In 2005, scholars in the field of character education, which No Child Left Behind requires in all public school districts, added performance virtues to the curriculum, which enable individuals to achieve personal goals but they did not provide recommendations for resources to supplement lessons or pedagogical approaches for creating effective lessons. This two-part qualitative study began with three readers, all Texas public school educators, conducting literary analyses of the 10 intermediate level (Grades 3–5) novels that won Child Choice Awards from four or more states between 2005–2009 to identify how frequently performance virtues were modeled in each novel, on which pages those virtues were modeled, which characters modeled them, and how many of the virtues supported the protagonist's overarching goal. Those results were then shared in interviews with 12 Houston-area teachers of character education whose feedback resulted in a list of suggested pedagogical approaches for teaching performance virtues modeled in the novels of this study, a list of guiding principles that teachers could use to select new resources, and a list of guiding principles to choose effective pedagogical approaches for performance virtue lessons. In the 10 novels analyzed, readers identified 2,528 models of performance virtues and determined that performance virtues were most often modeled with no connection to the protagonist's overarching goal. Lists of pedagogical approaches and guiding principles recommended resources that ensure students' relatedness to the content and pedagogical approaches that encourage student-centered lessons. The literary analysis confirmed that the 10 novels of this study could support performance virtues lessons but did not have to correlate to the protagonist's overarching goal. Interviews provided multiple-item lists that teachers could use to select resources and choose pedagogical approaches for performance virtues lessons. Further research could expand the range of state award-winning books for character education, determine if guiding principles from educators in different regions of the country would strengthen or extend the lists of this study, and determine if, as interview participants attested, negative messages from beyond the classroom demand an even greater concentration on character education lessons that emphasize hope.