Books like The Little Drummer Boy
By Ezra Jack Keats
For families building a holiday shelf of quiet, meaningful carol books, this one turns a single verse into a picture book worth returning to every December. Reverent, hushed, glowing with jewel-toned color.
A skilled quiltmaker refuses to make a quilt for a rich, unhappy king unless he gives away everything he owns — and the more he gives, the happier he becomes.
A picture book biography of the Persian poet Rumi, following him from a boy enchanted by birds and books to a scholar whose grief over losing his best friend Shams led him to his greatest teaching: that love is in us and everywhere.
A Black girl named Clover is told it isn't safe to cross the fence separating her side of town from the white side where Anna lives — so the two girls find a way to be together anyway, by sitting on top of it.
After her birthday party, a girl named Grace sits down to write thank-you notes to friends and family, then keeps going — thanking her teacher, her dog, even the blue sky.
On a snowy night, a girl finds a lost wolf cub while she herself is far from home, and the two must find a way back together.
A tree loves a boy so completely that she gives him her apples, her branches, and finally her trunk, asking nothing in return as he grows old.
A young Hmong refugee girl longs for things her family can't afford — ice cream, a new dress, meat for dinner — until her grandmother helps her see beauty in what she already has.
A discarded robot with a broken heart gives shelter to an exhausted bluebird in the empty space where his heart used to be, and carries her south with the last of his failing strength.
A woman looks back on her childhood in the mountains, remembering swimming holes, kitchen baths, and quiet family evenings that made ordinary days feel worth keeping.
Twelve poems follow one family through a full year, from January sledding to July fireworks to autumn leaves underfoot, finding wonder in each month's particular light and weather.
A boy named Nikolai sets out to answer three big questions — when is the best time to do things, who is most important, and what is the right thing to do — and finds his answers by helping a stranger in need.
A poor widow begs a rich baker for bread and promises to attend the king's wedding mass as payment — so he weighs a paper reading 'One Mass' against everything in his shop.
