she knows it’s only a temporary problem. Gilly decides to put her sharp mind to work and get out of there fast. She’s determined to no longer be a foster kid. Before long she’s devised an elaborate scheme to get her real mother to come rescue her. Unfortunately, the plan doesn’t work out quite as she hoped it would …
The Hero of Third Grade
Alice DeLaCroix
illus by Cynthia Fisher
Holiday House, 2002
After his parents separate, Randall is forced to move to a new town and start a new school, and, determined to make friends, he devises a clever scheme to become the hero of third grade after watching the movie The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Hope Was Here
Joan Bauer
Scholastic, 2001
When Hope and her aunt move to small-town Wisconsin to take over the local diner, Hope’s not sure what to expect. But what they find is that the owner, G.T., isn’t quite ready to give up yet — in fact, he’s decided to run for mayor against a corrupt candidate. And as Hope starts to make her place at the diner, she also finds herself caught up in G.T.‘s campaign — particularly his visions for the future. After all, as G.T. points out, everyone can use a little hope to help get through the tough times … even Hope herself.
Juneberry Blue
Candice Ransom
Peachtree, 2024
Eleven-year-old Andie Jennings, of Morning Glory, Virginia (population: 8), is set to inherit her family’s magic on Midsummer’s Eve. And Andie plans to use it to bring her dad home for good from his long-haul trucking job. Except her gift doesn’t come. But when a see-through cat starts following her, Andie realizes she didn’t fail to get her magic at all. Her gift just isn’t what anyone expected. Turns out, her new ability to communicate with ghosts may help her solve a mystery in Morning Glory and finally bring about some much-needed change — for the town and for her family.
Kira-Kira
Cynthia Kadohata
Atheneum, 2004
Kira-kira means glittering and that’s how Katie Takeshima’s sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. The sky is kira-kira because its color is deep but see-through at the same time. The sea is kira-kira for the same reason. And so are people’s eyes. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it’s Lynn who explains to her why people stop them on the street to stare. And it’s Lynn who, with her special way of viewing the world, teaches Katie to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them all that there is always something glittering — kira-kira — in the future.
The Labors of Hercules Beal
Gary D. Schmidt
Clarion, 2023
Herc Beal knows who he’s named after — a mythical hero — but he’s no superhero. He’s the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical Hercules’s amazing feats in real life, he’s skeptical. After all, there are no Nemean Lions on Cape Cod — and not a single Hydra in sight.
Missing his parents terribly and wishing his older brother wasn’t working all the time, Herc figures out how to take his first steps along the road that the great Hercules himself once walked. Soon, new friends, human and animal, are helping him. And though his mythical role model performed his twelve labors by himself, Herc begins to see that he may not have to go it alone.
Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
Lisa Yee
Random House, 2022
Maizy has never been to Last Chance, Minnesota … until now. Her mom’s plan is just to stay for a couple weeks, until her grandfather gets better. But plans change, and as Maizy spends more time in Last Chance and at the Golden Palace — the restaurant that’s been in her family for generations — she makes some discoveries. The Golden Palace has secrets … The more Maizy discovers, the more questions she has. Like, why are her mom and her grandmother always fighting? Who are the people in the photographs on the office wall? And when she discovers that a beloved family treasure has gone missing — and someone has left a racist note — Maizy decides it’s time to find the answers.
Missing May
Cynthia Rylant
Scholastic, 2004
Ever since May, Summer’s aunt and good-as-a-mother for the past six years, died in the garden among her pole beans and carrots, life for Summer and her Uncle Ob has been as bleak as winter. Ob doesn’t want to create his beautiful whirligigs anymore, and he and Summer have slipped into a sadness that they can’t shake off. They need May in whatever form they can have her — a message, a whisper, a sign that will tell them what to do next. When that sign comes, Summer discovers that she and Ob can keep missing May but still go on with their lives.A beloved classic about grief, gardens, and the enduring love of family.
Rickshaw Girl
Mitali Perkins
illus by Jamie Hogan
Charlesbridge, 2007
Naima is a talented painter of traditional alpana patterns, which Bangladeshi women and girls paint on their houses for special celebrations. But Naima is not satisfied just painting alpana. She wants to help earn money for her family, like her best friend, Saleem, does for his family. When Naima’s rash effort to help puts her family deeper in debt, she draws on her resourceful nature and her talents to bravely save the day.
Samira Surfs
Rukhsanna Guidroz
illus by Fahmida Azim
Kokila, 2021
Samira thinks of her life as before and after: before the burning and violence in her village in Burma, when she and her best friend would play in the fields, and after, when her family was forced to flee. There’s before the uncertain journey to Bangladesh by river, and after, when the river swallowed her nana and nani whole. And now, months after rebuilding a life in Bangladesh with her mama, baba, and brother, there’s before Samira saw the Bengali surfer girls of Cox’s Bazar, and after, when she decides she’ll become one.
Seedfolks
Paul Fleischman
HarperCollins, 1997
A Vietnamese girl plants six lima beans in a Cleveland vacant lot. Looking down on the immigrant-filled neighborhood, a Romanian woman watches suspiciously. A school janitor gets involved, then a Guatemalan family. Then muscle-bound Curtis, trying to win back Lateesha. Pregnant Maricela. Amir from India. A sense of community sprouts and spreads. The author uses thirteen speakers to bring to life a community garden’s founding and first year. The book’s short length, diverse cast, and suitability for adults as well as children have led it to be used in countless one-book reads in schools and in cities across the country.
Simon Sort of Says
Erin Bow
Disney Hyperion, 2023
Simon O’Keeffe’s biggest claim to fame should be the time his dad accidentally gave a squirrel a holy sacrament. Or maybe the alpaca disaster that went viral on YouTube. But the story the whole world wants to tell about Simon is the one he’d do anything to forget: the one starring Simon as a famous survivor of gun violence at school.
Two years after the infamous event, twelve-year-old Simon and his family move to the National Quiet Zone — the only place in America where the internet is banned. Instead of talking about Simon, the astronomers who flock to the area are busy listening for signs of life in space. And when Simon makes a friend who’s determined to give the scientists what they’re looking for, he’ll finally have the chance to spin a new story for the world to tell.
The Wheel on the School
Meindert deJong
illus by Maurice Sendak
HarperCollins, 1954
Why do the storks no longer come to the little Dutch fishing village of Shora to nest? It was Lina, one of the six schoolchildren who first asked the question, and she set the others to wondering. And sometimes when you begin to wonder, you begin to make things happen. So the children set out to bring the storks back to Shora. The force of their vision put the whole village to work until at last the dream began to come true.