Homeschool Gift Guide: Books We Want to Give and Get This Year
A book is my all-time favorite gift to give and get for the holidays, and picking out books for people I love is one of the holiday activities I always look forward to as we roll into the holiday season. These are the books I’m excited to give this year — plus a few I’m hoping to get myself.
For People Who Know the Past Is a Story We’re Still Writing
River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
I’m always looking for the stories that SHOULD be part of Western history, and Sidi Mubarak Bombay’s is one of them. Richard Burton and Henry Morton Stanley get all the credit for “discovering” the source of the Nile, but this book shows Bombay as the clear leader of the expedition.
The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family
Sarah and Angelina Grimke were two of the best known abolitionists in the United States, and their work to end slavery gets a lot of coverage in U.S. History. But there’s a darker side to the Grimke family, which includes both Black and white members (and Charlotte Forten, whom you know I love!). This is definitely not a light, fun read, but it is fascinating.
For Your High School Friends Who Are Eying Their (Gulp!) 50s
The Nineties
I love Chuck Klosterman anyway (I used to give a copy of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs — which is apparently a steal for Cyber Monday at the time I’m publishing this — to everyone I liked!), so his book about the decade I grew up in really hit my sweet spot. Weirdly, it also made the 2020s make so much more sense.
For All the Moms Who Made It Through Covid and Then Realized Things Were Not Actually That Much Easier When There’s Not a Pandemic
Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change
For a minute during Covid, the world appreciated the working mother — by which I mean ALL mothers because the unpaid and underpaid domestic labor mostly women do holds our society together even while it doesn’t get much recognition from the world at large. Angela Garbes’ work is the acknowledgement — and the manifesto — we didn’t even know we needed.
How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing
I don’t know that I’d give this kinder, gentler guide to cleaning to anyone else, but I would really like it for myself.
Present Tense Machine
Such a weird novel — nobody does weird like Norwegian authors! — but funnier and more delightful than its descriptions make it sound: When a mother misreads a word, she breaks the universe into two, with her daughter in one world and herself in the other. I want to call it a feminist creation myth.
For the People Who Feel Like Home to Me
What Is Home, Mum?
It’s no secret that I am not usually a memoir fan, but the genre-bending graphic novel is a happy exception: Sabba Khan’s deep dive into what home means and how it shapes our identity is powerful, profound, and ultimately joyful.
Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra Good Things
Home is all about food, and no one makes food feel special better than Yotam Ottolenghi.
A Good Day to Bake: Simple Baking Recipes for Every Mood
Benjamina Ebuehi’s A New Way to Cake (those custard donuts!) was one of my favorite books this year; the follow-up is a must-have.
Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew
PASTRAMI AND COLLARD GREENS SPRING ROLLS, y’all.
For People Who Need a Good Book
Liberation Day: Stories
A George Saunders short story collection may be an obvious choice, but it’s too good to pass up.
Joan Is Okay
Chemistry was one of my favorite Covid book discoveries, so I am excited to unwrap this book — about a Chinese-American doctor monitoring reports of a strange new virus — myself. (Hint, hint.)
Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
Possibly the best book of the year.
For My Activist Friends
Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America
The past political decade has created a whole new crop of feminist heroes, and Dahlia Lithwick celebrates many of them in this chronicle of progressive women’s organization and efforts during the Trump administration. We did make a difference.
For the Teens I Love
You Gotta Be You: How to Embrace This Messy Life and Step Into Who You Really Are
I kinda wish Brandon Kyle Goodman (who is Black, queer, and nonbinary) had been around to talk to me about how to love myself and respect my own boundaries while still being open to the world and the people around me.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea
This Korean folk tale retelling was one of my favorite books this year.
Light from Uncommon Stars
Trying to describe this book — there’s a trans violinist who plays video game music and another violinist who made a pact with a devil and a family of aliens who run a donut shop in LA — will always fall short because it’s the connections between characters and defiant hope that runs through it that make this book so amazing.
For the Tween Readers on My List
Attack of the Black Rectangles
What can kids actually do about censorship and book banning? This novel — about a 6th grade teacher who doesn’t want to talk about slavery, stolen land, or the Holocaust and “adjusts” her classroom books accordingly — suggests the answer is “a lot.”
American Murderer: The Parasite That Haunted the South
Hookworms are scarier than zombies! This medical history of the hookworm in the 19th and 20th century South may not sound like an obvious middle school pick, but kids who like creepy and gross will dig it.
Different Kinds of Fruit
I am always looking for books about normal families who don’t fit the 1950s model, and this one is great: Annabelle worries her dad might be homophobic because of the way he treats her nonbinary friend Bailey; she learns her dad is in fact trans and gave birth to her. I love this book because it recognizes that the LGBTQ+ experience is a lot more than just a simple coming out story.
Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler
A free verse biography of Octavia Butler by Ibi Zoboi? Yes, please, and thank you very much!
For Little Readers
The Velveteen Rabbit: 100th Anniversary Edition
Erin Stead’s illustrations make this edition a lovely must-have.
Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky
This book is gorgeous, a visually stunning history of the color blue that also decenters whiteness in a series of visual surprises. It’s beautiful — if you don’t have littles to shop for, you should buy it for yourself.
The Catalogue of Hugs
Fun, silly, and sweet (the “Work from Home” hug is the stealth hug you give off to the side when you’re Zooming), this list of hugs will probably inspire some hug names in your own family.
My Brother Is Away
We don’t talk enough about incarceration, and that can make it really hard for kids to know how to talk about it when someone in their family is in prison. This book is tender and hopeful — and a great conversation starter about an important subject.
Listen to the Language of the Trees: A Story of How Forests Communicate Underground
Kids — and their grownups! — will be fascinated by this scientific deep dive into how trees communicate with each other.
Knight Owl
It’s a little owl, but he’s a knight. Come on, that’s adorable.
The More You Give
Give this book instead of The Giving Tree.
For My Theatre Nerd
Transforming Space Over Time: Set Design and Visual Storytelling with Broadway’s Legendary Directors
Who wouldn’t want a peek behind the scenes at the collaborative process of bringing a Broadway set to life?
For People I Really Love Who Really Love Poetry
Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency
Buy all the Chen Chen. You will not be sorry!
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
If you’ve got a reader who’s always ready for an excuse to hang with the gang from River Heights, one of these gifts might be a fun addition to your holiday wish list.