Here are 100 books that Mr. Nogginbody Gets a Hammer fans have personally recommended if you like
Mr. Nogginbody Gets a Hammer.
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I’m a believer that kids can be creative, powerful problem-solvers–for themselves but also as mediators in their schools. I’ve been a school mediation trainer for over 30 years and know that learning someone else’s story brings empathy, understanding, and caring, and solutions can be found. I love delightful picture books that make this truth come alive for kids and adults alike, and I use them in trainings and just for my own inspiration and joy. I’ve also written YA (for all ages), including the novel Encounter: When Religions Become Classmates–From Oregon to India and Back. I want to make ripples for good in our world.
The story is clever, engaging, and a whole lot of fun!
Who wouldn’t understand why this boy needs to get Jeremy Ross out of his life so he can have the perfect summer he was planning on? And who wouldn’t be curious about the idea that Dad’s enemy pie could do the trick?
I find it just as fun as the students I read it to when they are training to be mediators for their school! I love that this book invites us to learn more about someone before we put them on our enemy list. And the bold, wild illustrations make me giggle!
It was the perfect summer. That is, until Jeremy Ross moved into the house down the street and became neighborhood enemy number one. Luckily Dad had a surefire way to get rid of enemies: Enemy Pie. But part of the secret recipe is spending an entire day playing with the enemy!
In this funny yet endearing story, one little boy learns an effective recipes for turning your best enemy into your best friend. Accompanied by charming illustrations, Enemy Pie serves up a sweet lesson in the difficulties and ultimate rewards of making new friends.
I’m a believer that kids can be creative, powerful problem-solvers–for themselves but also as mediators in their schools. I’ve been a school mediation trainer for over 30 years and know that learning someone else’s story brings empathy, understanding, and caring, and solutions can be found. I love delightful picture books that make this truth come alive for kids and adults alike, and I use them in trainings and just for my own inspiration and joy. I’ve also written YA (for all ages), including the novel Encounter: When Religions Become Classmates–From Oregon to India and Back. I want to make ripples for good in our world.
The situation they find themselves in could happen at many schools, and they react like a lot of kids would–until they begin to wonder [wondering is a guide for my life (as is the other meaning of the word: to feel wonder/awe)]: What’s the deal? Why is this happening?
Curiosity leads to a burst of empathy. Empathy leads to kindness. Wow! Kids are changing their world by their own choices...that’s a story I love, find inspiring, and want to make real in my own life.
The illustrations let us come within inches of the feelings and the action.
His mom had packed his lunch bag with two burritos, a bag of corn chips, some carrots, and an apple. Once a week she tucks in a slice of her special lemon pound cake. Rafael saw Kevin, a new kid in his class, sneak his lunch bag from underneath his desk and tuck it in his backpack. But how can he do something about the theft without picking a fight? Inspired by his mother's advice to "Use your mouth before your fists," Rafael bides his time, but other kids' lunches are disappearing,too. On an errand with his mom, Rafael sees…
I’m a believer that kids can be creative, powerful problem-solvers–for themselves but also as mediators in their schools. I’ve been a school mediation trainer for over 30 years and know that learning someone else’s story brings empathy, understanding, and caring, and solutions can be found. I love delightful picture books that make this truth come alive for kids and adults alike, and I use them in trainings and just for my own inspiration and joy. I’ve also written YA (for all ages), including the novel Encounter: When Religions Become Classmates–From Oregon to India and Back. I want to make ripples for good in our world.
I discovered this book in a library in Kisumu, Kenya, while working there on a bio-sand water filter project. Oh my gosh! I wondered how I had missed it at home. It was almost as rewarding as a drink of fresh, pure water from a bio-sand filter!
I’ve used this book in most of the mediation trainings that I’ve led in the years since then. Who would think that one duck and one rabbit could–in very few words–show us an amazing truth about how viewpoints vary? That’s a truth that we have to grasp if we’re going to be mediators, or for that matter, parents, spouses, co-workers, friends, neighbors!
Smart, simple story that will make readers of all ages eager to take a side: From the award-winning author of Little Pea, Little Hoot, and Little Oink comes a clever take on the age-old optical illusion: is it a duck or a rabbit? Depends on how you look at it! Readers will find more than just Amy Krouse Rosenthal's signature humor here; there's also a subtle lesson for kids who don't know when to let go of an argument.
* A fun story based on the classic duck/rabbit visual puzzle
* Book teaches a…
I’m a believer that kids can be creative, powerful problem-solvers–for themselves but also as mediators in their schools. I’ve been a school mediation trainer for over 30 years and know that learning someone else’s story brings empathy, understanding, and caring, and solutions can be found. I love delightful picture books that make this truth come alive for kids and adults alike, and I use them in trainings and just for my own inspiration and joy. I’ve also written YA (for all ages), including the novel Encounter: When Religions Become Classmates–From Oregon to India and Back. I want to make ripples for good in our world.
I love being “caught” by great truths in the shape of precious, funny picture books. And this is one that did just that!
We all get that strangers are scary and probably not friendly and probably not nice and probably.. and probably... Well, I didn’t know how Maggie could possibly change the situation for her family, but she sure did.
I laughed and was so glad that I had discovered this book! It was written in 1979 and is so worth the search to find!
I’ve always been fascinated by family dynamics and have studied human development and psychology. I’m also a lifelong voracious reader and treasure my childhood reading experiences. Last but not least, I have three kids. Arguments and hurt feelings are inevitable but kids don’t love a lecture. A good story can bring understanding without being boring or pedantic. And we all know reading with your kids at bedtime is vital, but can’t we as parents ask for a little enjoyment too–maybe even a good laugh?!
The second in a long-running graphic novel series, middle schooler Greg Heffley is tormented by his older brother Rodrick who is threatening to reveal his most guarded secret, but readers are delighted every step of the way.
When my kids would choose this graphic novel to read with me at night, I knew we’d both be shaking with laughter. This is an especially great choice to lure reluctant readers – mine devoured each new one in the series and can’t get enough. The movies are hilarious too!
The highly anticipated sequel to the #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling book!
Secrets have a way of getting out, especially when a diary is involved.
Whatever you do, don't ask Greg Heffley how he spent his summer vacation, because he definitely doesn't want to talk about it.
As Greg enters the new school year, he's eager to put the past three months behind him . . . and one event in particular.
Unfortunately for Greg, his older brother, Rodrick, knows all about the incident Greg wants to keep under wraps. But secrets have a way of getting out . .…
I’ve always loved stories that rearrange reality in some simple, allusive way, including movies like Groundhog Day or The Truman Show. They remind me of a quote about Italo Calvino that I first read when I was a teenager and have loved ever since: ‘He holds a mirror up to life, then writes about the mirror.’ I tend not to be attracted to stories that simply depict reality and even less so to stories that completely abandon reality for an invented fantasy world. All my favorite fictions take place somewhere in between, in the blending of the real and the impossible.
It always seemed unfair to me that not only do we get just one life, but we only get to live it once. So I fell in love with this novel from the moment I read its premise: Ursula Todd is born and dies and is born again… and again… and again.
I love that she doesn’t remember her previous lives except as vague intuitions that help her avoid making the same mistakes twice–and I also love that avoiding those mistakes often means she makes other (often fatal) mistakes. I found this book funny, moving, and thought-provoking, but what I love most about it is the way its down-to-earth, realistic style allowed me to fully inhabit the impossible conceit at its heart.
What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.
I have written four novels that involve crime in one way or another, but I do not consider myself a crime novelist. I simply find crime stories offer a compelling way to explore universal human experiences. I was a prosecutor when I was younger, so I try to bring a level of fluency in criminal law to my novels, but the usual warning applies: this is fiction, and it is better that a story be authentic than actually true.
A more modern example of the writer as a character in his own novel, borrowing pieces of his own life and weaving them into something more. It is so polished that it is hard to believe it was the first novel. And so personal, in the way it borrows from Foer’s family history (or seems to), that it gives the reader that distinctive shiver of fiction that threatens to burst through the confines of a novel into something like truth—realism that verges on reality.
I tried to weave my own history into my book in a similar way; this book probably had something to do with that.
This is the story of a young man who visits the Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. In turns hilarious and harrowing, lit with a manic energy, it is narrated in part by a Ukranian translator, who has a murderous approach to the English language, and in part by the young man, who reanimates the lives of his grandfather and ancestors. Eventually the past meets the present, as fiction collides with reality in an unforgettable climax. With breathtaking inventiveness and narrative control, Jonathan Safran Foer has written a book about searching - for people…
I’ve loved comic strips since I was a kid, so children’s books that had cartoon art in them were the ultimate for me. That love drove me to research and write about the career and life of Jack Kent. Books by cartoonists tend to have the whole package: They tell a story visually, they’re funny, and they use language economically but memorably. The limitations I placed on myself in choosing this list were 1) the creator had to have both written and drawn the book, and 2) they had to have been established as a professional cartoonist before moving into children’s books.
Shrek! was a book before it was ever a wildly successful film franchise, but the book bears almost no resemblance to the movies.
Yes, William Steig’s ogre is both vile and reviled, and he has a donkey for a friend, but the story itself is very straightforward, detailing Shrek’s rampage across the countryside on his way to meet a “stunningly ugly princess” with whom he can live “horribly ever after.”
Steig had been a celebrated New Yorker cartoonist for almost four decades when he produced his first children’s book in 1968. He wrote and drew Shrek! when he was in his early 80s. He breaks the cardinal rule of using simple language, but makes up for it with fun-to-read-aloud choices in vocabulary and sentence structure, such as “The irascible dragon was preparing to separate Shrek from his noggin.”
1
author picked
Shrek!
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
Read the book that inspired the famous film franchise in this wonderfully funny picture book.
Before Shrek made it big on the silver screen, there was William Steig's SHREK!, a book about an ordinary ogre who leaves his swampy childhood home to go out and see the world. Ordinary, that is, if a foul and hideous being who ends up marrying the most stunningly ugly princess on the planet is what you consider ordinary.
I know all too well that finding a diagnosis and treating a chronic health condition can be like unraveling a mystery—maybe that’s why characters dealing with these issues make natural detectives. As a mystery writer with chronic illness, I love reading about sleuths who embody the difficulties of living with health challenges yet show the tremendous capacity we still have to contribute. Many of the sleuths on this list are confined to their homes and unable to work, so solving a mystery not only adds suspense. It gives us the satisfaction of seeing these characters find their way back into the world and rediscover their sense of purpose.
One of my favorite characters in this middle-grade mystery has always been Chris Theodorakis, the teen boy with an unnamed neurological condition that confines him to a wheelchair and, for the most part, to his house.
Even if he can’t leave home—and even if people often look away from him when he does—Chris plays a key role in solving the mystery at the heart of the book by being a keen observer of everything that passes in front of his window. I love how this novel depicts Chris’s inner world to young readers, including his awareness of how his condition affects others’ perceptions.
More importantly, it shows how much people with disabilities and illnesses still have to offer.
"A supersharp mystery...confoundingly clever, and very funny." —Booklist, starred review
A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger—and a possible murderer—to inherit his vast fortune, on things for sure: Sam Westing may be dead…but that won’t stop him from playing one last game!
Winner of the Newbery Medal Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award An ALA Notable Book
"Great fun for those who enjoy illusion, word play, or sleight…
Telescopes, microscopes, computer modeling–these exist because some things are easier to study when you change their shape. That’s how we learned about planets, germs, and the economy. Enlarging, shrinking, and filling in details lets us examine and understand. I think literature can do the same thing with ideas. Asking ‘what if?’ lets us probe things we can’t with our gadgets. Concepts. Hypotheticals. A story that pulls a big idea like taffy? That is a treat. I’ve got five in this dish.
What if elevator inspectors had their own influential guild? Not science fiction, not fantasy, and not even alternative history. Just a riveting, delightful, challenging ‘what if’ that does not fit in a box. In a shaft. In a skyscraper. When I first heard about this book, I thought elevator inspection might be, let’s say, resistant to novel-sized interrogation.
To this, I now say, behold the umbrella that fits in the purse or the king-sized mattress that arrives in a toddler-sized box. This book unfolds and puffs up deliberately and warmly, and eventually, you find yourself curled up, reading about the very nature of thought. In a person. In a society. You don’t want to turn out the light and stop.
'A thrilling blend of noir and fantasy.'Guardian. In an unnamed city - a hardboiled pre-Civil Rights New York sort of city -heroine Lila Mae has succeeded in becoming the very first Black female elevator inspector. In Whitehead's darkly comic otherworld, this is a job imbued with an almost mystical significance. But the illustrious Department of Elevator Inspectors is in crisis, bitterly divided between the Empiricists (check the machinery) and the Intuitionists (tune in to the vibes). Lila is an Intuitionist and so much better at her job than anyone else that surely it must be those 'good-old-boy' Empiricists who have…
