Faculty Book Recommendations

Looking for some ideas for the book-lover on your list this Christmas? Or just hoping to have some more time to pick up a good book over the holidays? We invited our ILS faculty and staff to share a few recommendations for both children and adults. We’d love to hear your recommendations as well. Share your favorite reads in the comments below!

Kids Book Recommendations

Julia Habrecht

  • The Handsome Little Cygnet (Matthew Mehan)

  • Annon’s Counting Book (Mitsumasa Anno)

  • The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

  • The Story Bible (Concordia Publishing House)

  • All the children’s books from Kloria Press

Abram Egger

  • The BFG (Roald Dahl)

  • Hatchet (Gary Paulson)

Katherine Kramer

  • The Railway Children (E. Nesbit)

  • Five Children and It (E. Nesbit)

  • The Billy and Blaze Series (C.W. Anderson)

  • The Bronze Bow (Elizabeth George Speare)

  • Island of the Blue Dolphins (Scott O’Dell)

  • The King’s Fifth (Scott O’Dell)

Kara Parker

  • Louisa May Allcott (Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys)

  • L. M. Montgomery (Anne Series, Emily Series, Jane of Lantern Hill)

  • Eleanor Estes (The Moffat Series)

  • Anna Sewell (Black Beauty)

  • Jean Craighead George (My Side of the Mountain)

  • Madeleine L’Engle (A Wrinkle in Time, etc.)

  • Robert C. O’Brien (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH)

  • Trenton Lee (The Mysterious Benedict Society Series)

  • Jordan Quinn (Kingdom of Wrenly Series)

  • Cynthia Rylant (Cobble Street Cousins Series, Lighthouse Family Series)

  • Jerry West (The Happy Hollisters Series)

Josef Hageman

  • Seven Sleepers Series (Gilbert L. Morris)

  • A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)

  • Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne)

Gabriel Fickenscher

  • The Giant Jam Sandwich (John Vernon Lord)

  • The Monster at the End of This Book (Jon Stone)

  • Number the Stars (Lois Lowery)

Matthew Braun

  • The Magic Tree House Series (Mary Pope Osborne)

  • The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis)

Whitney Work

  • Miss Rumphius (Barbara Cooney)

  • The Katie Book Series (James Mayhew)

  • The Boxcar Children Series (Gertrude Chandler Warner)

Adult Book Recommendations

Julia Habrecht

  • The Secret Lives of Color (Kassia St. Clair)

  • Saving Leonardo (Nancy Pearcey)

  • To Live with Christ: Devotions by Bo Giertz

  • Anything by Wendell Berry

Gabriel Fickenscher

  • Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan (Sean Parnell and John Bruning)

Matthew Braun

  • The First World War (John Keegan)

Katherine Kramer

  • Rigged (Mollie Hemingway)

  • Gilead (Marilynn Robinson)

  • Cultural Literacy (ED Hirsch)

Abram Egger

  • Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)

  • After Virtue (Alisdair MacIntyre)

Josef Hageman

  • The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Leo Tolstoy)

  • The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

Whitney Work

  • Anything by Jane Austen (particularly Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Pride & Prejudice)

  • The Anthems of Zion Series (Katie Schuermann)

  • Paul Lockhart (Arithmetic, A Mathematician’s Lament)