Mark K. Shriver’s first three books have all dealt with heroes, people he admired either close at hand or from far away.

In 2012, he wrote A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sargent Shriver, which was published by Henry Holt and Company and focused on his father’s devotion to his family and his Catholic faith, his life of public service, and how he faced Alzheimer’s disease with grace and love.

Then in 2016, the New York Times best-selling author wrote Pilgrimage: My Search for the Real Pope Francis, which was published by Random House and investigated what had shaped the first Latin American and Jesuit pope who has captivated the world with his down-to-earth pastoral style and emphasis on caring for the poor and the planet and the joy that comes with living the Gospel.

In the spring of 2021, Loyola Press published Mark Shriver’s first children’s book, 10 Hidden Heroes, a seek-and-find book inspired by the heroism of essential workers during the pandemic.

On Nov. 9, Shriver was named as the first lay president of Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School in Takoma Park, Maryland, after working for nearly two decades in leadership roles with Save the Children.

In an interview this spring, Shriver spoke about the genesis of 10 Hidden Heroes, and the heroes who have inspired him.

“It coincided with the beginning of COVID, when there were so many essential workers exposed to the virus, people working in grocery stores and hospitals,” he said. “I’ve always been a big admirer of people doing good work who aren’t getting paid big salaries and aren’t celebrated.”

Shriver brainstormed with people from Loyola Press about writing a children’s book and after reflecting on his admiration for what essential workers were doing during that challenging time, he came up with the idea of writing about “Hidden Heroes.”

“Pope Francis spoke about the ‘hidden saints next door,’” Shriver said. “In America, we’re focused on money, power and prestige. The idea that small acts of love can change history is countercultural.”

The book unfolds in colorful, action-filled scenes drawn by Laura Watson, showing workers helping others, or everyday people doing kind things, to illustrate different themes, starting with the verse, “Ten Hidden Heroes, working night and day, nursing others back to health until they are okay.” In the seek-and-find format, readers can try to find a number of people engaged in that heroic work, which in the first two-page spread includes doctors and nurses caring for patients, a veterinarian caring for a pet, and people caring for sick family members.

As the book continues, readers are invited to find heroes engaged in things like public safety, caring for the environment, helping the poor, teaching others, guiding people to pray, working on medical and scientific advances, sharing their different gifts when they have physical disabilities, and choosing to be peacemakers instead of fighting.

Shriver explained how his family helped him write the book, as they were all home together during the early days of the COVID-19 quarantine in the spring of 2020. He and his wife Jeanne were working at home, and their three children – Boston College students Molly and Tommy, and Emma, a student at Connelly School of the Holy Child in Potomac, Maryland – were taking virtual classes. “We were all five at home, sharing Wi-Fi and space,” he said, adding that “Jeanne helped with verses, and the kids chipped in with ideas” on heroes illustrating the book’s themes. 

His work with Save the Children normally involved a lot of traveling, but he said as the pandemic unfolded and he was working from home, their outreach promoting literacy in underserved communities pivoted more to feeding kids during the crisis.

He pointed out how the works of mercy that Jesus described in Matthew 25, like feeding the hungry, are shown throughout the book. “There’s a hero doing one of those things at least once,” he said.

Shriver added, “The whole book is based on loving your neighbor and doing Jesus’s call to love your neighbor as yourself, and you love your neighbor through those good deeds.”

Watson’s joyful illustrations throughout the book include a cameo appearance by Shriver’s longtime friend, Bishop William Byrne, now serving in Springfield, Massachusetts. The book shows a drawing of the smiling priest when he was Father Bill and pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac, Maryland, and standing outside the doors of his church with his spirited black dog Zélie. (In the fall of 2020, Loyola Press printed a book by Bishop Byrne based on his earlier essays in the Catholic Standard newspaper,  5 Things with Father Bill: Hope, Humor and Help for the Soul.)

“He epitomizes the joy of the Gospel,” said Shriver. “He loves his work. He sees it as a way to see God in all things and all people.”

Shriver said 10 Hidden Heroes is all about “how to love more and better. People I admire most do that.” He said the book flowed naturally from the heroes he wrote about in his first two books, his father and the pope.

“The thing I admire most about them is their small acts of goodness, my father treating a waitress at a restaurant the same as he would treat a senator or a pope,” he said. 

What he admired most about his father, Sargent Shriver, was not the fact that he was the founding director of the Peace Corps, but that he treated everyone with love, dignity and respect.

Mark Shriver’s mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was well-known for founding the Special Olympics. He noted that “her heroes were Special Olympics athletes and Special Olympics parents, that they were persevering, that they struggled, but they tried. They were supporting each other.”

The heroes in Shriver’s book include people with disabilities sharing their talents with others. “They have gifts from God,” Shriver said.

Shriver said his parents lived out Jesus’s call to love others. “They went to Mass every day. They had a relationship with God, and they treated people with love.”

The author said that although 10 Hidden Heroes is a children’s book, “It’s really for people of all ages.” He said adults can look at the pictures with their kids, “and they’ll show you the heroes.” Shriver hopes it encourages adults and children to discuss what it means to be a hero. When people’s eyes and hearts are open to the heroes around them, they are no longer hidden.

“Kids and parents can have a conversation about how they can spread a little love in their house and neighborhood,” he said.

The book concludes by encouraging the young readers to write about and draw pictures showing how they will be heroes.

On Nov. 29, Shriver begins his new work as president of Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School, which offers a college preparatory program and innovative Corporate Work Study Program for its students, who come from low-income families and underserved communities. The school has a 100 percent college acceptance rate, with many of its graduates becoming the first members of their families to go on to college.

In an interview about his new work, Shriver said he was looking forward to working with and learning from the students, families, teachers and staff at Don Bosco Cristo Rey. He’ll encounter a whole new group of heroes there.

For more information on “10 Hidden Heroes,” go to www.10hiddenheroes.com