100 books like Tarka the Otter

This is one of those books you’re supposed to have read growing up, but I never did. Instead, I read it during the pandemic—and I loved it. While it’s definitely a product of its time, it still holds up a hundred years later. It moves at such a fast clip, and the unsentimental, often brutal tribulations of the sled dog Buck kept me glued to the page. The quality of the writing and richness of the Yukon world adds to the intense ‘how’s he going to get through this’ tension. Plus, as a dog person, it’s always great reading a story about a dog or from a dog’s perspective. This is both.

At some point, every child is in a situation, maybe just for a few seconds, where they are not totally sure that their parent is coming back. I can still remember the look on my kids’ faces on their first day at nursery school! That feeling is no different for the young owl siblings in this story, left alone in the dark woods when their mother flies off in search of food. 

I love the simplicity of this tale, and the language is beautiful. We often turned to it at bedtime in our house, and no matter how many times I read, “Soft and silent, she swooped through the trees to Sarah and Percy and Bill,” it never got old.

At first glance, it appears to be a book about rabbits but it’s much more about humanity.

Watership Down was my childhood favorite story. Its themes of home, overcoming incredible obstacles, and finding a few good friends along the way are lessons I still carry with me. When I first read it as a young boy, I was lost in the gaps of the foster care system.

This book gave me a vision – and a plan – for how to overcome it. Those lessons apply to all of us and are desperately needed in a world that too often bends towards cynicism and chaos.

Another fox book! Such a wonderful story of love between a boy and a wild creature. Pax’s relationship with the rest of the foxes is so brilliantly told – he longs to belong with them, but he’s still so closely woven with Peter, his boy. The strange, jarring background of war adds so much tension to this story too – no one can be safe. Utterly gripping.

I loved Betsy Byars’s books growing up. Being English, these American childhoods were so fascinatingly different! The Midnight Fox is a funny, bittersweet story of city boy Tom falling in love with the wildlife of the forest – and most of all with the beautiful midnight fox and her cub. But by making them more familiar with humans, he ends up attracting them closer to the farm and putting them in danger – it’s such a heartbreaking, beautiful book.

This gorgeously illustrated book is the story of Morgan, who becomes the Book Cat at the real publisher Faber. I adored TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats as a child, and Morgan was a real cat who was one of the inspirations for the poems. These are his adventures during the London Blitz – in some ways a familiar story, but so moving from a cat’s point of view! 

Technically, Beetle Boy is not told from an animal’s POV (or even a beetle’s POV for that matter), but an important part of the main human character’s journey is that he learns how to understand what the beetles are saying. Young people have a special ability to communicate with animals, and because you are reading this, it is highly likely you are one of those. So, please enjoy this super fun, heartwarming tale, and be encouraged that if you think you understand animals—you probably do. Conversely, if you think I am ridiculous, then I suggest you learn how to listen to animals and minibeasts as soon as possible. You don’t want to become one of those adults Roald Dhal calls “stodgy” now do you?

I am so happy to recommend this series of books; they are all brilliant, but it’s definitely a good idea to start at the beginning with Best Friends Forever. Perhaps you could read Watership Down to get all the sad feelings out and then replace them with wonderfully happy ones. The characters are utterly charming, and I personally admire the way the author handles the POV of humans and animals. If your school has not had an author’s visit from Claire Barker yet, keep bothering your teacher until they give in. 

I’m a big fan of mixing books about space facts with space fiction. So, after reading all about space facts little ones can read about Otter’s fictional space adventure. Have you ever dreamed of flying to the moon? Well after a trip to the museum, where Otter does not get the space rock he so desperately covets, Otter does! An elaborate moon-landing plot evolves. Otter will build his own rocket, fly to the moon and get his own moon rock! Teddy and Giraffe are tasked with special missions, although Otter feels like he ends up doing most of the work. Kids will love Otter’s adventurous spirit, whilst adults may well sympathize with the Otter Keeper, responsible for such a mischievous creature!

This is another series I found completely by accident, but was not disappointed. In this series, though they can speak and talk like humans, the animals truly are and live as animals.

While some may find this a bit slow compared to some of the more anthropomorphic stories out there, it is really a fascinating mixture of a survival tale combined with societal commentary regarding the age-old conflict of nature versus nurture, in this case asking whether a group of different animals—some carnivorous and some herbivorous—can cooperate long enough to reach the safety of a new home.