Eight books for a classroom unit on the world's religions, chosen so your class can describe what each faith does without the unit ever taking a side on what is true. That balance is the whole assignment, and it shows up in how these books are gathered: two show one faith from the inside, three survey many faiths side by side, one asks the big open question, one carries a faith through a single person's story, and the gentlest simply names what different believers wear. You can hand a board book of head coverings to your youngest and a photographic reference spanning all of history to an older independent reader, and still gather the whole room around one respectful question: how do the world's people believe and worship? A word on even-handedness, since it is the point. Every book here describes practices rather than ranking them, and where a book leans toward one tradition's way of seeing things, the notes say so plainly, so you can balance the shelf yourself.
The trap in a world-religions unit is the opposite of the world-cultures one: here the danger is not costume-tourism but the temptation to rank, endorse, or quietly debunk, and the fix is to keep the unit describing practices rather than judging them. The books sort into four honest jobs. First, one faith from the inside: Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns lets a Muslim child name the colors of her own world, and Festival of Colors does the same for a Hindu family at Holi, so your class feels what it is to belong to a faith before they survey many. Second, many faiths side by side: One World, Many Religions organizes seven traditions around how each one worships, The Children Book of World Religions lays them out spread by spread for comparison, and DK Eyewitness: Religion opens the whole historical and global sweep for your oldest readers. Third, the big open question: What Is God? wonders aloud about the largest question without settling it — powerful, and worth flagging, because it takes the stance that all faiths reach for one thing, which some families welcome and some do not. Fourth, faith as a way of living: Grandfather Gandhi carries a whole tradition of nonviolence through one boy's struggle with his temper. And holding it all open at the front, Hats of Faith simply names what different believers wear, giving no faith more room than any other — which is exactly the even-handed tone to set from the first day.