100 books like Marathon Mouse

Running was magic to Kathrine Switzer. But she grew up in a time when most people thought women were too fragile to run a race, especially a 26.2-mile marathon. The illustrations are vibrant and the text well-written, with a “Pat, Pat, Pat” refrain which expands as Kathrine runs faster and faster. The story revolves around how Kathrine entered the Boston Marathon in 1967 when it was a race for men only. She was almost stopped during the race by an angry Race Director, who also believed women should not run a marathon. Kathrine persevered and finished! Since 2008, more than 10,000 women have officially entered to run the Boston Marathon. 

The beginning of Wilma Unlimited pulls you in as it describes a tiny girl who weighed just four pounds at birth. As a child Wilma was sickly, contracting both scarlet fever and polio. The story is beautifully written with stunning illustrations. Information about the 1940s, segregation, and the love and support of a mother who had 22 children, is seamlessly woven in. Who could put down a story about a girl who once wore a heavy steel brace on her leg, but, through perseverance, went on to win three gold medals in track-and-field at the 1960 Olympics?

This is another book about Wilma Rudolph, but this one focuses on how Wilma inspired two young girls in Clarksville, Tennessee, Wilma’s birthplace. Alta is The Quickest Kid in Clarksville, but worries about Charmaine, the new girl with brand-new, “stripes down the sides” shoes. The author’s writing is fast-paced with a rhythm to it, perfect for a running book about winning, losing, and friendship. Yes, friendship, as when Wilma Rudolph arrives for a parade to celebrate her Olympic wins, the girls finally agree to carry Alta's big banner to the parade in a relay race like Wilma won at the Olympics.

One of the things I love most about this book is the foreword, which was written by Fauja himself – Fauja, the oldest person ever to run a marathon. Fauja was unable to walk until he was five years old and after he walked, he was still very weak. People were always teasing him and telling him he couldn’t do things. There’s a wonderful refrain that runs through the book: “But Fauja did not listen and Fauja did not stop.” At 89, he completed his first marathon. He ran marathons from London to New York to Toronto. The book ends with the Toronto Marathon, in which Fauja set a new world record as the oldest person to run a marathon.

“Is it safe?” There is, perhaps, no other trio of words in the English language capable of sending shockwaves of unimaginable pain deep into one’s molars.

Dr. Christian Szell’s ruthless determination to obtain his diamonds, no matter the cost, makes him one of the most detestable villains in all of fiction. So detestable, in fact, that I couldn’t help borrowing his surname for a tertiary antagonist in Sunset Empire, who is part heartless physician and part mad scientist.

I love this book because it is the story about a friendship between a Jewish boy, Moses Feldman, and a Muslim boy, Mohammed Hassan.

The two boys meet at a neighborhood market, and they are mistaken for brothers. This leads to their families sharing rugelach, date cookies, and the holidays of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar.

I am recommending this book because it encourages friendship between people of different faiths.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York in the 1940s and 1950s. As one of New York City’s 5 boroughs it has character and even a mystique about it, and we Brooklynites are often very proud of our heritage.

Until I was about 13 the Brooklyn Dodgers were the zany, irreverent, baseball upstarts who sometimes even won the World Series. And they hired Jackie Robinson, desegregating professional baseball. All of this is to say that when High Ryan published his book, I devoured it as it fused my Brooklyn heritage and my queer identity.

Starting with poet Walt Whitman, he takes us through the writers, the dock workers, the socialists, the communists, the college professors and artists, who were lesbian or gay and both shaped and were shaped by the city, Ryan’s archival research is amazing, and his writing style breezy, and accessible.  Even if you’re not from Brooklyn (!)… show more.

I love how Georges and Safer are relatable. Their friendship has ups and downs and tensions that resonate for young readers.

Middle school is challenging! The realism extends to Georges’s family and the challenges he faces at home. But this story is driven by the mystery of Spy Club and Mr. X. Important themes of friendship, empathy, and self discovery are flawlessly woven into the expert storytelling. I read this in one sitting!

Published the same year as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, di Donato’s Christ in Concrete is another closely drawn portrait of working-class immigrants, this time the Italian-American bricklayers of New York City’s Lower East Side.

On top of its lyricism and spirited narrative pace, what I find most refreshing about di Donato’s tale is its choice of subject matter. So much of what we read and hear about the Italian-American experience tends to focus on the Mafia, perpetuating negative stereotypes that have dogged paisans since the late 19th century.

While I’ll never be the one to turn off Goodfellas, I long for more stories like that of Geremio and his irrepressible son, Paul, “born artists of brick and mortar.”

This coming-of-age novel-in-verse beautifully captures the dynamics of survival in tough neighborhoods in a way that honors the humanity and nuance of the community—details that are too often lost in media and forgotten by the people that “make it out.” Through the lens of the Puerto Rican-American protagonist, Sarai, her family, and the neighborhood characters that are all too familiar, I was brought into the heart of pre-gentrified Bushwick, Brooklyn, and Puerto Rican culture to go on Sarai’s journey of self-discovery. We are sitting on the stoop, at the foot of the bed, in the back pew in conversation with Sarai. We see her, we hear her, we love her. And won’t ever forget her. We are left to reflect on what it really means to “make it.”