9+ great Africa picture books

Amazing Animals series... There are tons of books in this series but our African favorites are Cheetahs // Elephants // Giraffes // Gorillas // Lions // Zebras 

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Malawi) ... I love William Kamkwamba's powerful story of inventiveness and perseverance. I like the middle grade version even more! 

Elizabeti's Doll (Tanzania)... This was a sweet look at the fact that we're all different and allthe same. Elizabeti is sweet and nurturing to her beloved doll... Which happens to be a rock! 

Honey Honey Lion. (African savannah) ... We have never met a Jan Brett book we didn't love so this is a fun one! Lessons on friendship and honesty told through African animals. 

I Just Want to Say Goodnight (African Plains)... This fun book, about a little girl who procrastinates going to bed by saying goodnight to all-the-things, really delights my little girls. 

Mama Panya's Pancakes (Kenya)... This is a fun story about Mama Panya's plans to make pancakes for two turning into quite the pancake party. 

A Passion for Elephants (Kenya) ... This one is a bit different from the others on the list in that it's actually a biography of Cynthia Ross. We read it because elephants are my favorite animal and we've come back to it many times. 

Wangari's Trees of Peace (Kenya)... When Wangari returned home to Kenya she was shocked to see how vastly different it looked due to deforestation. She encouraged many women to replant the trees and changed their lives. 

We All Went on Safari (Tanzania)... This simple counting book is full of rich African culture and wildlife for even little ones. 

7 Christian fiction novels with strong grief elements

The Baxter Family books (contemporary)... This is a series about a family and it's filled with all the real elements of life. Love, birth, death, joy, sorrow, pain, triumph. It's my favorite series right now and I always warn that it's full of edgy stuff (substance abuse, adultery, and more) but always with a faith element tied in. 

The Dead Don't Dance (contemporary)... This is a beautiful but emotional novel about a man whose wife slips into a coma after a tragic loss during childbirth. It's full of grief and reminiscence, but also beauty and grace. It'll be depressing if you don't naturally see more than one side of things but it'll deeply move you if you do.  

Life After (contemporary) ... Our main heroine is wracked with survivor's guilt after she's the only person who walks away from a train bombing. She's dealing with a kind of impersonal grief for those she never knew, and she's also working on a memorial project with a grieving family who lost their wife/mother in the bombing. 

The Lines Between Us (historical fiction)... This WWII story is about the mysterious death of a smoke jumper in Oregon and the secret investigation of it all by his sister and best friend. The grief in this one is not as raw as some of the others on this list but there are glimpses of it through the mystery.  

Rock Harbor series (suspense)... This series is about a search & rescue woman and her dog. The first book is full of her grief as she grapples with the loss of her husband and son after their plane goes missing. 

Stories That Bind Us (historical fiction)... This book surprised me in some ways. This is the story of a very recently widowed woman whose estranged sister shows up with a five-year-old son. The two form a beautiful bond through story and the focus of the story is on that relationship far more than her grief. This book almost doesn't belong on this list as a result but there is still an underlying grief so I added it. 

Whose Waves These Are (historical fiction, timeslip)... This timeslip takes place partially at the end of WWII, when a young man starts a project to deal with his grief over the recent loss of his soldier brother. This is a favorite of mine and I was not even a little surprised when it won a Christy award. 

Book-filled vacation

We just got back from a little mini vacation in Lubbock, Texas, and it was so filled with books! 

First, the amazing stack of books we got for $1 each at Mardel, a Christian bookstore. 

This morning we stopped by a Sugar Browns coffee shop and I did morning time at the table while I waited for them to make my husband's coffee + my chai! (I haven't had a chai in 2-3 years and gosh, I had forgotten how delicious they are!) 

(Current morning reads: the book of Luke, Nothing to Prove, Theodore Roosevelt)

4 books I finished on this trip: 

The Dragon and the Stone by Kathryn Butler* (middle grade, Christian)... This fantasy delight is going to be so fun for my kids! It wasn't super deeply spiritual in this first installment but it certainly could be and I'm just happy for the clean read anyway! This is a fast-paced, well-written, engaging adventure that I happily added to our sixth grade shelf. 

Elysium Tide by James R Hannibal* (suspense, Christian)... I'll be honest- the surgery in the first chapter had me feeling quite squeamish. There's some medical description + insensitive talking in the book that was almost too much for me and it took me a couple chapters to get used to the Hawaiian speaking style but this is a riveting suspense fans of detective novels will enjoy. 

Lewis and Clark by George Sullivan (chapter book, secular)... I liked this offering from the Good and the Beautiful Book List, now on our 4th grade shelf. 

Science Book of Volcanoes by Patricia Lauber (chapter book, secular)... This is a simple nonfiction and I liked it just fine. I put it in our 4th grade shelf just because of some difficult names but it's probably about a 3rd-4th grade reading level otherwise. 

* I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review.