In the Know | September 2025

Book covers from featured books

To start off this year, I am revisiting the books I recommended last year and offering my favourite read for that category this past year. I will also offer a short summary of the book to refresh everyone’s memory. — Dr. Christian Klaue

For Leaders (2024–2025)

Here are this year’s standout reads for principals and administrators—books that spark growth, sharpen leadership skills, and encourage godly wisdom in school leadership.

  • What Makes a Great Principal – George Couros

    Couros has asked a number of educators to write on the following descriptors of an effective principal.

  • Change – John Kotter

    Kotter describes the process for trying to implement change at an organization.

  • The Hard Hat – Jon Gordon

    This is the biography of George Boiardi and the 21 traits of a good team player that he embodied.

  • The Principal’s Guide to Conflict – Cory Schwanke

    Schwanke describes the main types of conflict that take place in schools and then offers a three step process to resolve these conflicts in a productive manner.

  • Leaders Eat Last – Simon Sinek

    The five key lessons in this book refer to the value of a godly leader: as the culture, so the company; as the leader, so the culture; integrity matters; friends matter; and lead the people, not the numbers.

  • The Pruning Principle – Steve Brown

    The usual experience for teachers is to have more work added every year: add another initiative or join this committee. It is almost unheard of to remove a task from the teachers.

  • What Can I Take Off Your Plate? – Jennifer Handley & Mike Donnelly

    Handley and Donnelly address the important issue of teacher burnout.

  • Advice From the Principal’s Desk – John Franklin

    Franklin provides guidance for administrators just starting out on their journey.

⭐ Dr. Klaue’s Top Picks for Leaders

I really could not narrow it down. These are three great resources written for different audiences:


Teachers (2024-2025)

Practical, inspiring, and full of classroom-tested wisdom—these reads will encourage both your teaching practice and your heart.

  • The Discussion Book - Stephen D. Brookfield, Stephen Preskill

    This book provides the top ten discussion strategies for 11 different situations.

  • Building Thinking Classrooms - Peter Liljedahl

    This is specifically a resource to help teach math more effectively.

  • New Teacher Mindset - Trevor Muir, John Spencer

    This is a book about lessons that have been learned the hard way about starting a school year off right.

  • Teaching Redemptively (3rd Edition) - Donovan L. Graham

    Graham covers the foundations beliefs that undergird Christian education and then translates those beliefs into practices that guide Christian education.

  • Rekindle Your Professional Fire - Mike Anderson

    Anderson puts into words what we already know: teaching is challenging and it is easy to get burnt out.

  • Learning by Choice - A.J. Juliani

    Juliani advocates for students that they may have increased choice at school.

  • Hanging In - Jeffrey Benson

    Benson provides practical steps on dealing with 13 different types of challenging students.

  • Who Owns the Learning? - Alan November

    While this book is a bit dated (2012), November describes the importance of enhancing student learning through student agency.

⭐Dr. Klaue’s Top Pick for Teachers

My top pick for this category for the 2024/2025 school year is: New Teacher Mindset. It was almost a tie again for this category. I enjoy learning from Trevor Muir and John Spencer and this is probably their best book yet. It is written for new teachers to ensure that they start off on the right foot with every skill area covered.

Parents (2024-2025)

Encouragement for discipleship at home, wisdom for parenting, and resources to help families grow together in faith.

  • Getting Back to Discipleship - Various authors

    This book describes the process of becoming a disciple and then switching gears to making disciples.

  • Tolkien’s Ordinary Virtues - Mark Eddy Smith

    Smith reviews 30 virtues and reveals their role in The Lord of the Rings.

  • Street Smarts - Gregory Koukl

    Koukl has provided a way for parents to talk to their children about any and every topic.

  • A Good Return - John C. Lennox

    Lennox looks at the relationship between Christianity and work. 

  • End the Stalemate - Sean McDowell, Tim Muehlhoff

    As the subtitle says, this book is all about helping people (parents) move past cancel culture to being able to have meaningful conversations (with their children).

  • The Men We Need - Brant Hansen

    Hansen describes the six character traits that make up a healthy masculinity:

    1. Embrace the real

    2. Protect the vulnerable

    3. Be ambitious about the right things

    4. Make women and children feel safe, not threatened.

    5. Choose today whom you plan on becoming tomorrow

    6. Take responsibility for your own spiritual life.

  • Connecting Church and School - Paul Coxall

    Coxall describes how we should go about teaching the Bible to (our) children. 

  • From Strength to Strength - Arthur C. Brooks

    Brooks deals with the issue of aging in our society today.

⭐Dr. Klaue’s NOTE

I can’t pick a top book for this category for this year.These are excellent reads that will speak to a variety of parents.

Autobiographies/Biographies (2024-2025)

Stories of faith, courage, and perseverance—these biographies remind us how God works in extraordinary lives.

  • Abraham: Friend of God - John C. Lennox

    Lennox wrote this biography of Abraham to deepen our understanding of the real individual.

  • The Savage My Kinsman - Elisabeth Elliot

    How would you respond if your spouse was murdered and the murderers then invited you to live with them in an isolated village?

  • In Light of Eternity - Mack Tomlinson

    This is a biography of Leonard Ravenhill, one of the foremost experts on revival.

  • The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers - Maxwell King

    This is the first authorized biography of Mr. Rogers and describes how his childhood led to his life's-work as a pastor to America’s children.

  • Peter Fleming - Ken Fleming

    This is the biography of Peter Fleming, one of the five missionaries martyred in Ecuador in 1956 by the Auca (Waorani).

  • God is Faithful - J. B. Nicholson, Jr.

    This is a collection of stories by missionaries about how God provided for them.

  • A Song of Nagasaki - Paul Glynn

    This is a biography of Takahashi Nagai, a professor of radiology in Nagasaki who survived the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

  • The Tears of My Soul - Sokreaksa S. Himm

    This is an autobiography of Sokreaksa Himm, a Cambodian whose large family was wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.

⭐ Dr. Klaue’s Top Pick

My top pick for this category for the 2024/2025 school year is: A Song of Nagasaki because of the extra-ordinary circumstances it describes: a survivor of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki who ends up leading many other Japanese to Christ because of how he responded to this event.