Fans pick 100 books like The New Story - Storytelling as a Pathway to Peace

By Inger Lise Oelrich,

Here are 100 books that The New Story - Storytelling as a Pathway to Peace fans have personally recommended if you like The New Story - Storytelling as a Pathway to Peace. 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 Storytelling for a Greener World: Environment, Community and Story-Based Learning

Susan Perrow Author Of Therapeutic Storytelling: 101 Healing Stories for Children

From my list on the healing power of story and storytelling.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Susan Perrow. I am an Australian whose ‘work’ passion is stories and storytelling. I am an author, storyteller, teacher trainer, and parent educator. For the last 30 years, I have been documenting stories from other cultures, writing stories, and telling stories to groups of children and adults – all this woven in with a career in teaching, lecturing, and consulting in Australia, Africa, Asia, China, Europe, and North America. I currently have four published story collections, in a total of 14 languages. Three of my collections are Healing Stories for Challenging Behaviour, An A-Z Collection of Behaviour Tales, and Stories to Light the Night: A Grief and Loss Collection for Children, Families and Communities.

I have chosen my fourth collection to introduce to you below.

Susan's book list on the healing power of story and storytelling

Susan Perrow Why did Susan love this book?

Mother Nature must be very grateful this handbook exists. Within its 368 pages is a treasury of time-tested stories, creative activities, and methods that environmental educators and storytellers can use to affect people’s pro-environmental behaviour. Its collection of 21 chapters share a myriad of ways to use storytelling for a greener world. Each chapter has a different author(s), bringing their perspective on environment, community, and learning through stories. They explore the links between storytelling and emotional literacy, place, environmental justice, connecting with alienated youngsters, how to encourage children and adults’ curiosity about nature, building community, sustainability, and indigenous peoples, local legends, human-animal communication, and how to co-create a sustainable future together.

By Alida Gersie, Anthony Nanson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Storytelling for a Greener World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Storytelling for a Greener World is a treasury of forty-three stories, creative activities, techniques, tips, and descriptions of inspiring practice to both empower newcomers and seasoned storytellers. The book provides a handy, unique, and authoritative resource for developing innovative story-work and will be a key sourcebook of lasting usefulness.

This handbook offers time-tested stories, creative activities, and methods that environmental educators and storytellers can use to encourage sound environmental behavior. Whether it is a brief mention of seeing a skein of geese flying in an evening sky or children from a rough area being inspired by kittiwakes, both adults and…


Book cover of Birds of Heaven

Susan Perrow Author Of Therapeutic Storytelling: 101 Healing Stories for Children

From my list on the healing power of story and storytelling.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Susan Perrow. I am an Australian whose ‘work’ passion is stories and storytelling. I am an author, storyteller, teacher trainer, and parent educator. For the last 30 years, I have been documenting stories from other cultures, writing stories, and telling stories to groups of children and adults – all this woven in with a career in teaching, lecturing, and consulting in Australia, Africa, Asia, China, Europe, and North America. I currently have four published story collections, in a total of 14 languages. Three of my collections are Healing Stories for Challenging Behaviour, An A-Z Collection of Behaviour Tales, and Stories to Light the Night: A Grief and Loss Collection for Children, Families and Communities.

I have chosen my fourth collection to introduce to you below.

Susan's book list on the healing power of story and storytelling

Susan Perrow Why did Susan love this book?

Birds of Heaven is a tiny book full of noble thoughts on why stories and storytelling are integral to our humanity. Okri, the Man Booker Prize author of ‘The Famished Road’, eloquently states ‘The universe began as a story… we are part human, part stories.’

The text contains two inspirational essays on the meaning of language and its power to shape our lives. The work presents an alternative spiritual response to the problems of the present day. It is bursting with beautiful and insightful gems.

By Ben Okri,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This text contains two inspirational essays from the author of "The Famished Road", on the meaning of language and its power to shape our lives. The work presents an alternative spiritual response to the problems of the present day.


Book cover of Storytelling with Children

Susan Perrow Author Of Therapeutic Storytelling: 101 Healing Stories for Children

From my list on the healing power of story and storytelling.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Susan Perrow. I am an Australian whose ‘work’ passion is stories and storytelling. I am an author, storyteller, teacher trainer, and parent educator. For the last 30 years, I have been documenting stories from other cultures, writing stories, and telling stories to groups of children and adults – all this woven in with a career in teaching, lecturing, and consulting in Australia, Africa, Asia, China, Europe, and North America. I currently have four published story collections, in a total of 14 languages. Three of my collections are Healing Stories for Challenging Behaviour, An A-Z Collection of Behaviour Tales, and Stories to Light the Night: A Grief and Loss Collection for Children, Families and Communities.

I have chosen my fourth collection to introduce to you below.

Susan's book list on the healing power of story and storytelling

Susan Perrow Why did Susan love this book?

If you feel inhibited about making up stories and telling them to children, this is the book for you. Encouraging you to spin golden tales, Nancy Mellon shows how you can become a confident storyteller and enrich your family with the power of story. Children love the unique and human quality of storytelling, and parents and teachers alike can learn this practical, magical art with Nancy’s methods, tips and resources. This book may help give you storytelling wings - even if you didn’t think you could fly this way! It is a must for any adult who seeks to enrich and deepen communications with the young ones in their life.

By Nancy Mellon,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Telling stories awakens wonder and creates special occasions with children, whether it is bedtime, around the fire or on rainy days. Encouraging you to spin golden tales, Nancy Mellon shows how you can become a confident storyteller and enrich your family with the power of story.

Children love family storytelling and parents can learn this practical, magical art. Here are methods, tips and resources to enable you to:

Create a listening space
Use the day's events and rhythms to make stories
Transform old stories and make up new ones
Bring your personal and family stories to life
Learn stories by…


Book cover of The Power of Stories: Nurturing Children's Imagination and Consciousness

Susan Perrow Author Of Therapeutic Storytelling: 101 Healing Stories for Children

From my list on the healing power of story and storytelling.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Susan Perrow. I am an Australian whose ‘work’ passion is stories and storytelling. I am an author, storyteller, teacher trainer, and parent educator. For the last 30 years, I have been documenting stories from other cultures, writing stories, and telling stories to groups of children and adults – all this woven in with a career in teaching, lecturing, and consulting in Australia, Africa, Asia, China, Europe, and North America. I currently have four published story collections, in a total of 14 languages. Three of my collections are Healing Stories for Challenging Behaviour, An A-Z Collection of Behaviour Tales, and Stories to Light the Night: A Grief and Loss Collection for Children, Families and Communities.

I have chosen my fourth collection to introduce to you below.

Susan's book list on the healing power of story and storytelling

Susan Perrow Why did Susan love this book?

Why do we tell stories? What power lies within storytelling? From the great myths and legends to enchanting fairy tales, parables, fables, and folk tales, stories can have a great healing and educative power. They come from our subconscious and imagination, deep inside us. They have much to teach us about ourselves and the world we create around us.

Described as a manual for ‘soul ecology’, in his book Kornberger first explores this ‘story power’, then explains how to apply it to help a child develop, or to heal and transform a child with difficulties. He then discusses the art and practicalities of creating new stories to help children with particular needs.

This is a valuable and inspiring book for teachers, parents, creative writers, and students of literature.

By Horst Kornberger,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From the great myths and legends to enchanting fairy tales, parables, fables and folk tales, stories can have a great healing and educative power. They come from our subconscious and imagination, deep inside us. They have much to teach us about ourselves, therefore, and the world we create around us.

Horst Kornberger, a writer, artist and Steiner-Waldorf teacher, first explores the power of particular stories such as Odysseus, Parsifal, Oedipus, Bible stories and fairy tales. He then explains how to apply that power to help a child develop, or to heal and transform a child with difficulties.

Finally he discusses…


Book cover of Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11

Jeffrey Herf Author Of Israel's Moment: International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945–1949

From my list on history of establishment of the State of Israel.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian at the University of Maryland, College Park. In the past forty years, I have published six books and many articles on twentieth-century German history including Reactionary Modernism: Technology Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich; Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys; Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World; and Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967-1989. My personal interest in German history began at home. My father was one of those very fortunate German Jews who found refuge in the United States before Hitler closed the borders and launched the Holocaust. 

Jeffrey's book list on history of establishment of the State of Israel

Jeffrey Herf Why did Jeffrey love this book?

As I wrote in the Foreword to the English edition of Küntzel’s work, published first in Germany in 2002, Küntzel synthesized a large body of scholarship in English and German that examined Nazi Germany’s propaganda aimed at the Arab world, as well as the collaboration of Haj Amin el-Husseini with Nazi propaganda efforts. I welcomed Küntzel’s exploration of Nazi Germany’s impact outside Europe, and its aftereffects in Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and then the members of Al Qaeda who carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001.

By Matthias Küntzel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jihad and Jew-Hatred as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 traces the impact of European fascism and Nazism on Arab and Islamic activists. As Kuentzel investigates the shift of global antisemitism from Nazi Germany to parts of the Arab world during and after World War II, he argues that antisemitism is not merely a supplementary feature of modern jihadism, but lies instead at its ideological core. This fascinating study lays bare the antecedents of the antisemitism that runs rampant in our world today. For anyone interested in exploring the mindset of hatred that led to the crimes in New York…


Book cover of Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Crisis Over Israel and Palestine

Gary M. Burge Author Of Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians

From my list on helping Christians understand Israel and Palestine.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a professor of New Testament theology who has served in a variety of Christian settings in higher education. My introduction to the world of the Middle East came in the 1970s when I spent a year in Beirut, Lebanon, at the American University. Here I studied Arabic, Islam, and regional politics—and unexpectedly had a front-row seat during the Lebanese civil war. After I completed a PhD in theology and began my career, I returned to the region many times. It was my frequent trips to Israel/Palestine that caught my attention. I’ve led countless student trips to this region and participated in theology conferences. But it's the puzzle of Israel-Palestine that always draws me back.

Gary's book list on helping Christians understand Israel and Palestine

Gary M. Burge Why did Gary love this book?

Chapman has been a theology professor and Islam specialist in the Middle East for many years.

He now resides in Cambridge, England, and has offered one of the best analyses of the current conflicts that don’t want to go away.

This book is unmatched for its clarity and willingness to call out countries—especially Israelfor astonishing human rights abuses. Few have the courage to do this, and Chapman does it with academic depth and conviction.

By Colin Chapman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Crisis Over Israel and Palestine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has profoundly affected the Middle East for almost seventy years, and shows no sign of ending. With two peoples claiming the same piece of land for different reasons, it remains a huge political and humanitarian problem. Can it ever be resolved? If so, how? These are the basic questions addressed in a new and substantially revised fifth edition of this highly acclaimed book. Having lived and worked in the Middle East at various times since 1968, Colin Chapman explains the roots of the problem and outlines the arguments of the main parties involved.…


Book cover of A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land

Gary M. Burge Author Of Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians

From my list on helping Christians understand Israel and Palestine.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a professor of New Testament theology who has served in a variety of Christian settings in higher education. My introduction to the world of the Middle East came in the 1970s when I spent a year in Beirut, Lebanon, at the American University. Here I studied Arabic, Islam, and regional politics—and unexpectedly had a front-row seat during the Lebanese civil war. After I completed a PhD in theology and began my career, I returned to the region many times. It was my frequent trips to Israel/Palestine that caught my attention. I’ve led countless student trips to this region and participated in theology conferences. But it's the puzzle of Israel-Palestine that always draws me back.

Gary's book list on helping Christians understand Israel and Palestine

Gary M. Burge Why did Gary love this book?

Canon is the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace based in Washington D.C. and a person with wide academic and personal experience with the churches in Israel/Palestine.

Here she has edited a collection of 29 chapters written by a vast array of Christian leaders from around the world, from Desmond Tutu to Shane Claiborne. Each is reflecting on the conflict in Israel/Palestine and Christian responses to it.

It is the diversity of views that gives this book its strength and quickly you’ll see that there is hope for the Middle East if we are simply honest about the origin and nature of the struggle.

By Mae Elise Cannon (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Land Full of God as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Land Full of God gives American Christians an opportunity to promote peace and justice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It shows them how to understand the enmity with brief, digestible, and comprehensive essays about the historical, political, religious, and geographical tensions that have led to many of the dynamics we see today. All the while, A Land Full of God walks readers through a biblical perspective of God's heart for Israel and the historic suffering of the Jewish people, while also remaining sensitive to the experience and suffering of Palestinians. The prevailing wave of Christian voices are seeking a pro-Israeli,…


Book cover of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

Stefan Vucak Author Of All the Evils

From my list on Christianity and its tortuous origins.

Why am I passionate about this?

Religion, faith, and belief are very personal things that can invoke powerful emotional and intellectual responses. Responses are shaped by social conditioning during childhood that can last a lifetime, engendering spiritual comfort or deep disturbance in adulthood. I began to question my Catholic indoctrination as I started to delve into historical accounts of early Christianity and the evils inflicted on the world under the banner of doing God’s work, politics waged by the Vatican to maintain secular power, distilling it all into something I finally felt comfortable with. 

Stefan's book list on Christianity and its tortuous origins

Stefan Vucak Why did Stefan love this book?

I really wanted to know who the Israelites were, whether the Exodus happened, the conquest of Canaan, and other historical facts behind what is today Israel and its claim to the Holy Land…and this book gave me more than I bargained for.

Raised a Catholic, I found it a natural step to question how all this Christian stuff happened. Before I could do that, I first had to know how Israel came about and the rise of the Old Testament. A fascinating read, this book captivated me from the initial introduction and let up. I found some of it heavy going and resorted to fact-checking many things, but I could not ignore the verified body of archaeological evidence that cast a new light on many things I was taught.

This book naturally led me to probe deeper, raising more disturbing questions.

By Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In the past three decades, archaeologists have made great strides in recovering the lost world of the Old Testament. Dozens of digs in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon have changed experts' understanding of ancient Israel and its neighbours- as well as their vision of the Bible's greatest tales. Yet until now, the public has remained almost entirely unaware of these discoveries which help separate legend from historical truth. Here, at last, two of archaeology's leading scholars shed new light on how the Bible came into existence. They assert, for example, that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob never existed, that David and…


Book cover of Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy

Ian Lustick Author Of Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality

From my list on origins of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.

Why am I passionate about this?

I began studying the Israeli-Palestinian relationship as an idealistic Brandeis University student living in Jerusalem in 1969, when I directly encountered the Palestinian problem and the realities of the occupation. Trained at Berkeley to be a political scientist I devoted my life to finding a path to a two-state solution. In 2010 I reached the tragic conclusion that the “point of no return” toward Israeli absorption of the occupied territories had indeed been passed. Bored with the ideas that my old way of thinking was producing, I forced myself to think, as Hannah Arendt advised, “without a bannister.” Paradigm Lost is the result.

Ian's book list on origins of Israeli policies toward Palestinians

Ian Lustick Why did Ian love this book?

Yoram Peri’s expertise on the historical entanglements of the military and political sectors in Israel is unrivaled.  Based on personal interviews with all major players Peri goes behind the scenes to show the real meaning of the standard Israeli formula that the “Arab problem” should be seen “through the gunsight.” He describes how different generals, even those open to an accommodation with the Palestinians and opposed to settlers, were either stymied or transformed into saboteurs of the Oslo peace process. This pattern he attributes to the hegemonic psychology, standard operating procedures, processes of socialization, and political demands, associated with the way the Israel Defense Forces are organized and integrated into Israeli politics. Particularly vivid is his portrayal of upper-echelon Israeli military frustration at its forced withdrawal from Lebanon and how that resulted in the IDF’s extraordinarily violent and destructive treatment of the Gaza Strip.

By Yoram Peri,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Generals in the Cabinet Room as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A dramatic shift of power has taken place within Israel's political system; where once the military was usually the servant of civilian politicians, today, argues Yoram Peri, generals lead the way when it comes to foreign and defense policymaking.


Book cover of Mural

Julie Salamon Author Of An Innocent Bystander: The Killing of Leon Klinghoffer

From my list on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have spent my working life as a journalist, author and storyteller, aiming to uncover complexity that sheds new light on stories we think we know. I got my training at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times—and from the wonderful editors of my twelve books. An Innocent Bystander, my book that deals with the Middle East, began as the story of a hijacking and a murder of an American citizen. But as my research widened, I came to see this story couldn’t be told without understanding many perspectives, including the Israeli and the Palestinian, nor could the political be disentangled from the personal.

Julie's book list on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict

Julie Salamon Why did Julie love this book?

This collection of poetry by a revered Palestinian poet illuminates his people’s emotional and historic connection to the land that is now the state of Israel.

His poems, many of which were set to music, are credited with solidifying a Palestinian national consciousness. His family was displaced from their home by the Israeli army; when they returned, they lived as second-class citizens.

The work achingly describes an abiding sense of love and loss.

By Mahmoud Darwish (lead author), John Berger (illustrator), Rema Hammami (translator)

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of Storytelling for a Greener World: Environment, Community and Story-Based Learning
Book cover of Birds of Heaven
Book cover of Storytelling with Children

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Interested in Israel, storytelling, and Sierra Leone?

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