Fantastic Mr Fox
by Roald Dahl
Three farmers vs. one fox. The fox feeds his whole community.
For you if
your child needs to see that the farmers with all the resources are the villains and the fox feeding his family is the hero
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Three disgusting farmers — Boggis, Bunce, and Bean — spend an entire novel trying to destroy a fox and his family for the crime of eating their chickens to survive. The farmers are petty, vindictive, consumed by rage, and ultimately defeated by a community that cooperates underground while the powerful sit above ground with their machines and their guns, stewing in impotent fury. Dahl's most purely joyful book makes the simplest possible argument: that the people who pursue the powerless for taking what they need to survive are the actual villains, and that collective cooperation beats individual hoarding every time. The most accessible Kropotkin argument in children's fiction — Mutual Aid for the picture book shelf, with better character names. Note: Dahl's documented antisemitism is serious; this book, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory already in your store, is included on the basis that the work stands independently of the biography.
Where This Book Lives
Same pattern, different era
Different time, different place. The same thing keeps happening.
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The Book Thief
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For the grown-up bookshelf
Same idea, written for a grown-up. Good for the adult in the room, too.
A Young People’s History of the United States
Howard Zinn
Zinn, but sized for rebellion.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Black Women’s History of the United States
Daina Ramey Berry & Kali Nicole Gross
America seen through eyes that built it.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A People’s History of the United States
Howard Zinn
The underdogs get the mic.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Andreas Malm
When peaceful protest isn’t enough.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST