Books that Celebrate Fathers
Selections for Father's Day and beyond
Dads aren’t always well-represented in culture. The bumbling dad, hobbling through life, reliant on either his ultra-capable wife or his junior-knows-best kids, is common enough to have become a trope. Even in the Berenstain Bears, Papa Bear often behaves this way.
But for every bad portrayal of fatherhood, there are many good ones out there. I sat down this week to think of some of the children’s books that show fatherhood at its best.
Many books include virtuous dads. Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind. In The Railway Children (not to be confused with The Boxcar Children), Father’s absence and the question of his virtue drives the whole plot.
Owl Moon (which we’ve previously covered here) gives us a dad spending the night with his young daughter, tramping the woods to look for owls. Fiona’s Lace and other books by Patricia Polacco show fathers loving their wives, working hard for their families. In Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne comes into some chapters, interacting with his son Christopher Robin in a delightful, thoughtful way.
Barbara Cooney in Island Boy offers a lifetime snapshot of a good man whose influence spans generations. In Always Room for One More (quickly becoming one of my favorite picture books, discussed more here), one dad’s sense of hospitality briefly puts his family in danger, but ultimately results in a better life. And of course in favorites like We’re Going on a Bear Hunt we’ve got a dad taking his kids out on adventures—just maybe getting a little too adventurous. The Moon Is Always Round offers the true story of a dad walking through grief and hardship alongside his young son, teaching him that God is good even in deep sorrow (in this case, the loss of an unborn baby).
But for the list below, I chose books that forefront the fatherhood theme a little more clearly. They aren’t books about fatherhood, per se, because no one wants a lecture delivered in the guise of fiction. They’re books whose stories naturally honor and foreground the importance of having a good dad.
With Father’s Day just around the corner, let’s celebrate dads and honor them for who they are.
Books that honor fatherhood
This list contains Amazon affiliate links. You can also see the complete list at Bookshop.org.
Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney, illustrated by Anita Jeram
It’s a classic, a staple in every home library, probably already on your shelf. I didn’t remember, until I became a mom and read it to my own children, that it’s the dad putting his son to bed, whispering “I love you to the moon and back.”
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers, by Ralph Moody
Like a male counterpart to Little House on the Prairie, Little Britches follows a family heading west to start life over. Young Ralph considers himself a Colorado rancher right along with Father, and together they handle poverty, adversity, unfairness, and general hardship with fortitude and courage.
Ralph is young enough to get into all kinds of trouble, most of it due to not thinking about what he’s doing. Father handles all of it with wisdom that seems to rival Solomon’s.
By the end of our recent family read-aloud, we were all crying.
Little Britches does contain occasional swearing from the Moodys’ colorful ranching neighbors, and there is one brief scene in which Ralph hears some innuendo. I prefer Little Britches as a read-aloud, enabling parental editing as needed.
My Father’s Dragon, by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Often among the first chapter books an early reader may crack open, My Father’s Dragon makes a good read-aloud as well.
A young boy braves great dangers to rescue a mistreated dragon. That alone is interesting. But strikingly, the whole story is told in first person not by the dragon-saver, but by his son, thinking back to when his father was a boy, telling us with pride of his father’s courage and resourcefulness.
Perhaps it’s just a storytelling vehicle, but I think there’s real significance in a tale that presents itself through the eyes of a young boy glorifying his dad.
Gannett wrote two sequels, but they drop the storytelling-by-son method.
Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (and the whole series)
Pa can build a log cabin and plant enough crops that it seems the family is about to “live like kings,” as he repeats over and over. It’s clear that Laura deeply loves and respects her Pa, as does Ma, whose hard work brings domestic peace to the chaos of pioneer life.
The whole series reads as a tribute to Pa. Farmer Boy, the story of Laura’s husband Almanzo, rivals Little Britches as a tale of boyhood lived in awe of a truly great father.
In recent years, this famous series has come under fire for insensitive portrayals of Native Americans. Rereading the series recently, I saw the concerning statements, of course, but I was also struck by how Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the story of the pioneers’ own confusion, mixed motives, and regret over the morality of what they and the U.S. government were doing. It’s clear that some characters hate the Indians, but many others, including Laura and to some extent Pa, are worried and saddened by unfair treatment. More blatantly inappropriate to me is a chapter in Little Town on the Prairie that includes a black-face show without any such redeeming qualities. I skip that chapter when I read aloud.
Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink
Our list today has a number of pioneer tales, and as much as I love Laura Ingalls Wilder, Caddie Woodlawn might actually be my favorite. (It also features prominently in our Semiquincentennial booklist, “Books that Love America.”)
Spirited tomboy Caddie loves life on the frontier, running wild with two of her brothers. She tends to dismiss civilization as mere fashion and manners (and indeed we meet a few characters who seem to treat society this way). It takes her father—a strong, independent man who earns the respect of all—to demonstrate that one can be gentle and strong, independent and civic, meek and commanding.
Among Mr. Woodlawn’s leadership traits is a deep respect for his Native American neighbors. Caddie Woodlawn stands out as a pioneer tale that carefully represents the nuances of pioneer life.
Diana Johnston alerted me that there’s a lesser-known sequel, Caddie Woodlawn’s Family. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my shelf ready to go sometime this summer. If you’ve read it before, please leave a comment and tell me what you think!
Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Maybe you’ve seen one of the movie adaptions, but the original book written by two of the twelve siblings reflects on their father’s unconventional and highly amusing style of raising his kids. Frank Gilbreth—a real man—was an efficiency expert who laid the groundwork for the modern field of ergonomics, and he raises his large family on the same principles.
Mr. Gilbreth teaches his kids to swim and sail and tap out Morse Code with butter knives on plates. They listen to foreign language records in the bathtub and solve math puzzles at the dinner table. Mr. Gilbreth times himself buttoning his shirt top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top to be sure he dresses efficiently—all with an eye not to speeding up life, but to saving time for what matters most.
(The sequel Belles on Their Toes is equally worthy reading, and offers a more direct tribute to Mrs. Gilbreth, herself an impressive engineer and remarkable mother.)
This list contains affiliate links. You can also see the complete booklist at Bookshop.org, an online bookstore that shares profits with independent bookstores. If you make a purchase through any of my links above, I earn a small commission, which helps support my writing and enables me to continue producing these lists. Thank you!
What other books celebrate fathers? What would you add to the list?
Oh, yes! Papa Bear in the Berenstain Bears drives me crazy!! (Sometimes he's awesome, like in "The Berenstain Bears' New Baby," and sometimes he's absolutely awful - worse than a spoiled child - and the point of the book seems to be that Mama Bear has to take charge and treat Papa like a toddler.)
Pa in the Little House series is my model of fatherly awesomeness. Love those books.
I also love the Little Britches series, though not as much as the Little House series. Have you read the whole Little Britches series? Very interesting. I found especially interesting the section in one of the later books where he works in the early film industry down in Tucson. Yikes. :)
I love the "Cheaper By the Dozen" duo, and find it to be a fascinating (unintentional) commentary of the social upheaval of the time - especially the second book. We started to watch the movie, but didn't finish it. (We love period film from the Golden Age of film, but that one we just couldn't make work. We need to try again - especially since it has Myrna Loy!!) There were some other books written by that family - I got hold of one of them once, and it too was very interesting.
I can't think of any great books that showcase fathers - though I know there are many - but if I do, I'll return to note them down! :)
Looking forward to putting your list of books on my library check-out list! :)
Another book called Owl Moon is a sweet look at a little girls nighttime adventures with her dad to spot owls in the woods. I think the author is Jane Yolen