Hopeful Books?

I am often asked to provide a list of "hopeful" books for children and youth. I have started a list (with the help of a lot of other people). But the list is really books that fit within particular categories. For example, we have books on imagination, perseverence, creativity, and stories of individuals who have overcome insurmountable odds in their lives by using hope. The reason for the categories is simple. All books, in my opinion are about hope. Even the books that are for all intents and purposes about topics that we might consider less hopeful. I believe that books help us to understand what we need to know about our own lives and so I see books as having themes of hope and despair intertwined much like they are in our own lives.

The best example of what I mean by this is the book A Fine Balance. I do not have the book in front of me as I write this post, but I remember the line that caught my attention. It was the line that summed up the story really. One of the characters was asked why he kept on going when things really were quite hopeless. His answer. Hope and hopelessness sit side by side. The hopelessness informed his hope and the kinds of things he had to do to maintain hope for a better life for himself and those closest to him. Up until that time I had kept hope and hopelessness very separate. In fact, I did everything possible to keep any feelings of hopelessness at bay. When I look back now, I realize that I was not being hopeful, but what some would call Polyanaish. I was focusing on the positive. In so doing, I was running faster and faster on the 'treadmill of life' to ignore what was causing me to feel less hope. As a result my life was becoming less and less meaningful.

I was reading A Fine Balance about the same time that I was working on a photographic representation of my hope for my Master's Degree. When I took the time to acknowledge my feelings of hopelessness, I also became more aware of what I needed to live intentionally from a place of hope.

In my opinion books like A Fine Balance remind us that we need hope to deal with the despairing and painful times in our lives. Further, I believe it is how we interact and what we do with books that helps us and those with whom we interact to understand out hope more than reading books that just elevate our hope because they make us feel good.

For those of you who are curious about the themes, I will be posting my list of hopeful categories along with what others have suggested as discussion questions that can help us to connect with what we are reading through a hopeful lens.