Visions of sugar plums might be dancing in students’ heads right now (okay, not really), but one of the things I’m looking forward to this holiday is relaxing on the couch with a good book. Sure, at least one of those books will likely be a thriller set on a remote island or in the brooding Irish countryside, but I also have a lot of non-fiction in the queue. Time off from work gives me a chance to think a little deeper about my work—because I’m not in the middle of it.
The SchoolCEO team talks to a lot of folks in school leadership and school communications and we’ve found you all tend to be big readers, too. So this year, we started to include recommendations for books we think you’ll like in every issue of the mag. Today, we thought we’d round up the best of the best for you. If you want to go back and see the rest of our recommendations this year, click here.
But enough with the prologue, here’s our round-up of the top three books we loved reading in 2025. We hope you love them, too!
Books We Loved in 2025:
1. Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick — AI is THE topic on everyone’s lips right now. So much so that our Winter 2026 edition of the magazine—out in January—is all about it. Christopher Villarreal, one of our 2025 SchoolCEO Excellence in School Marketing Awards finalists, had this to say about the book: “This book gives really practical ways to get started with AI, but it also has some really thought-provoking segments on the future of the craft. And even though it’s written by a professor from the Wharton School of Business, it's not hyper-technical. It’s really accessible.”
Whether you’re excited or afraid of AI or a little bit of both, this book is a great place to begin to wrap your mind around the technology behind large language models. It’s a surprisingly enjoyable read, too. And click here to read more about our 2025 award finalists and their impactful work in the field of school communications.
2. Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara — This book was a huge hit when it was published in 2022 and no doubt many of you have read it. We’re here to tell you that if you haven’t, you’re missing out. After all, customer service and hospitality were big buzz words—second to AI—in our many conversations with school leaders and communicators this year.
Whether you’re thinking about how to improve user experience on the district’s website, streamline and simplify the various online tools used by staff, or even orchestrate an entire community engagement event, so much of what you do boils down to creating positive experiences. Just as Guidara operated his restaurant as a hospitality business, so too must school districts—especially in today’s age of school choice.
For more on running your schools with hospitality top of mind, check out our podcast episode on Retention Hospitality.
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3. Building a StoryBrand 2.0: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller — This book by a New York Times bestselling author discusses the power of story to engage customers and build brand loyalty. As Miller writes, telling stories is all about connecting emotionally with your audience, but you have to have a purpose to tell a good one. Luckily, as education professionals, you have an amazing purpose—improving the lives of students. Miller goes on to write that in a world full of distractions, it is increasingly difficult for brands to cut through the noise. (Our original research “What Parents Want: School Communication Best Practices in an Era of School Choice” delves into this very problem.) You have to know what words will hook your customers when there’s so much competition for their attention.
“In every line of copy we write, we're either serving the customer's story or descending into confusion; we're either making music or making noise,” he writes. In this book, Miller teaches readers how to create messaging guided by what he calls the “seven universal elements of powerful stories” in order to make more music than noise.
If you’re stretched too thin to tell your district’s story or simply want to amplify it, we have some suggestions for getting teachers and staff on board the story train.
Epilogue:
What’s one book you read in 2025 that revealed something surprising to you about your work?
Email editor@schoolceo.com to let us know. Your recommendation might be featured in an upcoming magazine!