Here are 100 books that Nell Plants a Tree fans have personally recommended if you like
Nell Plants a Tree.
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Long before I became a writer, I was a mom and a teacher. Over some 25 years, I read hundreds, thousands of picture books to kids. I fell in love with the lyrical language, the amazing variety, and the ways picture book authors and illustrators tell a complete story, engage kids (and adults!), and keep readers turning the pages. To me, picture books are an extraordinary gift not only for a young audience, but also for the parents, caregivers, teachers, and librarians who share them with kids. I hope these picture book suggestions inspire you to create special memories with the children you know and love.
“Pie is for sharing. It starts out whole and round. Then...you can slice it into as many pieces as you wish. Almost.” Each time I read these opening lines I know I am in the hands of a master poet.
I adore everything about this book. Who doesn’t want to share a slice of pie? It’s perfect for sharing! But so is a book, a ball, “And a tree? A tree is always shared...” With exquisite lyrical text, and gorgeous illustrations by a Caldecott artist, Pie Is for Sharing is about families, friends, picnics, celebrations, and, most importantly, the experiences we share with one another.
A picnic, a beach, a pie cut into pieces and shared with good friends. Pie is for sharing. It starts off round, and you can slice it into as many pieces as you want. What else can be shared? A ball, of course. A tree? What about time? Through the course of one memorable Fourth of July picnic, Stephanie Ledyard and Jason Chin take young readers through the ups and downs of sharing in this lovely picture book.
A gay retelling of the classic fairy tale--a scrumptious love story featuring ungrateful stepsiblings, a bake-off, and a fairy godfather.
Cinderelliot is stuck at home taking care of his ungrateful stepsister and stepbrother. When Prince Samuel announces a kingdom-wide competition to join the royal staff as his baker, the stepsiblings…
Long before I became a writer, I was a mom and a teacher. Over some 25 years, I read hundreds, thousands of picture books to kids. I fell in love with the lyrical language, the amazing variety, and the ways picture book authors and illustrators tell a complete story, engage kids (and adults!), and keep readers turning the pages. To me, picture books are an extraordinary gift not only for a young audience, but also for the parents, caregivers, teachers, and librarians who share them with kids. I hope these picture book suggestions inspire you to create special memories with the children you know and love.
When one of her family members goes to school to learn English, Luli passes the time in the classroom next door with other children her age. She can’t speak English, and neither can they.
“All around the room, children played alone.” Luli notices that although the kids don’t share the same language, many do speak the language of tea. And that’s when she decides to plan a tea party for her friends. “Hands curled around warm cups. Mouths curved into shy smiles.” The mood shifts. The playroom is no longer quiet. Luli’s teapot is empty, “but her heart was full.”
Beautifully written, with charming illustrations, Luli and the Language of Tea is about community, shared traditions, and the language of small thoughtful acts that bring people together.
Though they may speak different languages, kids from all over the world come together to enjoy the shared pastime of tea in this delicious book for young readers.
When five-year-old Luli joins her new English as a Second Language class, the playroom is quiet. Luli can’t speak English, neither can anyone else. That’s when she has a brilliant idea to host a tea party and bring them all together.
Luli removes her teapot, thermos, and teacups from her bag and calls out “Chá!” in her native Chinese. One by one, her classmates pipe up in recognition: in Russian, Hindi, Turkish,…
I love history and learning about the lives my ancestors lived. I grew up on my grandfather’s farm in Holly Springs, Mississippi. My grandfather taught me lots of things as I watched history unfold in the segregated South. I infuse those lessons in my books. I love books in which the author puts some aspect of themselves in their story because I do the same. This makes the story come alive.
I love the lyricism of this book. Set in the Tongass National Forest, I love how the girl and her grandmother gather the bounty of the earth, including lots and lots of berries. I never knew so many different kinds of berries existed.
I like the nod to their ancestors singing to them and their voices dancing on the water. They sing, too, so they will always remember their ancestors and their land.
On an island at the edge of a wide, wild sea, a girl and her grandmother gather gifts from the earth. Salmon from the stream, herring eggs from the ocean, and in the forest, a world of berries. Salmonberry, Cloudberry, Blueberry, Nagoonberry. Huckleberry, Snowberry, Strawberry, Crowberry. Through the seasons, they sing to the land as the land sings to them. Brimming with joy and gratitude, in every step of their journey, they forge a deeper kinship with both the earth and the generations that came before, joining in the song that connects us all. Michaela Goade's luminous rendering of water…
Long before I became a writer, I was a mom and a teacher. Over some 25 years, I read hundreds, thousands of picture books to kids. I fell in love with the lyrical language, the amazing variety, and the ways picture book authors and illustrators tell a complete story, engage kids (and adults!), and keep readers turning the pages. To me, picture books are an extraordinary gift not only for a young audience, but also for the parents, caregivers, teachers, and librarians who share them with kids. I hope these picture book suggestions inspire you to create special memories with the children you know and love.
Doughnuts and friends. Need I say more? This adorable rhyming picture book is a gem.
LouAnn has cooked up a delicious snack in anticipation of a long, winter nap when, Ding-Dong! A forest friend arrives.“Do you have enough for a neighbor to share?” asks Woodrow the woodchuck. “Sure,” says LouAnn, and she pulls up a chair. Can you imagine what comes next? Ding-Dong another visitor at the door!
Reminiscent of the old favorite, The Doorbell Rang, by Pat Hutchins, Dozens of Doughnuts is a counting book, but so much more. It’s about generosity, and the kind of open-hearted sharing that happens between good friends.
A generous but increasingly put-upon bear makes batch after batch of doughnuts for her woodland friends without saving any for herself in this delightful debut picture book about counting, sharing, and being a good friend.
LouAnn (a bear) is making a doughnut feast in preparation for her long winter's nap. But just before she takes the first bite, DING DONG! Her friend Woodrow (a woodchuck) drops by. LouAnn is happy to share her doughnuts, but as soon as she and Woodrow sit down to eat, DING DONG! Clyde (a raccoon) is at the door. One by one, LouAnn's friends come…
When I was a teenager, my mother sewed me a quilt, but when I moved to Wales and discovered Welsh antic quilts, my interest became a passion. These bold red and black flannel patchworks with intricate quilting seem contemporary but date back to the 19th century. I have been painting them and have learned a lot about their history and how they have provided income and artistic expression for women over the years. It’s a pleasure to see that this passion is shared by so many people worldwide, and I’m fascinated by all the stories these beautiful objects hold.
This book is a real joy to read, with a particular story of a particular family but a universal feel to it. It could be my story or yours. The illustrations have the charm of the eighties, but the story doesn’t feel dated, and it is really inspirational to get quilting or think about which pieces of fabric I would use to tell my family’s story.
Twenty years ago Valerie Flournoy and Jerry Pinkney created a warmhearted intergenerational story that became an award-winning perennial. Since then children from all sorts of family situations and configurations continue to be drawn to its portrait of those bonds that create the fabric of family life.
Though I was born in the U.S., I didn’t wind up living here full-time till I was almost 10. The result? I have always been curious about what it means to be an American. In one way or another, the books on my list explore that question. More than that, all (well, nearly all) insist that black history is inextricably intertwined with American history and that American culture is a mulatto culture, a fusion of black and white. After years of making my living as a journalist, editor, and book reviewer, I left newspapers to write fiction and non-fiction, exploring these and other questions.
I might not have written my own family history without the example of this book. I was enthralled when I read this compelling, well-researched, and well-written “family memoir” (as Murray calls it) years ago.
Everything about it drew me in, Murray’s compelling voice, the depth of her research, her descriptions of her relatives, and the vanished world they inhabited. Magisterial in every sense of the word, this is family history as American history, by a woman who was a lawyer, activist, and, in 1977, at age 67, the first black woman ordained an Episcopal priest.
Her book continues to inspire me to strive to meet her example.
First published in 1956, Proud Shoes is the remarkable true story of slavery, survival, and miscegenation in the South from the pre-Civil War era through the Reconstruction. Written by Pauli Murray the legendary civil rights activist and one of the founders of NOW, Proud Shoes chronicles the lives of Murray's maternal grandparents. From the birth of her grandmother, Cornelia Smith, daughter of a slave whose beauty incited the master's sons to near murder to the story of her grandfather Robert Fitzgerald, whose free black father married a white woman in 1840, Proud Shoes offers a revealing glimpse of our nation's…
Floretta- the story of an old woman who discovers life beautifully anew thru the helping hands of a child. The chakra colors of dawn and twilight are woven through the pages as the cycle of life is magically composed. The subject of “heaven,” has the potential to open discussions with…
If five gentlemen from Mexico, a colored/negro woman from Eatonville, Florida, a former President who happened to be white, with historical privilege, from Plains, Georgia, and two Professors of History can use their knowledge, training, God’s gifts to help us to understand history better, why shouldn't I also be passionate and excited to write. Telling stories, writing, contributing, and unearthing lies and truths so that a child who looks like me – or who does not look like me – is provided a better world. Let me hokey about this – maybe the word is dorky – whatever, the privilege is mine.
This work is not a history book but a collection of Zora Neal Hurston’s writings. Hurston wrote fiction and nonfiction and was a trained anthropologist. Her work taught me that history is oft-times found in the strangest places. This reader did this for me – a writer and anthropologist Hurston was. When I read the reader, I wanted to raise my hand and ask questions. Other times, I remained silent, only talking to myself and thinking.
In my former life as a trial lawyer, I remember quoting her writings in a final argument to explain language and culture. As my voice broke, tears flowed – this was the first time I explained the power of this book. They understood, and some of my jurors cried with me.
The foundational, classic anthology that revived interest in the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God—"one of the greatest writers of our time"—and made her work widely available for a new generation of readers (Toni Morrison).
During her lifetime, Zora Neale Hurston was praised for her writing but condemned for her independence and audacity. Her work fell into obscurity until the 1970s, when Alice Walker rediscovered Hurston's unmarked grave and anthologized her writing in this groundbreaking collection for the Feminist Press.
I Love Myself When I Am Laughing... And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive established Hurston…
Paul D. Escott is the author of thirteen books focused on the Confederacy or the Union, is co-author of other volumes, and has written many articles and book chapters. He won research fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Whitney M. Young Jr. Foundation and is the Reynolds Professor of History Emeritus from Wake Forest University.
The decision to recruit Black soldiers made an enormous difference in the war and in politics. Black recruits to the U.S. Army equaled all the northern men lost in the first two years of fighting and proved themselves on many battlefields. Their sacrifice also made an irrefutable case for Black rights. Joseph Glatthaar’s book admirably tells the story of these soldiers and their white officers.
Sixteen months after the start of the American Civil War, the Federal government, having vastly underestimated the length and manpower demands of the war, began to recruit black soldiers. This revolutionary policy gave 180,000 free blacks and former slaves the opportunity to prove themselves on the battlefield as part of the United States Colored Troops. By the end of the war, 37,000 in their ranks had given their lives for the cause of freedom.
In Forged in Battle, originally published in 1990, award-winning historian Joseph T. Glatthaar re-creates the events that gave these troops and their 7,000 white officers justifiable…
Several months before the Covid-19 pandemic upended the world as we knew it, my life was turned upside-down by reports of suicide rates and attempted suicides doubling for Black children. In fact, during late Fall 2019, Congress established an Emergency Task Force on Youth Suicide and Mental Health. I’d already been reading accounts of Black children ending their lives on social media, and as a writer, decided to leave a legacy of books that helped armor Black children with love as they navigated spaces that would not always welcome their brilliance and beauty. I wanted to help encourage them to embrace life’s joys and to love themselves, always.
Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James are the award-winning team behind Crown: Ode to a Fresh Cut. Barnes is also the author ofThe King of Kindergarten and The Queen of Kindergarten. I Am Every Good Thing is a powerful counterpunch to the negative societal messaging Black boys receive throughout their lives. This book celebrates the chi of Black boys; affirms the beauty, spirit, and vulnerability of Black boyhood, and helps create children proud of everything they are: human.
I am a nonstop ball of energy. Powerful and full of light. I am a go-getter. A difference maker. A leader.
The confident Black narrator of this book is proud of everything that makes him who he is. He's got big plans, and no doubt he'll see them through - as he's creative, adventurous, smart, funny, and a good friend. Sometimes he falls, but he always gets back up. And other times he's afraid, because he's so often misunderstood and called what he is not. So slow down and really look and listen, when somebody tells you - and shows…
In a time of alternative facts and the loss of a shared sense of reality, A Foot is Not a Fish playfully illustrates the difference between what is true and what is not through absurd fun comparisons that every child—and parent—will instantly understand.
History is learned in the worst way by most, through textbooks. Textbooks are written heavy on dates, timelines, and synopsizing events for multiple-choice, maybe a few, essay questions in schools. Whose facts are they? To paraphrase Frederick Douglass, what does the Fourth of July mean when you’re black? History is taught in these fact silos. But that’s not how it happens. History happens in layers that build under pressure, erupt, and shift like rock sediment evolving over time. I chose these five nonfiction books because they unapologetically show the fault lines and pressures that make American history. These books also uncover the hidden gems created by those societal pressures.
I found this book while researching my own history book. I purchased a used copy complete with the underlined text and notes of other people that I always find interesting. It’s an old book, first published more than fifty years ago. I see it as the perfect companion piece to King’s book.
Here, late author/editor Dorothy Sterling (quite an agitator herself) includes African American leaders' letters, speeches, songs, and news articles. Sterling covers heavyweights such as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Henry Highland Garnet, along with overlooked figures Ira Aldridge (Shakespearean actor), poet Phillis Wheatley, merchant Paul Cuffe, and opera singer Elizabeth Greenfield, the Black Swan. Reading Speak Out expanded my knowledge of the breadth and scope of the early Civil Rights Movement.
This impressive collection, drawn from a wealth of original research into previously untapped sources,including letters, diaries, memoirs, speeches, poems, songs, newspaper articles, advertisements, a ship's log, and official documents,allows African Americans to speak afresh across more than two centuries. Besides the expected voices of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, this book makes vivid the experiences and views of a diverse range of lesser-known but equally fascinating personalities: Ira Aldridge, one of the great Shakespearean actors of his day William Allen, the first black college professor in the country the astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker Paul Cuffe, owner of a fleet…
