Nobel Peace Prize

The Man Behind the Peace Prize: Alfred Nobel (True Stories)
$17.95
The 2009 Nobel Prize announcements are still fresh in our memories. With this year's surprising choice of President Obama as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the time is ripe to share the history of the Peace Prize with our children. Whether taught in a social studies/current events setting or around the kitchen table at dinner, Alfred Nobel's name is now much more closely associated with his prizes than it is with the invention of dynamite.

In January of this year, Sleeping Bear Press released Alfred Nobel: The Man Behind the Peace Prize to familiarize young readers with Nobel's life: his love for literature, poetry, the sciences, and mankind, and the bequeathal that continues to finance the prizes to this day -- over 100 years later.

Multi-genre children's author Kathy-Jo Wargin turns her accomplished pen (over 30 children's titles) to the task of relating Nobel's life and accomplishments to primary-aged readers. Using vivid, action filled prose; Wargin deftly sculpts the emotional contours of Nobel's life, clearly displaying his idealism, work-ethic, and loneliness despite his great wealth.

Following Nobel through his early experiments with nitroglycerin, his blasting-cap explosive model, the loss of his brother Emil and four workers in a workshop accident, the search for a safer form of explosive, the invention of dynamite, his fame, and death, children will be equipped with a solid peg upon which to hang further knowledge about Nobel's life and the prizes as they grow.

Zachary Pullen's rich, detailed oil paintings straddle the divide between portrait and caricature, as Nobel's larger-than-life facial expressions dominate many of the pages. Wide-eyed-wonder, intense concentration, studious, and reflective; Nobel fills the carefully arranged pages to bursting. Pullen's supplementary "scientific notes" illustrate the simple operation of Nobel's nitroglycerin explosive with blasting cap, and his safer compound -- dynamite.

Intended for peaceful use in the construction industry but appropriated as weaponry, the invention he hoped would prevent wars by displaying the mighty destructive power in explosives only spurred further violence. His consequent public portrayal as a man who benefited financially from war and death grieved him, and no doubt gave rise to the establishment of the Peace Prize.

After reading Alfred Nobel through with my children, my six-year-old instantly asked for a repeat reading. She also pestered me to read the complete list of Nobel Peace Prize recipients from 1901 -- 2008 aloud to her. Simply presented as a list, I was surprised that those who'd received the prize so captivated her, but she insisted, swept into Nobel's vision of a better world.

Sleeping Bear Press' free downloadable teaching guide for this title includes activities in geography, science, math, language arts, social studies, and more, making Alfred Nobel the base for a comprehensive unit study revolving around the Peace Prizes, and issues of social responsibility.

The Words of Peace: Selections from the Speeches of the Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize
$18.95
Now in its third edition and featuring a foreword by President Jimmy Carter, The Words Of Peace collects selections of commentaries on peace drawn directly from speeches by the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. A deeply moving and inspirational anthology filled from cover to with uplifting and emotional messages aspiring to the best of human nature, The Words Of Peace is especially timely and enthusiastically recommended reading in this present international situation of a global war on terrorism.

When I Grow Up, I Will Win the Nobel Peace Prize
$16.00
The boy in this book is having trouble admitting ? much less closing ? the large gap between his aspirations and his everyday actions. This boy knows that when he¡Çs older he will love his neighbor, but for now he¡Çs all too happy to pick on his sister. This boy even knows that one day he will be given the Nobel Peace Prize: for standing up to bullies, helping the poor, protecting animals and the environment ? for all his good deeds. But with his bold claims continually contrasted by pictures that tell a very different story, even this boy eventually has to admit it¡Çs time to stop boasting and take the first step.
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With cheeky artwork that offers a great big reality check to the high-minded protagonist, this book uses humor to underscore the importance ? and the difficulty ? of trying to live up to our own ideals.

I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize Sweatshirt Medium White
$21.95