Fans pick 100 books like The Quiet Book

I Am Peace is part of a wonderful series by this well-known team. The series explores topics such as compassion, empathy, resilience, and what it is to be a feeling human being. I Am Peace is about a child (gender not identified) who worries about the past and future and learns how to comfort and ground themselves by noticing the here and now, breathing evenly, and practicing kindness toward themselves and others. The simple, sparse text expresses these rather deep ideas in ways that all children can understand: “I can watch my worries gently pop and disappear. I let things go"; “I can hug a tree and thank it for its beauty and strength.” The back matter features a discussion of mindfulness and a guided meditation.

In this colorful book about pigs learning to meditate, we see their stressful world and how it is sometimes hard to manage emotions such as anger and frustration: “So it’s good to have a peaceful place inside.” In simple, accessible language, the author shows how, through meditation, the pigs learn, among other things, to accept what “is,” instead of wishing it were otherwise. A sweet scene showing a dead goldfish that can’t be wished back to life gently makes this point. Themes of self-care, self-acceptance, and kindness add to the strong message. Back matter includes a meditation instruction, how to make a glitter jar, and notes about family meditation. A great introduction to how to do the formal practice of meditation. 

Little Yoshio lives in noisy Tokyo, where “the sounds of the city swirled all around him” like a “symphony hall.” As he walks around on a rainy day, absorbing these sounds, he comes upon a woman playing a koto, a stringed instrument. The woman shares that her favorite sound is “ma,” or silence. So, Yoshio begins a search for the sound of silence but can’t find it anywhere! Buses and trains aren’t silent; even bamboo stalks make a swishing sound. Everywhere he goes, Yoshio hears sounds but not silence. Finally, he discovers that silence is “underneath every sound.” A lovely, understated story of how “ma” exists inside all of us, if only we stop to listen. The illustrations reflect different aspects of Tokyo’s culture and energy.

What can we hear when we stop to listen, really listen, to the world around us? This gorgeously illustrated book by Lemniscates, a studio of artists and designers from Barcelona, depicts a girl’s journeys in nature and through the seasons. She names what she hears “in the silence,” such as “the wind playing with my kite,” “my heart when running,” or “my breath when still.” I love the simplicity of the art and the text, leaving room for readers to answer the question, “How many things can you hear?” The experience of reading the book is almost like a mindfulness meditation, but without any didactic component. I can’t recommend this book enough! 

This book begins with a declaration: “It was a bad day….” and proceeds to show in pictures how bad a day it was for little yellow bird, little white dog, little red fox, and little brown squirrel. Every time I read this book, I remember that even though a day may feel like a bad day, you never know what could happen that could completely turn the day around. It is a story to remind me to go outside and stay curious.

My daughter, a children’s librarian, says this storytime favorite is sure to delight the toddler crowd.

It’s packed with interactive fun, with invites to hi-five various animals. “Hi-five a lion. Hear him GROWL. YOO-HOO-HOO! Hi-five an owl.” Each one’s paw or wing is sized just right for toddlers to do just that on this sturdy board book (A Never Bored Book!). They can hi-five both antlers on a moose and, at the end, “Hi-five an octopus, I say. But only if you have all day!”

The final spread encourages the toddler to high-five the reader.

In my home, this book is a classic. I love to see joyful animals enjoying life together. Rhymes are fresh, with a jazz rhythm that makes little readers want to dance along. It makes a great off-to-bed book as children put on their jammies with the hippo and then beg, “Read it again!” 

When it comes to animal photography, National Geographic set the standard for excellence – and when one pairs 200 of their best photographs with poetry from some of the country's finest poets, you end up with a beautiful, coffee table book that deserves to be in every house.

From classic poets like Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and Rudyard Kipling to contemporary writers including Naomi Shihab Nye, Jack Prelutsky, and Jane Yolen (and even a few from anthologist and former U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis) this is a book you will want to take time to peruse read, and ponder.

Most of the books I read with my kids have animals as the main characters, but few books aimed at adults do, so I was thrilled to find these stories where wolves, vultures, and tigers provide nuanced, complex perspectives on a threatened world. I learned about love and deep ocean noise from a young whale and felt the loneliness of a polar bear who is parted from his mother, his twin, and others of his kind.

Through these mythic stories, I realized the deep strangeness that comes from losing my connection to other animals and the true pleasure of returning to my place as a creature of the world—something I felt when I became a mother and again as I read these stories.

I love what Young is doing—breaking out of her “college prof” shell and talking directly to us about her life with animals—dead and alive. She starts with her dog Frankie’s cancer diagnosis and wraps her own reactions to his treatments into her study of 19th-century fiction that focuses on animals—like the famous horse narrative Black Beauty and the equally-famous-but-now-forgotten dog narrative Beautiful Joe. Her travels take her through both physical and imaginative time and place—from Beautiful Joe’s origins in Nova Scotia to her meditations on the art of animal taxidermy. I learned a lot about the history of animal/human relations from this book, and I really enjoyed Young’s voice and puns. It’s a great addition to our goal to bring academic knowledge out into the public sphere.