School is officially back in session across the country. And we love our educators — we have many EBYR fans among them. So what are their go-to Eerdmans titles? Read on for five of their favorites, then add them to your collection!
Award-winning author Jen Bryant and Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator Melissa Sweet tell the captivating story of the Thesaurus and its inventor Peter Mark Roget in an inviting and visually engrossing picture book biography. This book earned not only a Caldecott Honor and a Sibert Medal but also five starred reviews. It was named a “Best of the Year” by almost every trade journal.
Before they created The Right Word, Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet teamed for a stunning portrait of poet William Carlos Williams. Their picture book biography celebrates an amazing man who found a way to both earn a living as a doctor and to honor his calling to be a poet. It won a Caldecott Honor, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, and was a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book.
Ten-year-old refugee Lina finds a sandal among the used clothing at her refugee camp. It fits her foot perfectly. Then, she sees that another girl has the matching shoe. But when Lina and Feroza meet, they decide it’s better to share the sandals than for each to wear only one.
Authors Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed (executive director of the Pittsburgh Refugee Center) were inspired by a refugee girl who asked them why there were no books about children like her.
Carnegie Medal-winning children’s author Geraldine McCaughrean offers a heroic retelling of the world’s oldest written epic in Gilgamesh the Hero. The tale of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest stories in the world, ripe with themes that are as current today as they were during the story’s inception around 2000 BC.: friendship, fame, courage, happiness. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews called it “robust, exciting…The most riveting retelling yet of this ancient, ageless tale.”
In this poignant story of identity and belonging, Sudanese refugee Sangoel struggles to feel at home in the U.S. He has little to call his own other than his name, a Dinka name handed down proudly from his father and grandfather before him. After enduring the fact that no one is able to pronounce his name, he comes up with an ingenious solution that changes everything. By the authors of Four Feet, Two Sandals, My Name is Sangoel was named to multiple state awards lists and was a CCBC Choices book as well as a Junior Library Guild selection.
