We the People Bookshelf is a set of classic books for young readers from Kindergarten through high school. Each year the National Endowment for the Humanities identifies a theme important to the nation's heritage and selects books that embody that theme. This collection of theme-related books is the Bookshelf. In addition to introducing young readers to good literature, the Bookshelf promotes understanding of abstract or general ideas through the power of particular stories.
The We the People “Picturing America” Bookshelf is the literary complement of NEH’s Picturing AmericaSM visual arts project. Instead of paint, marble, silver, or glass, words are the media used to portray significant themes in American history and culture. Readers are invited to steer their way across the continent by river with Lewis and Clark in 1802, travel the railroad with Robert Louis Stevenson in 1879, or drive along the open highways with John Steinbeck and his dog Charley in 1960. Through the life and poetry of Walt Whitman emerge powerful images of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln; through the life and lens of Dorothea Lange we witness the impersonal forces and human faces of the Depression.
