Behind the Scenes of Our New Peace Child Book

Have you heard the Sawi story?

Many people knew Pioneers-USA President Steve Richardson first as the son of Don Richardson, author of the bestselling mission book, Peace Child. The book sold more than 400,000 copies and was published in more than two dozen languages, with a condensed version and a popular film reaching millions more.

Peace Child was the first of several books Don Richardson wrote to show Christians how God has left His mark on the world’s cultures, signs that point the way to Christ. For the Sawi, it was a unique strategy for making peace between villages at war. When Don first encountered this tradition, he realized it was the answer to many prayers. Not only did it open the way for the Sawi to live in peace with each other, but it also helped them understand what God had done for them by sending Jesus into the world.

Steve has now written his own account of the people he grew up with more than 50 years ago. Since he wrote it to read aloud to children, it needed great pictures to bring the story to life. Maxine, who has worked with Steve on other projects, helped refine and test the material. And William Carey Publishing, preparing to launch a new line of books for kids, stepped in to publish it. But what about the illustrations?

Sarah heard the story and helped tell it for new audiences.

The Peace Child story wasn’t new to illustrator Sarah Nunnally. She first heard it at a Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course nearly a decade ago. “Throughout that class, we were incredibly moved and ended up being offered roles overseas,” Sarah explains. “Six months later, we moved to South Asia and spent almost nine years raising our family there. They were truly the glory days for us.”

God led the Nunnallys back to the U.S. earlier this year, but when Sarah first got an email about the Peace Child picture book, they were traveling in Southeast Asia—the very region where the events took place. Would she be interested in illustrating the book?

“What an honor,” she says. “It was such a great way for me personally to feel like I could be a part of what God’s doing around the world by inspiring kids through the story of Peace Child.”

And she loved Steve’s account. “If you’ve seen the book, you know. It is such a gem of a children’s book, and it’s so, so special to be able to share with our own kids the real-life things that God has done and will do again.”

Sarah had to picture Sawi life.

The project had its challenges. At one point, Steve and Maxine told Sarah that when Sawi villagers were pondering something important, they would rub their elbows. Could that be included in the illustrations? Sarah pictured the Sawi rubbing their elbows together like Eskimos rubbing noses. It wasn’t until she sent in her first pictures of this that she discovered she’d misunderstood the idea. The Sawi rub their own elbows much as someone might stroke their chin in thought.

Sarah was also honored to illustrate Steve’s parents, Don and Carol Richardson. She’d seen pictures of them. But now her job was to portray them artistically. The resulting images are a great tribute to the couple, both of whom have passed away.

Then there was the question of how to draw the towering Sawi houses, raised on stilts above the riverbanks and jungle landscape. “Every single time we talked, they said, ‘The tree houses need to be higher. The tree houses need to be higher. The tree houses need to be higher!’ And if you have seen a picture of those tree houses, they are dangerously high! By the end of this whole process, I hope we represented that well.”

As an illustrator, Sarah soaked in the story and shared it with her own kids long before the book was publicly available. Now, she says, “Perfect Peace Child is one of our favorite nighttime books. My son loves that he can find the lizard on every page, and I love that I drew that lizard.”

Read Perfect Peace Child.

Love Sarah’s artwork? We sure do. Check out her website. Another new book, Every Nation, encourages families everywhere to see God’s glory in the places and people of the world and will be followed by a sequel, Every Neighbor, in early 2026.

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