Children's Books

Tilbury House publishes award-winning children's books that help young people build character, appreciate cultural diversity, and explore the natural world. For parents and educators seeking to share and discuss the complexities of the world, our books offer opportunities through the stories of real-to-life children in contemporary settings. For instance, books such as Our Friendship Rules and Say Something invite conversation about bullying and teasing; Playing War offers a gentle, but realistic way to discuss the impact of war.

We are publishing two wonderful new picture books this summer. Riparia's River follows a group of kids who discover that their favorite swimming hole is polluted. With the help of a friendly naturalist, they discover that they can make a difference helping the river that they love. In Sheila Says We're Weird, young Sheila is puzzled by her neighbors—why don't they use the dryer instead of hanging clothes out on the line? Why grow vegetables when you can just go to the supermarket? But when Sheila realizes that hanging out with her "green" neighbors is fun, she starts to see that their lifestyle makes sense.

We also offer "Teachers Take Note" activity and discussion guides on almost all of our children's book pages on our website. These cyber guides include literature links and further resources for using our books in classrooms and homeschool settings. We also have suggestions for using our books for themed teaching or for service-learning projects.

Our books are approved for the California Instructional Materials Fund and the New York City DOE List, and most are Accelerated Reader™ and Scholastic Reading Counts! books.

Teachers will also find that many of our books can work together for teaching a unit or covering a theme. For suggestions for FOCUSED READING for Positive Choices, please click here to learn more.

One of our goals at Tilbury House is to help children become involved community members, willing to speak up and make decisions in ways that promote harmony and move us all forward with positive change. We work toward that goal by selecting manuscripts that exemplify children as positive problem-solvers and empathetic friends. In simplest terms, our kids care. The SERVICE LEARNING movement is all about focusing the energy of kids who care. At Tilbury House we not only want to affirm the goals of Service Learning—to engage students and teachers in meaningful applications of their studies as service for the common good—we want to become a part of the movement. Please click here to learn more.

—Jennifer Bunting, Publisher
—Audrey Maynard, Children's Books Editor
—Karen Fisk, Associate Children's Book Editor

Anti-Bullying

How can young people learn to respond with integrity to the cliquish and bullying behaviors of others? Tilbury House has published a number of anti-bullying books that imaginatively address this question. The award-winning books in this group feature boys and girls acting with admirable depth and decency.

How to Be a Good Friend

Making and keeping friends is an art. Young readers of our books will enjoy exploring the variations on this theme woven through these engaging stories. Tilbury House is proud of these books that realistically depict children navigating their differences and developing new ideas about what true friendship means.

Best for Boys

Tilbury House seeks out unusual books that show how boys can rely on their own emotional intelligence to solve problems, including some that relate to poverty and injustice. The boys in the stories behave in ways that often are ingenious, brave, mischievous, and empathetic. All of these books invite re-reading.

Great for Girls

Inner strength and the bonds of friendship put this group of Tilbury House titles in a league of their own! Young people will love reading these stories about girls who discover new ways to show their mettle.

Helping Hands

True or not? Can just one person create positive change? This collection of realistic stories will provide young readers with examples that show how real people have made a big difference in the lives of others. These books are particularly inspiring for service-learning projects. Please see the From Picture Books to Projects worksheet (PDF file).

How Nature Works

It is good to be green, but how do we pass that lesson on to our children? This collection of award-winning and time-tested Tilbury House stories will serve as a marvelous introduction for children to the idea of stewardship of the natural world. From stones to trees, from the tiniest organism to the largest, these books will help young readers explore science through story.

Animal Stewardship

What is our ethical responsibility to the animals around us? From puffins to elephants our animal stewardship collection explores these questions without shaming or shaking fingers, but instead modeling sympathetic and successful intervention.

Native American

Our Native American books are contemporary stories with messages for a contemporary audience. Tilbury House is especially proud of the fact that our books have given voice to authors who come from tribes in New England.

Multicultural

Tilbury House has been publishing award-winning multicultural children's literature since 1992, when Talking Walls was published. We’ve continued with books about immigration, diversity, and other cultures. (And we try to show diversity in all of our books.) Our hope remains that through our books children will learn that each of us has a story to tell and a heritage worth preserving

Teacher's Guides

We offer Teachers Take Note pages here on our website for almost all of our children's books. The Carpet Boy's Gift and Say Something have classroom suggestions on their last pages. Our separate teacher's guides are listed below: