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Books For Children
In The Days After September 11
CONTENTS
PICTURE BOOKS
Carr, Jan. Dark Day, Light Night; illustrated by James
Ransome. Hyperion, 1995. Manda's Aunt Ruby helps her to deal with
some angry feelings by making lists of all the things that they
like in the world.
Carson, Jo. You Hold Me and I'll Hold You, illustrated
by Annie Cannon. Orchard Books, 1992. When a great-aunt dies, a
young child finds comfort in being held and in holding, too.
Cosby, Bill. The Meanest Thing to Say; illustrated by
Varnette P. Honeywood. Scholastic, 1997. When a new boy in his
second grade class tries to get the other students to play a game
that involves saying the meanest things possible to one another,
Little Bill shows him a better way to make friends. Reader.
De Paola, Tomie. The Knight and the Dragon. Putnam,
1980. A knight who has never fought a dragon and an equally
inexperienced dragon prepare to meet each other in battle.
Fox, Mem. Tough Boris; illustrated by Kathryn Brown.
Harcourt Brace, 1994. Although he is a very tough pirate, Boris
von der Borch cries when his parrot dies.
Hamanaka, Sheila. Peace Crane. Morrow Junior Books,
1995. After learning about the Peace Crane, created by Sadako, a
survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, a young African American
girl wishes it would carry her away from the violence of her own
world.
Heide, Florence Parry. The Day of Ahmed's Secret by
Florence Parry Heide & Judith Heide Gilliland, illustrated by
Ted Lewin. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1990. All day long Ahmed
carries his secret with him as he goes about his business, until
he can share it with his family at night. He has learned to write
his name, which we see in flowing Arabic script.
Heide, Florence Parry. Sami and the Time of the Troubles
by Florence Parry Heide & Judith Heide Gilliland, illustrated
by Ted Lewin. Clarion Books, 1992. A ten-year-old Lebanese boy
goes to school, helps his mother with chores, plays with his
friends, and lives with his family in a basement shelter when
bombings occur and fighting begins on his street.
Hoose, Phil and Hannah. Hey, Little Ant. Tricycle Press
, 1998. (800) 841-2665 www.tenspeed.com
(also available as a recording, see www.heylittleant.com).
As a child's shoe hovers above a tiny ant, child and ant have a
dialogue: to squish or not to squish? Can each see the other's
point of view, and the commonality, connectedness and value of all
living things?
Leaf, Munro. The Story of Ferdinand; illustrated by
Robert Lawson. Viking, 1936. Ferdinand likes to sit quietly and
smell the flowers, but one day he gets stung by a bee and his
snorting and stomping convince everyone (except Ferdinand) that he
is the fiercest of bulls.
Mochizuki, Ken. Baseball Saved Us; illustrated by Dom
Lee. Lee & Low, 1993. A Japanese American boy learns to play
baseball when he and his family are forced to live in an
internment camp during World War II, and his ability to play helps
him after the war is over.
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. King of the Playground;
illustrated by Nola Langner Malone. Atheneum, 1991. Kevin learns
to deal with a bossy contemporary at the neighborhood playground.
Pomerantz, Charlotte. The Princess and the Admiral.
Drawings by Tony Chen. Addison-Wesley, 1974. When a fleet of
warships attacks the Tiny Kingdom on the eve of its celebration of
a hundred years of peace, the princess uses the tides to salvage
the kingdom's record and celebration.
Uchida, Yoshiko. The Bracelet; illustrated by Joanna
Yardley. Philomel, 1993. Emi, a Japanese American in the second
grade, is sent with her family to an internment camp during World
War II. The loss of the bracelet her best friend has given her
proves that she does not need a physical reminder of that
friendship.
Williams, Vera B. A Chair for My Mother. Greenwillow,
1982. A child, her waitress mother, and her grandmother save dimes
to buy a comfortable armchair after all their furniture is lost in
a fire.
Zolotow, Charlotte. The Quarreling Book; pictures by
Arnold Lobel. Harper & Row, 1963. A chain of quarrels turns
around into a chain of kindnesses.
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FICTION FOR
OLDER CHILDREN
Sarah Pirtle. An Outbreak of Peace. This book is out of
print but may be available in libraries. It is about children as
peace activists.
Uchida, Yoshiko. Journey to Topaz; A story of the
Japanese-American evacuation. Scribner, 1971. After the Pearl
Harbor attack an eleven-year-old Japanese-American girl and her
family are forced to go to an aliens camp in Utah.
Walter, Virginia. Making up Megaboy. Delacorte Press,
1998. When thirteen-year-old Robbie shoots an old man in a liquor
store, everyone who knows the quiet, withdrawn youth struggles to
understand this act of seemingly random violence.
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NON-FICTION
Aliki. Feelings. Greenwillow, 1984. Pictures, dialogs,
poems, and stories portray various emotions we all feel: jealousy,
sadness, fear, anger, joy, love, and others.
Birdseye, Debbie Holsclaw. Under Our Skin: Kids talk about
race, by Debbie Holsclaw Birdseye and Tom Birdseye;
photographs by Robert Crum. Holiday House, 1997. Six young people
discuss their feelings about their own ethnic backgrounds and
about their experiences with people of different races.
Coerr, Eleanor. Sadako; illustrated by Ed Young. Putnam,
1993. Hospitalized with the dreaded atom bomb disease, leukemia, a
child in Hiroshima finds hope in racing against time to fold one
thousand paper cranes, because an old legend said that by doing so
a sick person will become healthy. By the same author for older
children, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Dell, 1977.
Cohn, Janice. The Christmas Menorahs: How a town fought hate;
illustrations by Bill Farnsworth. A. Whitman, 1995. Describes how
people in Billings, Montana joined together to fight a series of
hate crimes against a Jewish family.
McMahon, Patricia. One Belfast Boy; photographs by Alan
O'Connor. Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Describes the life of Liam
Leatham, a young Catholic boy, and his family as he prepares for a
boxing match that he sees as the first step out of
violence-plagued Belfast. Terkel, Susan Neiburg. People Power: A
look at nonviolent action and defense. Lodestar, 1996. Covers the
definition, principles, and methods of nonviolence, including
civil disobedience.
Tunnell, Michael O. The Children of Topaz: The story of a
Japanese-American internment camp: based on a classroom diary,
by Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat. Holiday House, 1996.
The diary of a third-grade class of Japanese-American children
being held with their families in an internment camp during World
War II.
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FOLKLORE FROM
THE MIDDLE EAST
Hickox, Rebecca. The Golden Sandal : a Middle Eastern
Cinderella; illustrated by Will Hillenbrand. Holiday House,
1998. An Iraqi version of the Cinderella story in which a kind and
beautiful girl who is mistreated by her stepmother and stepsister
finds a husband with the help of a magic fish.
Freedman, Florence B. Brothers : A Hebrew legend;
illustrations by Robert Andrew Parker. Harper & Row, 1985.
Hard times on adjoining farms bring about parallel acts of
kindness and a celebration of "how good it is for brothers to
live together in friendship."
Shepard, Aaron. Forty Fortunes: A tale of Iran;
illustrated by Alisher Dianov. Clarion Books, 1999. A
well-intentioned fortune-telling peasant unwittingly tricks a band
of local thieves into returning the king's stolen treasure.
Shepard, Aaron. The Gifts of Wali Dad: a tale of India and
Pakistan, retold by Aaron Shepard; pictures by Daniel San
Souci. Atheneum, 1995. An Indian/Pakistani folktale in which an
impoverished grass-cutter finds that gifts can be a mixed
blessing.
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OTHER FOLKTALES
Brown, Marcia. Stone Soup, An old tale; told and
pictured by Marcia Brown. Scribner, 1947. When three hungry
soldiers come to a town where all the food has been hidden, they
set out to make soup of water and stones, and all the town enjoys
a feast.
Day, Nancy Raines. The Lion's Whiskers : An Ethiopian
folktale; illustrated by Ann Grifalconi.Scholastic, 1995. In
this tale from the Amhara people of Ethiopia, a patient woman uses
her experience with a wild lion to win the love of her new
stepson.
Peace Tales: World folktales to talk about, compiled by
Margaret Read. MacDonald. Linnet Books, 1992. A collection of
folktales from cultures around the world, reflecting different
aspects of war and peace.
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FOR PARENTS
Brett, Doris. Annie Stories: A special kind of storytelling.
Workman; 1988. Guide for parents to make up stories to help their
children deal with fears and problems.
Links and more books at www.ala.org/alsc
(American Library Association) and www.weeklyreader.com/america
More folktales at http://www.healingstory.org/crisis
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