GBI Top Picks: Our Recommended Books

As Written by Equimundo - 13 December 2023

It can be challenging to find informative books for parents about healthy masculinity and gender equality, or age-appropriate stories for children that feature positive male role models or promote caring versions of masculinity. We've selected these book titles for parents and children to help with just that.

RECOMMENDED books

For adults: 

  • The Whole Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind, Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson 
  • How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family, Sonora Jha
  • BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity, Ruth Whippman 
  • The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, bell hooks
  • The New One, Mike Birbiglia
  • Deep Secrets: Boys' Friendships and the Crisis of Connection, Niobe Way
  • The Book of Dares, Ted Bunch
  • Boy oh Boy, Cliff Leek
  • How to Raise a Boy: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men, Michael C. Reichert
  • When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships, and Masculinity, Judy Y. Chu
  • Inside Out Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives, Joe Ehrmann with Paula Ehrmann and Gregory Jordan
  • Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps – And What We Can Do About It, Lise Eliot
  • Roots of Empathy: Changing the World One Child at a Time, Mary Gordon
  • Why Does Patriarchy Persist?, Carol Gilligan & Naomi Snider
  • In a Human Voice, Carol Gilligan
  • The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, Jackson Katz
  • A Better Man: A mostly serious letter to my son, Michael Ian Black
  • Street Soldier: One Man’s Struggle to Save a Generation, One Life at a Time, Joseph Marshall
  • I Can Learn From You: Boys as Relational Learners, Michael Reichert and Richard Hawley
  • Time to Reach, Time to Teach: Expert Teachers Give Voice to the Power of Relational Teaching, Nat Damon
  • The Boy Problem: Educating Boys in Urban America (1870-1970), Julia Grant
  • The Trouble with Black Boys…And Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education, Pedro Noguera
  • Schooling for Resilience: IMproving the LIfe Trajectory of Black and Latino Boys, edited by Edward Fergus, Pedro Noguera, and Margary Martin
  • Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America, Richard Majors & Janet Mancini Billson
  • For the Love of Men, Liz Plank
  • "I Don't Want to Talk About It": Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Men’s Depression, Terrance Real 
  • The Crisis of Connection: Roots, Consequences, and Solutions, edited by Niobe Way, Alisha Ali, Carol Gilligan, and Pedro Noguera
  • Beyond the Gender Binary, Alok Vaid-Menon
  • The Relational Book for Parenting, Saliha Bava & Mark Greene
  • Adolescent Boys: Exploring Diverse Cultures of Boyhood, edited by Niobe Way & Judy Y. Chu
  • Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, Claude M. Steele
  • Things My Son Needs to Know About the World, Fredrik Backman
  • Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein
  • Is Masculinity Toxic? A Primer for the 21st Century, Andrew Smiler
  • Reimagining Black Boyhood, Joseph D. Nelson
  • Warrior Compassion: Unleashing the Healing Power of Men, Sean Harvey
  • Nurturing Boys to Be Better Men: Gender Equality Starts at Home, Shelly Flais
  • Sex Education for Boys: A Parent’s Guide, Scott Todnem
  • Comment on s’aime?, En Avant Toute(s)

 

For adolescents and young adults:

  • Reaching Up For Manhood, Geoffrey Canada
  • Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • A Guy’s Guide to Feminism, Michael Kimmel &  Michael Kaufman
  • Boys About Boys: The Facts, fears and Fantasies, Nick Fisher
  • The Real Bro Code: The Essential Guide for Dudes on How to Be a Bro, Kim Evensen
  • Brothers, Kim Evensen
  • A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
  • The Beartown trilogy: Beartown, Us Against You, and The Winners, Fredrik Backman
  • Boys Will be Human: A Get-Real Gut-Check Guide to Becoming the Strongest, Kindest, Bravest Person You Can Be, Justin Baldoni 
  • All boys aren’t blue: A memoir-manifesto, George M. Johnson
  • Essential Life Skills for Boys, Ages 4-13: Everything You Need to Know to Thrive at Home, at School, and Out in the World, Scott Todnem

 

For children:

  • How to be a Real Man, Scott Stuart
  • William’s Doll, Charlotte Zolotow and William Pene du Bois
  • Frog and Toad, Arnold Lobel
  • F is for Feelings, Goldie Millar, Lisa Berger, Hazel Mitchell 
  • What Does Brown Mean to You? Ron Grady
  • The Bench, Meghan Markle
  • FArTHER, Grahame Baker-Smith
  • Dad by My Side, Soosh
  • Made for Me, Zack Bush
  • I Love Daddy Every Day, Isabel Otter
  • My Dad Used to be So Cool, Keith Negley
  • The Seven Stories: Planting Seeds for Positive Masculinities, Positive Masculinity Foundation 

 

Other resources: