KIDS’ BOOKS AND PRINT MATERIALS
WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM Book List (Graded)
The Jane Addams Children’s Book Award is given each year since 1953 for
books which most effectively help young readers understand peace, social
justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races. Award
winners are underlined; honor books are designated by an (*) asterisk.
Disarmament
First Woman in Congress: Jeannette Rankin by Florence White and Julian
Messner, 1980. Grades 3-7. Biography of the woman who voted against the United
States entering both World War I & World War II.
I Heal: The Children of Chernobyl in Cuba by Trish Marx and Dorita Beh-Eger,
photographs by Cindy Karp. Lerner Publications Company. A photo story of some
of the 13,000 Ukrainian children treated in Cuba for illness caused by the
nuclear accident in Chernobyl.
*Woman From Hiroshima by Toshio Mori. Isthmus, 1979. Grades 4-8. A
first-person tale of life in Japan before the bomb and of learning to adjust
to a new life in California.
*Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien. Atheneum, 1975. Grades 5-9. An
account of the effect of a nuclear war on a young woman caught up in
loneliness and terror.
Economic Justice
Big Annie of Calumet: A True Story of the Industrial Revolution by Jerry
Stanley. Crown Publishers. Young Annie organizes women in the support of
copper miners in Michigan. Grade 4 and up.
The Bobbin Girl by Emily Arnold McCully. Dial Books. Based on the life of a
Massachusetts mill girl who led a textile strike in the 1830s.
*A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich by Alice Childress. Coward, 1973.
McCann & Geoghegan. Grades 5 and up . Novel about a 13-year-old on his way
to drug addiction that gives an insight into life in Harlem.
*Lupita Manana by Patricia Beatty. Morrow, 1981. Grades 5-8. A 13-year-old
Mexican girl enters the United States illegally to find work and faces
economic and social problems.
Nilda by Nicolasa Mohr. Harper & Row, 1974. Grades 5 and up. Tale
of a girl growing up in the 1940s in El Barrio of New York City.
Orphan Train Rider: One Boy’s True Story by Andrea Warren. Houghton
Mifflin Company. Between 1854 and 1929 more than 200,000 orphans and abandoned
children from the eastern U.S. were loaded on trains and sent to the Midwest
for adoption. This is an account of one who achieved a successful life and
others that did not. Many photographs. Grade 4 and up.
A Spirit to Ride the Whirlwind by Athena V. Lord. Macmillan, 1981.
Grades 5-8. A book about a 12-year-old girl who works in a Massachusetts
factory during the Industrial Revolution and gets caught up in the organizing
of women workers.
Ending U.S. Intervention
*Amifika by Lucille Clifton. Dutton, 1977. Grades K-3. A picture book about
a small boy whose father is returning from the Army, a theme of the effects of
war and separation.
The Children of Topaz: The Story of a Japanese-American Internment Camp by
Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat. Holiday House. A diary kept by
members of a third grade class tells what it was like for the children in the
camp. Photos of camp and school life.
First Woman in Congress: Jeannette Rankin by Florence White and Julian
Messner, 1980. Grades 3-7. Biography of the woman who voted against the United
States entering both World War I & World War II.
Latin America
Nilda by Nicolasa Mohr. Harper & Row, 1974. Grades 5 and up. Tale
of a girl growing up in the 1940s in El Barrio of New York City.
*Viva La Raza! By Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez and Enriqueta Longeaux y
Vasquez. Doubleday, 1974. The struggle of the Mexican-American people.
Peace Education (JAPA)
*Alan and Naomi by Myron Levoy. Harper & Row, 1977. Grades 5-9. The
story of two Jewish teenagers whose lives have been changed by the Holocaust.
*Amifika by Lucille Clifton. Dutton. Grades K-3. A picture book about a
small boy whose father is returning from the Army, a theme of the effects of
war and separation.
Champions of Peace
by Edith Patterson Meyer. Little, Brown, 1959. Grades 7-9.
Intimate sketches of many of the Novel Peace Prizewinners.
Jane Addams: Pioneer for Social Justice by Cornelia Meigs. Little,
Brown. Grades 7 and up. A biography of a founder of Hull House and the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom who was the first American woman to
win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Little Fishes by Erik Haugaard. Houghton Mifflin. Grades 6 and up.
A tale of war and its effects on the children who must live through it and
learn to love humankind in spite of it.
Make Someone Smile: And 40 More Ways to Be a Peaceful Person by Judy Lalli,
photographs by Douglas L. Mason-Fry. Free Spirit Publishing. Photo-essay for a
very young audience.
*Men Against War by Barbara Habenstreit. Doubleday, 1973. Grades 5 and up.
Historical summary of the struggle for a world free from war.
*Mischling, Second Degree by Ilse Koehn. Greenwillow, 1977. Grades 4 and up. A
young girl growing up in Germany during the Nazi years.
*My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier.
Four Winds, 1974.
Never to Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust by Milton Meltzer. Harper
& Row, 1977. Grades 7 and up. A history of anti-Semitism and the extermination
of six million Jews by the Nazis.
Paul Robeson by Eloise Greenfield. Crowell, 1975. Grades 1-5. An introductory
biography of the famous singer who struggled against the oppression of Black
and poor people and for world peace.
People Are Important by Eva Knox Evans. Capitol, 1953. Grades 4-7. With
conditions as they are in the world today, knowledge and understanding of
people and learning how to live together creatively is the logical place to
begin to build world peace.
The Perilous Road by William O. Steele. Harcourte, Brace,
1957. Grades 4-8. Story
of an 11-year-old girl, her family, friends, and pets in a theme of mutual
faith and understanding.
*A Pocket Full of Seeds by Marilyn Sachs. Doubleday, 1973. Grades 5 and up. Story
of a young Jewish girl searching for a place to live in Vichy France when her
family is taken to a Nazi concentration camp.
The Princess and the Admiral by Charlotte Pomerantz.
Addison-Wesley, 1974.
Grades K-4. Based on an old Vietnamese legend, the tale of a princess who
outwits an admiral and averts war.
Rainbow Round the World by Elizabeth Yates. Bobbs-Merrill,
1954. Grades 5-7.
Story of a young boy who travels around the world to see the work of UNICEF
and finds friendship with children around the world.
*Song of the Trees by Mildred D. Taylor. Dial, 1975. Grades 4-7. The story of
giant trees, the coming of the lumbermen, and the events that followed.
*The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss. Crowell, 1972. Grades 5-9. Story of two
Jewish sisters who were separated from their family during the Nazi occupation
of Holland and hidden in a small room on an isolated farm.
*The Wheel of King Asoka by Ashok Davar. Follett, 1977. Grades K-4. An emperor of
India about 2,000 years ago decides that war is wrong and spreads the message
of peace.
*Woman From Hiroshima by Toshio Mori. Ishthmus, 1979. Grades 4-8. A first-person
tale of life in Japan before the bomb and of learning to adjust to a new life
in California.
*Z is for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien. Atheneum, 1975. Grades 5-9. An account
of the effect of nuclear war on a young woman caught up in loneliness and
terror.
Racial Justice and Human Rights
Alan and Naomi by Myron Levoy. Harper & Row, 1977. Grades 5-9. The story of
two Jewish teenagers whose lives have been changed by the Holocaust.
*Amifika by Lucille Clifton. Dutton, 1977. Grades K-3. A picture book about a
small boy whose father is returning from the Army, a theme of the effects of
war and separation.
The Bedouins’ Gazelle by Frances Temple. Orchard Books. An unusual
historical novel introduces the reader to two cousins whose nomadic society
practices the Muslim faith. Grade 5 and up.
Berries Goodman by Emily Cheney Neville. Harper & Row,
1965. Grades 5 and
up. A story of anti-Semitism, the book involves the reader and challenges him
to keep his friendships and thus break down boundaries.
*Chase Me, Catch Nobody! By Erik Haugaard. Houghton Mifflin,1980. Grades 4-9.
Story of a Danish boy caught up in intrigue in Germany during the rise of
Hitler and anti-Semitism.
Child of the Owl by Laurence Yep. Harper & Row, 1977. Grades 3-7. Story
of a Chinese-American girl’s search for identity.
The Children of Topaz: The Story of a Japanese-American Internment Camp by
Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat. Holiday House. A diary kept by
members of the third grade class tells what it was like for the children in
the camp. Photos of camp and school life.
*Dragonwings by Laurence Yep. Harper & Row, 1975. Grades 5-9. A book about a
Chinese immigrant and his son at the turn of the century who hold fast to
their dream despite difficult situations in a hostile New World.
*Doing Time: A Look at Crime and Prisons by Phyllis Clark and Robert Lehrman.
Hastings House, 1980. Grades 5 and up. History of prisons with ideas for improving
the way they work.
*Escape to Freedom by Ossie Davis. Viking, 1978. Grades 4 and up. A play about
young Frederick Douglass.
*The Eye of Conscience by Milton Meltzer and Bernard Cole. Follett,
1974.
Freedom’s Fruit by William H. Hooks, paintings by James Ransome. Alfred
A. Knopf. A somewhat controversial story of a conjure-woman slave who outwits
her master and uses her powers to free her daughter and the man she loves.
Going Home by Eve Bunting, illustrated by David Diaz. HarperCollins
Publishers. Strong family bonds tie a California family to their native home
during a visit to Mexico at Christmas time. Award winning illustrator.
*The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson. Crowell, 1978. Grades 3-7. The
story of a foster child.
Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons: the Story of Phyllis Wheatley by Ann
Rinaldi. Junior novel based on the remarkable life of the first
African-American woman poet. Grade 5 and up.
*A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich by Alice Childress. Coward. McCann
& Geoghegan, 1973. Grades 5 and up. Novel about a 13-year-old on his way to drug
addiction that gives an insight into life in Harlem.
How the Indians Bought the Farm by Craig Kee Strete and Michelle Netten
Chacon, illustrated by Francisco X. Mora. Greenwillow Books. A satirical yarn
about an Indian chief and his wife who cleverly fool a government agent.
*Let the Circle Be Unbroken by Mildred D. Taylor. Dial Press, 1981. Grades
5-10. The story of a young girl (continued from 1977 Honor Book, Roll of
Thunder, Hear My Cry) and the effect of the Depression years and racial
prejudice.
*Lupita Manana by Patricia Beatty. Morrow, 1981. Grades 5-8. A 13-year-old Mexican
girl enters the United States illegally to find work and faces economic and
social problems.
Mandela: From the Life of the South African Statesman by Floyd Cooper.
Philomel Books. Handsome picture book-biography.
Many Smokes, Many Moons by Jamake Highwater. Lippincott,
1978. Grades 5 and
up. A chronology of American Indian history through Indian art.
Meeting with a Stranger by Duane Bradley. Lippincott, 1964. Grades 4-6. New
horizons open for an Ethiopian boy when he meets a young American and learns
that strangers are not always enemies. The clash of ancient traditional ways
and the modern world makes for a memorable story.
Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman by Alan Schroeder, illustrated by
Jerry Pinkney. Dial Books. Touching portrait of Harriet’s childhood in
slavery. Enhanced by exciting paintings of escapes through the Underground
Railroad.
*Mischling, Second Degree by Ilse Koehn. Greenwillow, 1977. Grades 4 and up. A
young girl growing up in Germany during the Nazi years.
The Monkey and the Wild, Wild Wind by Ryerson Johnson.
Abelard-Schuman, 1961.
K-3. A little monkey helps a group of animals find a better way of life in
spite of all their great physical differences.
*Natural History by M. B. Goffstein. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1979 Grades K-3.
A picture book about the earth, ecology, animals, and people.
Never to Forget: the Jews of the Holocaust by Milton Meltzer. Harper
& Row, 1976. Grades 7 and up. A history of anti-Semitism and the extermination
of six million Jews by the Nazis.
Nilda by Nicholasa Mohr. Harper & Row. Grades 5 and up. Tale of a
girl growing up in the 1940s in El Barrio of New York City.
Nine Candles by Maria Testa, illustrated by Amanda Schaffer. Carolrhoda
Books. This touching story successfully tackles the complex feelings of a
seven-year-old boy whose mother is in prison.
Orphan Train Rider: One Boy’s True Story by Andrea Warren. Houghton
Mifflin Company. Between 1854 and 1929 more than 200,000 orphans and abandoned
children form the eastern U.S. were loaded onto trains and sent to the Midwest
for adoption. This is an account of one who achieved a successful life and
others that did not. Many photographs. Grade 4 and up.
Paul Robeson by Eloise Greenfield. Crowell, 1975. Grades 1-5. An introductory
biography of the famous singer who struggled against the oppression of Black
and poor people and for world piece.
*A Pocket Full of Seeds by Marilyn Sachs. Doubleday, 1973. Grades 5 and up.
Story of a young Jewish girl searching for a place to live in Vichy France
when her family is taken to a Nazi concentration camp.
The Princess and the Admiral by Charlotte Pomerantz.
Addison-Wesley, 1974.
Grades K-4. Based on an old Vietnamese legend, the tale of a princess who
outwits an admiral and averts war.
Queenie Peavy by Robert Burch. Viking, 1966. Grades 7-9. Story of a
13-year-old girl growing up in Georgia. Her father is in jail, and Queenie
thinks the world is against her. The book tells how she learns to face reality
and get along with people around her.
Rainbow Round the World by Elizabeth Yates. Bobbs-Merrill,
1954. Grades 5-7.
Story of a young boy who travels around the world to see the work of UNICEF
and finds friendship with children around the world.
Rebels Against Slavery: American Slave Revolts by Patricia C. McKissack and
Fredrick L. McKissack. Scholastic, Inc. Stories of leaders of slave revolts
often forgotten by history. Grade 4 and up.
The Riddle of Racism by S. Carl Hirsch. Viking, 1972. Grades 7-11. The book
analyzes and explores the roots of trace hatred in the United States.
The Road From Home by David Kherdian. Greenwillow, 1979. Grades 5 and up.
Story of an Armenian girl growing up in the early 1900s when the Turkish
government was persecuting Christian minorities.
The Road to Agra by Aimee Sommerfelt. Criterion, 1961. Grades
4-6. A story of
India today and of a courageous small boy who takes his sister on a long
journey. Through adventure, humor, distress, and beauty, much is learned about
human nature and the strength of love and faith.
*Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. Dial, 1976. Grades 6 and up. A
novel set in Mississippi during the Depression about a heroine who developed
her strength and independent spirit in racist Mississippi.
Stick-in-the-Mud by Jean Ketchum. E. M. Hale, 1954. Grades 2-4. The human
values of social cooperation, tolerance, and acceptance of the worth of new
ideas make this book not only entertaining but also useful in presenting the
essential values of social living.
Story of the Negro by Arna Botemps. Knopf, 1955. Grades 6-8. The book deals
with the part many Black heroes have played in the growth of their race and
how they have contributed to the progress of civilization.
The Tamarack Tree by Betty Underwood. Houghton Mifflin, 1971. Grades 5-8. A
story of the early struggle for Black equality and an account of the New
England Abolitionist movement.
*The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss. Crowell, 1972. Grades 5-9. Story of two
Jewish sisters who were separated from their family during the Nazi occupation
of Holland and hidden in a small room on an isolated farm.
*Viva la Raza! by Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez and Enriqueta Longeaux y
Vasquez. Doubleday, 1974. The struggle of the Mexican-American people.
*We are Mesquaki, We Are One by Hadley Irwin. Feminist Press, 1980. Grades 4-9.
Chronicles of the struggles of Native Americans of the Mesquaki nation.
What Then, Raman? by Shirley L. Aurora. Follett, 1960. Grades
5-9. A portrayal set in contemporary India, of the privileges and
responsibilities faced by young people in a changing world.
William Parker: Rebel Without Rights by John Rosenberg. The Millbrook
Press. The little known story of a courageous former slave who led an uprising
in response to the Fugitive Slave Act. A novel based on history. Grade 5 and
up.
*Woman From Hiroshima by Toshio Mori. Ishthmus, 1979. Grades 4-8. A first-person
tale of life in Japan before the bomb and of learning to adjust to a new life
in California.
Support Funding For the U.N.
*Amifika by Lucille Clifton. Dutton, 1977. Grades K-3. A picture book about a
small boy whose father is returning from the Army, a theme of the effects of
war and separation.
*Woman From Hiroshima by Toshio Mori. Ishthmus, 1979. Grades 4-8. A first-person
tale of life in Japan before the bomb and of learning to adjust to a new life
in California.
Women’s Rights/Ending Violence
Big Annie of Calumet: A True Story of the Industrial Revolution by Jerry
Stanley. Crown Publishers. Young Annie organizes women in the support of
copper miners in Michigan. Grade 4 and up.
The Bobbin Girl by Emily Arnold McCully. Dial Books. Based on the life of a
Massachusetts mill girl who led a textile strike in the 1830s.
Child of the Owl by Laurence Yep. Harper & Row. Grades 3-7. Story
of a Chinese-American girl’s search for identity.
First Woman in Congress: Jeannette Rankin by Florence White. Julian
Messner, 1980. Grades 3-7. Biography of the woman who voted against the United
States entering both World War I and World War II.
Hang a Thousand Trees With Ribbons: The Story of Phyllis Wheatley by Ann
Rinaldi. Junior novel based on the remarkable life of the first
African-American woman poet. Grades 5 and up.
Jane Addams: Pioneer of Social Justice by Cornelia Meigs. Little,
Brown, 1970.
Grades 7 and up. A biography of founder of Hull House and the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom who was the first American woman to
win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman by Alan Schroeder, illustrated by
Jerry Pinkney. Dial Books. Touching portrait of Harriet’s childhood in
slavery, enhanced by exciting paintings of escapes through the Underground
Railroad.
*Mischling, Second Degree by Ilse Koehn. Greenwillow, 1977. Grades 4 and up. A
young girl growing up in Germany during the Nazi years.
Queenie Peavey by Robert Burch. Viking, 1966. Grades 7-9. Story of a
13-year-old girl growing up in Georgia. Her father is in jail, and Queenie
thinks the world is against her. The book tells how she learns to face reality
and get along with people around her.
*Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. Dial, 1976. Grades 6 and up. A
novel set in Mississippi during the Depression, about a heroine who developed
her strength and independent spirit in racist Mississippi.
A Spirit to Ride the Whirlwind by Athena V. Lord.
Macmillan, 1981. Grades
5-8. A book about a 12-year-old girl who works in a Massachusetts factory
during the Industrial Revolution and gets caught up in the organizing of women
workers.
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
1213 Race Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Phone: 215-563-7110
Fax: 215-563-5527
