Fans pick 100 books like The Eternal Soldier

By Allison Crotzer Kimmel, Rotem Teplow (illustrator),

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

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre

Rebecca Langston-George Author Of The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln

From my list on little-known US history for children.

Why am I passionate about this?

I taught for more than 26 years in classes ranging from first grade through college. No matter the age of the students, I used children’s books to introduce topics in history. I never shied away from using a picture book with older students and often found they were more engaged in a picture book than in an article. I also used historical fiction as a hook to lure students into picking up a related non-fiction book. In fact, historical fiction was the gateway that taught this writer of 13 nonfiction children’s books to love non-fiction history. 

Rebecca's book list on little-known US history for children

Rebecca Langston-George Why did Rebecca love this book?

Weatherford depicts a vibrant and thriving Black Wall Street in Tulsa until one elevator ride brings it all crashing down.

Unspeakable has received numerous starred reviews and awards—all richly deserved for shining a light on this horrifying history and reminding us at the book’s conclusion that it is the responsibility of us all to reject hatred and choose hope. It’s a stunning work from a powerhouse author and illustrator team.

Don’t let its picture book format keep you from sharing this important book with teens and adults. The format makes the difficult subject both more accessible and more relatable.  

By Carole Boston Weatherford, Floyd Cooper (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Unspeakable as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards for Author and Illustrator

A Caldecott Honor Book

A Sibert Honor Book

Longlisted for the National Book Award

A Kirkus Prize Finalist

A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book

"A must-have"―Booklist (starred review)

Celebrated author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in our nation's history. The book traces the history of African Americans in Tulsa's Greenwood district and chronicles the devastation that occurred in 1921 when a white mob attacked the Black community.

News of…


Book cover of Farewell to Manzanar

Rebecca Langston-George Author Of The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln

From my list on little-known US history for children.

Why am I passionate about this?

I taught for more than 26 years in classes ranging from first grade through college. No matter the age of the students, I used children’s books to introduce topics in history. I never shied away from using a picture book with older students and often found they were more engaged in a picture book than in an article. I also used historical fiction as a hook to lure students into picking up a related non-fiction book. In fact, historical fiction was the gateway that taught this writer of 13 nonfiction children’s books to love non-fiction history. 

Rebecca's book list on little-known US history for children

Rebecca Langston-George Why did Rebecca love this book?

At the age of eleven I had never heard of internment camps in my own state of California until I came across this book, and I remember being astonished such a thing happened in the United States.

Though this title has been around for many years, Wakatsuki Houston’s autobiography book is still relevant and gently but factually introduces young readers to the unjust discrimination inflicted on innocent civilians/citizens. She tells of her family’s life before Manzanar, at the camp, and her pre-teen/teen struggle to fit in at school when returning from internment.  

By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, James D. Houston (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Farewell to Manzanar as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 11, 12, 13, and 14.

What is this book about?

Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese Americans. Among them was the Wakatsuki family, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, who was seven years old when she arrived at Manzanar in 1942, recalls life in the camp through the eyes of the child she was. First published in 1973, this new edition of the classic memoir of a devastating Japanese American experience includes an inspiring afterword by the authors.


Book cover of Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp

Rebecca Langston-George Author Of The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln

From my list on little-known US history for children.

Why am I passionate about this?

I taught for more than 26 years in classes ranging from first grade through college. No matter the age of the students, I used children’s books to introduce topics in history. I never shied away from using a picture book with older students and often found they were more engaged in a picture book than in an article. I also used historical fiction as a hook to lure students into picking up a related non-fiction book. In fact, historical fiction was the gateway that taught this writer of 13 nonfiction children’s books to love non-fiction history. 

Rebecca's book list on little-known US history for children

Rebecca Langston-George Why did Rebecca love this book?

This nonfiction book is not only dear to my heart, I can also honestly say it changed my life.

It’s about the only Federal Emergency School ever created. Built for the children of farm workers displaced by the Dust Bowl in 1940, it tells of School Superintendent Leo B. Hart’s ingenuity and steadfast devotion to children who faced seemingly insurmountable hardships and discrimination as occupants of the migrant camp outside Bakersfield, California that inspired John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

I taught at this school, now known as Sunset, for many years, and I kept a note in my lesson planner that read What would Leo B. Hart do? 

By Jerry Stanley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Children of the Dust Bowl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Illus. with photographs from the Dust Bowl era. This true story took place at the emergency farm-labor camp immortalized in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Ostracized as "dumb Okies," the children of Dust Bowl migrant laborers went without school--until Superintendent Leo Hart and 50 Okie kids built their own school in a nearby field.


Book cover of The Green Glass Sea

Rebecca Langston-George Author Of The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln

From my list on little-known US history for children.

Why am I passionate about this?

I taught for more than 26 years in classes ranging from first grade through college. No matter the age of the students, I used children’s books to introduce topics in history. I never shied away from using a picture book with older students and often found they were more engaged in a picture book than in an article. I also used historical fiction as a hook to lure students into picking up a related non-fiction book. In fact, historical fiction was the gateway that taught this writer of 13 nonfiction children’s books to love non-fiction history. 

Rebecca's book list on little-known US history for children

Rebecca Langston-George Why did Rebecca love this book?

This Scott O’Dell Award winner is historical fiction for middle grade readers.

Set in the New Mexico desert during World War II, Dewey and Suze become unlikely friends when their parents work on the top secret “gadget.” The gadget’s scheduled test lights up the pre-dawn sky for miles around but is explained away as an explosion at a munitions outpost.

A few weeks later Suze’s family takes Dewey with them to visit the green glass sea of Trinitite, a new mineral created as a result of the atomic bomb’s test. Readers will feel the humanity of how war affects us all. Readers who prefer fiction over nonfiction might find this a gateway to interest them in picking up a nonfiction title on WWII or the atomic bomb. 

By Ellen Klages,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Green Glass Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

A heartfelt story of a budding friendship in the thick of the war--winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

It's 1943, and eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is en route to New Mexico to live with her mathematician father. Soon she arrives at a town that, officially, doesn't exist. It is called Los Alamos, and it is abuzz with activity, as scientists and mathematicians from all over America and Europe work on the biggest secret of all--"the gadget." None of them--not J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project; not the mathematicians and scientists; and least of all, Dewey--know…


Book cover of Abe's Fish: A Boyhood Tale of Abraham Lincoln

Jonathan W. White Author Of My Day with Abe Lincoln

From my list on children’s books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been writing books about Abraham Lincoln for 15 years. I also have two daughters, and I spend a lot of time at night telling bedtime stories. A couple of years ago, I decided to combine these two areas of my life by writing a Lincoln book for kids. But I didn’t want it to be another run-of-the-mill history book. So, I developed a story about a girl who travels back in time and meets a young Abe. Along the way, she learns a lot about his life. I like to tell people that everything about it is historically accurate . . . except the time travel!

Jonathan's book list on children’s books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

Jonathan W. White Why did Jonathan love this book?

This is my favorite full-color illustrated kids’ book about Abraham Lincoln, and I have read dozens of them. It tells a true story about Abe during the War of 1812 when he was probably only about 5 or 6 years old.

One day, he caught a fish and gave it to a hungry soldier who was walking home on the road because, he later said, he had always been taught to be good to soldiers.

The story points forward to some major themes in Lincoln’s adult life, and the illustrations are absolutely wonderful.

By Jen Bryant, Amy June Bates (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Abe's Fish 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?

Here is the perfect book for celebrating Lincoln’s 200th birthday—and a unique way to illuminate our 16th president for today’s young readers. Based on an actual incident that occurred when Lincoln was just a boy, it shows that he, like so many children, wished he were taller (and it came true!); that he had a mischievous streak; that he loved words; and—most important—that even as a small child he puzzled deeply over the concept of freedom. Amy June Bates’s superb illustrations capture young Abe’s personality, the warmth of his home life, and the enduring power of his one-time chance meeting…


Book cover of Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers

Jonathan W. White Author Of My Day with Abe Lincoln

From my list on children’s books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been writing books about Abraham Lincoln for 15 years. I also have two daughters, and I spend a lot of time at night telling bedtime stories. A couple of years ago, I decided to combine these two areas of my life by writing a Lincoln book for kids. But I didn’t want it to be another run-of-the-mill history book. So, I developed a story about a girl who travels back in time and meets a young Abe. Along the way, she learns a lot about his life. I like to tell people that everything about it is historically accurate . . . except the time travel!

Jonathan's book list on children’s books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

Jonathan W. White Why did Jonathan love this book?

Most people don’t realize that Lincoln lived most of his adult life without a beard and that he grew his beard during the presidential campaign in 1860 after an 11-year-old girl wrote to him and suggested that he grow whiskers.

This book tells the story of how Grace Bedell encouraged him to grow a beard, how her brother teased her for writing to him, and how Lincoln stopped at her hometown in 1861 to meet her and show her his new whiskers.

This is a great story for kids to see how a young girl helped shape the image of Lincoln, an image that is recognizable to all Americans today.

By Karen B. Winnick,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

Abraham Lincoln was the first president of the United States to wear a beard. What gave him the idea to grow whiskers may have been a letter he received from an eleven-year-old girl named Grace Bedell. Charmingly told by Karen B. Winnick and illustrated with rich oil paintings that capture the look and feel of nineteenth-century America, here is the true story of the girl whose letter helped to make Abraham Lincoln's face one of the most famous in American history.


Book cover of So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth's Long Walk Toward Freedom

Jonathan W. White Author Of My Day with Abe Lincoln

From my list on children’s books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been writing books about Abraham Lincoln for 15 years. I also have two daughters, and I spend a lot of time at night telling bedtime stories. A couple of years ago, I decided to combine these two areas of my life by writing a Lincoln book for kids. But I didn’t want it to be another run-of-the-mill history book. So, I developed a story about a girl who travels back in time and meets a young Abe. Along the way, she learns a lot about his life. I like to tell people that everything about it is historically accurate . . . except the time travel!

Jonathan's book list on children’s books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

Jonathan W. White Why did Jonathan love this book?

Most people don’t know that at one time, slavery existed in every state, not just in the South. This powerful book tells the story of Sojourner Truth’s time in slavery in New York, from her birth in 1797 until she escaped as a young woman in the 1820s. 

Unfortunately, Truth continued to face hardships in freedom, most terribly when her son was sold away from her to Alabama. Fortunately, she fought in court and won so that he was returned.

Truth continued to fight for women’s rights and black civil rights for the rest of her life. In 1864, she even met with Lincoln at the White House.

By Gary D. Schmidt, Daniel Minter (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked So Tall Within 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?

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery but possessed a mind and a vision that knew no bounds. So Tall Within traces her life from her painful childhood through her remarkable emancipation to her incredible leadership in the movement for rights for both women and African Americans. Her story is told with lyricism and pathos by Gary D. Schmidt, one of the most celebrated writers for children in the twenty-first century, and brought to life by award winning and fine artist Daniel Minter. This combination of talent is just right for introducing this legendary figure to a new generation of children.


Book cover of The Last Brother: A Civil War Tale

Jonathan W. White Author Of My Day with Abe Lincoln

From my list on children’s books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been writing books about Abraham Lincoln for 15 years. I also have two daughters, and I spend a lot of time at night telling bedtime stories. A couple of years ago, I decided to combine these two areas of my life by writing a Lincoln book for kids. But I didn’t want it to be another run-of-the-mill history book. So, I developed a story about a girl who travels back in time and meets a young Abe. Along the way, she learns a lot about his life. I like to tell people that everything about it is historically accurate . . . except the time travel!

Jonathan's book list on children’s books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

Jonathan W. White Why did Jonathan love this book?

In this fictional story about the Battle of Gettysburg, two 11-year-old buglers (one from the 71st Pennsylvania Infantry and the other from 11th Mississippi) meet in the woods and share some moments in conversation away from the din of the fighting.

The story helps young readers reflect on the common humanity and suffering of the soldiers on both sides during the Civil War. In elegant prose and beautiful pictures it humanizes the experiences, fears, and uncertainties faced by these men and boys (and their families).

Book cover of Trinity

Anne Perreault Author Of The Gift

From my list on Christian fiction with memorable characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a world traveler, who has been blessed to live in many different countries, studying human interactions and culture. People matter. I’m fascinated to see how people react and relate to each other. As a proficient people watcher, it makes sense that when I read or write a book, characters are most important to me. They make or break the story with their quirks and hurts and hang-ups. It always gives me great pleasure to see my own characters grow as the story develops. I enjoy putting them into situations that may not be comfortable for them and then seeing what God does to bring them through. 

Anne's book list on Christian fiction with memorable characters

Anne Perreault Why did Anne love this book?

This first book in the Breed Apart series by Ronie Kendig gripped me from the first page on. As an avid animal lover, I really enjoy books with working dogs. The action is immediate and the romance is perfect. What stands out to me is that even heroes are broken and need to be rescued. The author does an amazing job of portraying a warrior at heart, whose wings have been clipped by TBI. 

By Ronie Kendig,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A year ago in Afghanistan, Green Beret Heath Daniel’s career was destroyed. Along with his faith. Now he and his military war dog, Trinity, train other dogs and their handlers. Though his passion is to be back in action, the medical discharge has forced Heath—and Trinity—to the sidelines. Military intelligence officer Darci Kintz is captured while secretly tracking the Taliban. Only one dog can handle the extreme conditions to save her. Trinity. Only one man can handle Trinity. Time is running out on the greatest—and most dangerous—mission of their lives.


Book cover of Soldier Dogs

K.T. Lee Author Of A Nose for Mischief

From my list on readers who love science, dogs, and crime fighting.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love great storytelling, whether it’s in the form of a great mystery, romance, science fiction/fantasy, or non-fiction. I even love a story well told through the medium of television (I see you, The Good Place!). The books on this list are books I’ve read and loved and/or used as research to write my own series of dog-based cozy mysteries.

K.T.'s book list on readers who love science, dogs, and crime fighting

K.T. Lee Why did K.T. love this book?

A book about dogs who help protect soldiers had my attention before I even cracked it open. Soldier Dogs is exactly as advertised—Goodavage details how dogs are trained, the bonds that handlers form with their canine partners, and some of the challenges associated with the difficult job these dogs do. This book was an interesting and informative read for anyone curious about the lives of working K-9s and their handlers.

By Maria Goodavage,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A leading reporter offers a tour of military working dogs' extraordinary training, heroic accomplishments, and the lasting impacts they have on those who work with them.

People all over the world have been riveted by the story of Cairo, the Belgian Malinois who was a part of the Navy SEAL team that led the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. A dog's natural intelligence, physical abilities, and pure loyalty contribute more to our military efforts than ever before. You don't have to be a dog lover to be fascinated by the idea that a dog-the cousin of that furry guy…


Book cover of Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre
Book cover of Farewell to Manzanar
Book cover of Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp

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