Peace Resources

Books on Peace

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Adventures in Peacemaking: A Conflict Resolution Guide for School-Age Programs by William J. Kreidler, Lisa Furlong

Teach the skills of creative conflict resolution to grades 3 through 6 with games, cooperative team challenges, dramas, crafts, and music. The hundreds of hands-on, engaging activities are designed to help students get along peacefully.

Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, Second Edition by Louise Derman-Sparks, Julie Olsen Edwards

More than ever, young children need educators who can help them navigate and thrive in a world of great diversity, educators who can give them and their families the tools to make the world a more fair place for themselves and for each other. Whether you’re new to anti-bias work or seasoned in it, you’ll find inspiration and support here as you walk this journey and meet and work with other travelers.

Teaching Young Children in Violent Times: Building a Peaceable Classroom by Diane E. Levin, Deborah Prothrow-Stith

Teaching Young Children in Violent Times helps teachers and group leaders working with pre-K to 3rd-graders to create an environment in which young children can learn alternatives to the violent behaviors modeled in our society, the media and home. Mixing dialogs, anecdotes and theory, the book provides essential insights into the developmental roots of young children's thinking and behaviors around gender, prejudice, violence and conflict. It offers practical guidelines and activities for meeting young children's needs for safety; helping young children learn to appreciate diversity; and providing opportunities and skills to resolve conflicts creatively and respectfully. This rich resource also supplies suggestions for using dialogue, puppetry, games, play, class charts, curriculum webs, and children's books to turn any classroom into a peaceable one.

Before Push Comes to Shove: Building Conflict Resolution Skills with Children by Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Diane E. Levin

Kane Miller is a very small, specialized, independent publishing company. The web site states: “We believe that children’s books should comfort and challenge, that they should awaken the imagination and the conscience. We publish books we think are important to bring to American children. We truly believe in bringing the world closer to a child and the children of the world closer to each other. We want books that capture life’s and lives experiences and present them in a way that will make children say both ‘wow, that’s just like me’ and also ‘wow, that’s different.’ “We search the world for books that through great stories and arresting illustrations enrich the lives and the imaginations of the children who read them. American children need to learn not just about the United States, but about the world. They need to know that they can share adventures, and fantasies and dreams. Because our children will not simply be citizens of their own countries, they truly will be citizens of the world.” Kane Miller offers children’s books written by authors from around the world as well as books in Spanish.

Hearing Everyone's Voice: Educating Young Children for Peace and Democratic Community by Susan Hopkins

Children recognize conflict, injustice, and bias but they need to be taught how to sort out their concerns and take action to bring about fairness for all. In Hearing Everyone's Voice, teachers and parents and children share stories of their struggles to build a democratic community by learning the many ways there are to hear each other given differences in age, ethnicity, gender, culture, and economic background. This is the perfect guidebook for integrating peace education, anti-bias perspective, and democratic practice into your curriculum.