100 books like Sitting Still Like a Frog

By Eline Snel,

Here are 100 books that Sitting Still Like a Frog fans have personally recommended if you like Sitting Still Like a Frog. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Mindful Games: Sharing Mindfulness and Meditation with Children, Teens, and Families

Christopher Willard Author Of Growing Up Mindful: Essential Practices to Help Children, Teens, and Families Find Balance, Calm, and Resilience

From my list on teaching mindfulness to kids.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a psychologist, consultant, author, and father based in Massachusetts, and I am also a former special education teacher. After discovering mindfulness as a young man when I was struggling with my own stress, substance abuse, and mental health challenges, I became determined to share with others. I love reading and writing books, sharing child development and mental health tips in workshops worldwide, and helping kids, families, and schools be their best. I’m also the author of twenty books for adults and kids, including Alphabreaths (2019), Growing Up Mindful (2016), and Feelings are Like Farts (2024). 

Christopher's book list on teaching mindfulness to kids

Christopher Willard Why did Christopher love this book?

Susan is an old friend but also one of the original teachers of mindfulness for kids, and both books offer a range of practices, theory and research. Mindful Games is exactly what it sounds like, and exactly what many of us want in teaching mindfulness to kids- fun, simple, exercises for all ages that teach her “ABC’s” of Acceptance, Balance, and Compassion.

By Susan Kaiser Greenland,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mindful Games as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A practical and playful guide for cultivating mindfulness in kids, with 50 simple games to develop attention and focus, and to identify and regulate emotions

Playing games is a great way for kids to improve their focus and become more mindful. In this book, The Mindful Child author Susan Kaiser Greenland shares how parents, caregivers, and teachers can bring mindfulness into the classroom or home. She provides 50 entertaining games that develop what she calls the new “A, B, C’s”—Attention, Balance, and Compassion—for your child’s learning, happiness, and success, offering context and guidance throughout. She introduces:

• Anchor games that…


Book cover of Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children

Christopher Willard Author Of Growing Up Mindful: Essential Practices to Help Children, Teens, and Families Find Balance, Calm, and Resilience

From my list on teaching mindfulness to kids.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a psychologist, consultant, author, and father based in Massachusetts, and I am also a former special education teacher. After discovering mindfulness as a young man when I was struggling with my own stress, substance abuse, and mental health challenges, I became determined to share with others. I love reading and writing books, sharing child development and mental health tips in workshops worldwide, and helping kids, families, and schools be their best. I’m also the author of twenty books for adults and kids, including Alphabreaths (2019), Growing Up Mindful (2016), and Feelings are Like Farts (2024). 

Christopher's book list on teaching mindfulness to kids

Christopher Willard Why did Christopher love this book?

This book is one of my favorites, and by my favorite mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh no less. Full of hands on activities, arts and crafts, and beautiful illustrations and simple instructions. I was initially skeptical of some of the instructions and practices, but was amazed at how well they “worked” with kids.

By Thich Nhat Hanh, Wietske Vriezen (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Planting Seeds as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children is the fruit of decades of development and innovation in the Plum Village community's collective practice with children. Based on Thich Nhat Hanh's thirty years of teaching mindfulness and compassion to parents, teachers, and children, the book and enclosed CD cover a wide range of contemplative and fun activities parents and educators can do with their children or students. The activities are designed to help relieve stress, increase concentration, nourish gratitude and confidence, deal with difficult emotions, touch our interconnection with nature, and improve communication. 

Planting Seeds offers insight, concrete activities, and curricula that…


Book cover of Mindful Parenting: A Guide for Mental Health Practitioners

Christopher Willard Author Of Growing Up Mindful: Essential Practices to Help Children, Teens, and Families Find Balance, Calm, and Resilience

From my list on teaching mindfulness to kids.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a psychologist, consultant, author, and father based in Massachusetts, and I am also a former special education teacher. After discovering mindfulness as a young man when I was struggling with my own stress, substance abuse, and mental health challenges, I became determined to share with others. I love reading and writing books, sharing child development and mental health tips in workshops worldwide, and helping kids, families, and schools be their best. I’m also the author of twenty books for adults and kids, including Alphabreaths (2019), Growing Up Mindful (2016), and Feelings are Like Farts (2024). 

Christopher's book list on teaching mindfulness to kids

Christopher Willard Why did Christopher love this book?

I love Susan Bogel’s straightforward path to mindfulness for parents and children. She has the mind of a scientist and it shows, but writes the heart of a teacher or therapist. Her book and writing are incredibly clear, as well as impeccably organized. The activities and scripts are engaging and precise, and the program is easy to follow.

By Susan Bögels, Kathleen Restifo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mindful Parenting as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Despite its inherent joys, parenting can be challenging and stressful. When a parent or child suffers from a mental health issue, these difficulties multiply. Designed for use by clinicians, this book teaches an eight-week structured mindfulness training program for parents, with invaluable handouts and assignments to keep caregiving on track.


Book cover of A Still Quiet Place: A Mindfulness Program for Teaching Children and Adolescents to Ease Stress and Difficult Emotions

Christopher Willard Author Of Growing Up Mindful: Essential Practices to Help Children, Teens, and Families Find Balance, Calm, and Resilience

From my list on teaching mindfulness to kids.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a psychologist, consultant, author, and father based in Massachusetts, and I am also a former special education teacher. After discovering mindfulness as a young man when I was struggling with my own stress, substance abuse, and mental health challenges, I became determined to share with others. I love reading and writing books, sharing child development and mental health tips in workshops worldwide, and helping kids, families, and schools be their best. I’m also the author of twenty books for adults and kids, including Alphabreaths (2019), Growing Up Mindful (2016), and Feelings are Like Farts (2024). 

Christopher's book list on teaching mindfulness to kids

Christopher Willard Why did Christopher love this book?

Amy Saltzman is another early adopter of mindfulness for young people and comes at her work with deep compassion and wisdom. Her activities, including movement and arts, engage kids of all ages, and her spinoff programs for athletes and teens are also wonderful approaches to sharing mindfulness with children.

By Amy Saltzman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Still Quiet Place as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Teaching kids stress management skills early in life will help them to grow into happy and healthy adults. And if you work with children or adolescents, you know that kids today need these skills more than ever. The pressures they face in the classroom, on the playground, in their extracurricular activities, and at home can sometimes be overwhelming. So how can you help lay the groundwork for their success?

A Still Quiet Place presents an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program that therapists, teachers, and other professionals can use to help children and adolescents manage stress and anxiety in their…


Book cover of The Search for the Beloved: Journeys in Mythology & Sacred Psychology

Karen Martin Author Of The Bringer of Happiness

From my list on writing about death, religion, and spirituality.

Why am I passionate about this?

Our history is spoken through the voice of the conqueror – notably white male. My work seeks to balance our narratives through insight from women’s perspectives. I support my creative writing with extensive research in history, archeology, and myths, and include in situ interpretations of the relevant landscape. There are many truths to be told, not simply one ordained story and I wish to shine the light on stories that have been hidden and/or silenced. The themed series title, Women Unveiled, pertains to this.

Karen's book list on writing about death, religion, and spirituality

Karen Martin Why did Karen love this book?

The Gospel of Mary is often interpreted as a Gnostic text. Gnosis is mystical and esoteric and refers to knowledge based on personal experience with the divine. It is an inward ‘knowing,’ and I was interested in interweaving a psychological approach. This book dived into spiritual aspects in an exploration of the soul’s journey and the spiritual heights attained from a psychological position and was instrumental in some components of Sara’s personal development. My character Sara is a messenger for Persephone, and I used this book to examine the deeper, mythical meanings of how our wounds can become the source of spiritual grace. 

By Jean Houston,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Search for the Beloved as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Search for the Beloved, one of the most important books written on the creative and inventive mind, explains the theories that helped form the foundation of the human potential movement. In what has been called “an intellectual and spiritual feast,” Jean Houston explores the nature of spiritual yearning and teaches readers how to facilitate a personal quest by focusing on the four aspects of Sacred Psychology—the Great Wound, the Mythic Journey of Transformation, the Discovery of the Larger Story, and the Union with the Beloved of the Soul.

W. B. Yeats wrote, “There is but one history and that…


Book cover of Consciousness Explained

Matthew Hutson Author Of The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane

From my list on consciousness and how our brain works.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a freelance science reporter and Contributing Writer at The New Yorker, with degrees in cognitive neuroscience and science writing. Growing up, I wanted to understand the fundamental nature of the universe—who doesn’t?!—and grew interested in physics, before realizing our only contact with outside reality (if it exists) is through consciousness. Today I cover psychology and artificial intelligence, among other topics. Can machines be conscious? I don’t know. Why does consciousness exist at all? I don’t know that either. But if there’s anything at all that’s magic in the universe, it’s consciousness.

Matthew's book list on consciousness and how our brain works

Matthew Hutson Why did Matthew love this book?

We tend to picture an observer inside our heads experiencing consciousness as if watching a movie. But that just pushes explanation back a level: What’s inside that observer? The prolific philosopher Daniel Dennett dismantles many common intuitions about awareness, showing them to be illusions hiding the intricate and deceptive mechanics of the mind and brain. This was one of the first books on consciousness I read. I don’t agree with everything Dennett has to say on the matter, but he’s a great guide to think with.

By Daniel C. Dennett,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Consciousness Explained as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett reveals the secrets of one of the last remaining mysteries of the universe: the human brain.

Daniel C. Dennett's now-classic book blends philosophy, psychology and neuroscience - with the aid of numerous examples and thought-experiments - to explore how consciousness has evolved, and how a modern understanding of the human mind is radically different from conventional explanations of consciousness.

What people think of as the stream of consciousness is not a single, unified sequence, the author argues, but 'multiple drafts' of reality composed by a computer-like 'virtual machine'.

Dennett explains how science has exploded…


Book cover of The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul

Christof Koch Author Of The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread But Can't Be Computed

From my list on consciousness from a neuroscientist.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a neuroscientist best known for my studies and writings exploring the brain basis of consciousness. Trained as a physicist, I was for 27 years a professor of biology and engineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena before moving to the Allen Institute in Seattle, where I became the Chief Scientist and then the President in 2015. I published my first paper on the neural correlates of consciousness with the molecular biologist Francis Crick more than thirty years ago.

Christof's book list on consciousness from a neuroscientist

Christof Koch Why did Christof love this book?

This book, by the co-discoverer of the molecular structure of DNA, helped kick off the modern research enterprise that seeks to track and identify the neuronal correlates of consciousness, that is the footprints of consciousness in the brain. Crick argues that for tactical reasons, scientists should focus on more accessible aspects of consciousness, such as visual awareness, and provides an easy-to-follow introduction into the mammalian brain.

By Francis Crick,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Astonishing Hypothesis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Applying the methodology of science to the search for the soul, the winner of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA explores the fundamental questions of human consciousness, challenging science, philosophy, and religion. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.


Book cover of Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender

Tony Endelman Author Of The Big Stick: Collected and Applied Wisdom from the Teachings of Dr. Robert Glover

From my list on men’s self-development books that don’t totally suck.

Why am I passionate about this?

In 2013, my father–an amazing man who was the picture of health–died suddenly and unexpectedly while at the gym. At the time, I was miserable and unfulfilled. My father’s passing sent me down a path of deep self-exploration, where I realized that life is simply too short and unpredictable to settle for less than what you truly want. As I endeavored to change my life, I became a certified life coach, relationship coach, and happiness trainer, initially to help myself, but soon discovered a passion for helping others. I've been lucky to have incredible mentors like Dr. Robert Glover. My unconventional brand of self-help has been featured in numerous publications.

Tony's book list on men’s self-development books that don’t totally suck

Tony Endelman Why did Tony love this book?

David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., is a pioneering researcher in the field of consciousness and is internationally lauded as a lecturer, physician, and scientist.

This book gave me practical techniques to help remove some of the inner blocks that always seemed to stand in the way of my happiness. The techniques in the book can be applied to all areas of life, from health and wealth to sex and relationships.

By David R. Hawkins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Letting Go as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A powerful mechanism to help you surrender anything holding you back on your path to Enlightenment and find fulfilment, truth and spiritual growth.

Letting Go describes a simple and effective means by which to let go of the obstacles to Enlightenment and become free of negativity. During the many decades of the author's clinical psychiatric practice, the primary aim was to seek the most effective ways to relieve human suffering in all of its many forms.

The inner mechanism of surrender was found to be of great practical benefit and is described in this book. Dr Hawkins's previous books focused…


Book cover of One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters

Mario Beauregard Author Of Expanding Reality: The Emergence of Postmaterialist Science

From my list on the new science of consciousness.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became interested in the relationship between the mind and the brain around the age of 8. It was at this age that I decided to become a neuroscientist. Years later, I completed a bachelor's degree in psychology and then a doctorate in neuroscience. I’ve spent part of my research career in neuroscience at the University of Montreal. I have also been affiliated with the University of Arizona (Tucson). My groundbreaking work on the neurobiology of emotional self-regulation, consciousness, and spiritual experiences has received extensive international media coverage and numerous awards. I am one of the main proponents of a postmaterialist paradigm for the new science of mind/consciousness.

Mario's book list on the new science of consciousness

Mario Beauregard Why did Mario love this book?

For a very long time, Dr. Larry Dossey has been fascinated by the outer reaches of human consciousness.

In this inspiring and important book, he examines a wide range of phenomena (e.g. epiphanies and creative breakthroughs, remote healing, premonitions of danger, near-death experiences, reincarnation, communication with the dead). These phenomena are presented through anecdotal stories, as well as in connection with captivating scientific research.

Taken together, they suggest that all individual minds are part of an infinite, collective dimension of consciousness Dossey calls the One Mind. This view represents a major shift in our understanding of mind and consciousness.

By Larry Dossey,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked One Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the 20th century, we were introduced to several subdivisions of the mind: the conscious, unconscious, subconscious, preconscious, and so on. But what we didn't know was that there was another level of consciousness, an all-encompassing, infinite dimension of shared intelligence: the One Mind. This universal consciousness connects all of us through space and time. Emerging studies have shown that the One Mind isn't just an idea; it's a reality. In this book, Larry Dossey shares compelling experiences and research that support the One Mind concept, such as: Shared thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations with a distant individual Communication between…


Book cover of Consciousness and Fundamental Reality

Neil Mehta Author Of A Pluralist Theory of Perception

From my list on the conscious mind.

Why am I passionate about this?

Somehow, electrical impulses shoot through our brains to generate a surround sound, 3D-movie experience of the world. How on earth is this possible? When I was a college student, this question burrowed into my brain and wouldn’t get out. So I decided to make a living thinking about it. Now it’s 20 years later, I’m a philosophy professor at Yale-NUS College, and I still don’t know the answer!

Neil's book list on the conscious mind

Neil Mehta Why did Neil love this book?

What if consciousness isn't explained from the bottom up by little bits of matter that assemble into our brains? What if consciousness is instead explained from the top down by the universe as a whole?

That's the guiding idea of Philip Goff's book, which examines consciousness through the lens of an exciting recent idea: that reality itself is an integrated whole. What impresses me most about this book are Goff’s insights about the nature of consciousness and our introspective access to it.

By Philip Goff,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Consciousness and Fundamental Reality as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A core philosophical project is the attempt to uncover the fundamental nature of reality, the limited set of facts upon which all other facts depend. Perhaps the most popular theory of fundamental reality in contemporary analytic philosophy is physicalism, the view that the world is fundamentally physical in nature. The first half of this book argues that physicalist views cannot account for the evident reality of conscious experience, and hence that physicalism cannot be true. Unusually for an opponent of physicalism, Goff argues that there are big problems with the most well-known arguments against physicalism-Chalmers' zombie conceivability argument and Jackson's…


Book cover of Mindful Games: Sharing Mindfulness and Meditation with Children, Teens, and Families
Book cover of Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children
Book cover of Mindful Parenting: A Guide for Mental Health Practitioners

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Interested in child psychology, mindfulness, and consciousness?

Child Psychology 21 books
Mindfulness 126 books
Consciousness 80 books