100 books like Beatrice and Croc Harry

By Lawrence Hill,

Here are 100 books that Beatrice and Croc Harry fans have personally recommended if you like Beatrice and Croc Harry. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Book Uncle and Me

Michelle Mulder Author Of After Peaches

From my list on kids’ stories about speaking up.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a kid, I rarely spoke up, and I certainly didn’t think I had much influence. As a young adult, though, I came across true stories of kids who stood up for what they believed in. These kids inspired many of my own books, and now whenever I’m looking for something to read, I look for novels about kids who screw up their courage to speak up for a fairer, more inclusive, richer world.

Michelle's book list on kids’ stories about speaking up

Michelle Mulder Why did Michelle love this book?

Yasmin is a bookworm, so I immediately felt like we had an important bond. Also, I could totally relate to her feeling insignificant in the face of big adult decisions. Yasmin doesn’t stay in that spot, though. She looks around at her resources – dear friends, family, neighbours, and a great idea – and realises that she can have influence in the world around her. This book is a brilliant celebration of community activism, books, and friendship that had me cheering on the characters right to the end. 

By Uma Krishnaswami, Julianna Swaney (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Book Uncle and Me as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 7, 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

Winner of the International Literacy Association Social Justice Literature Award
An award-winning middle-grade novel about the power of grassroots activism and how kids can make a difference.

Every day, nine-year-old Yasmin borrows a book from Book Uncle, a retired teacher who has set up a free lending library on the street corner. But when the mayor tries to shut down the rickety bookstand, Yasmin has to take her nose out of her book and do something.

What can she do? The local elections are coming up, but she’s just a kid. She can’t even vote!

Still, Yasmin has friends ―…


Book cover of True (. . . Sort Of)

Michelle Mulder Author Of After Peaches

From my list on kids’ stories about speaking up.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a kid, I rarely spoke up, and I certainly didn’t think I had much influence. As a young adult, though, I came across true stories of kids who stood up for what they believed in. These kids inspired many of my own books, and now whenever I’m looking for something to read, I look for novels about kids who screw up their courage to speak up for a fairer, more inclusive, richer world.

Michelle's book list on kids’ stories about speaking up

Michelle Mulder Why did Michelle love this book?

Katherine Hannigan creates quirky characters that I love, so when I saw True (… Sort Of) in our apartment building’s book exchange box, I snatched it up. Delly Patterson is an unlikely hero. She starts the book as the town troublemaker, bold in a way that I never dared to be as a child. Reading this book was like catapulting myself into a wilder, more adventurous childhood of my own without getting into trouble myself. Delly eventually uses her boldness to stand up for someone with more bravery than many adults might have. (I’d also like to give a shout-out to Katherine Hannigan for including a nonbinary character at a time when hardly anyone else – in society, and especially in children’s books – acknowledged nonbinary people.)

By Katherine Hannigan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked True (. . . Sort Of) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Can friendship save you? The day Ferris Boyd moves to town, Delly Pattison is sure a special surpresent (a present that is a surprise) is on its way. Instead, Delly ends up in even more trouble than usual. The Boyds' arrival in River Bluffs means big changes for Brud Kinney, too. He can't believe who he's hanging around with. Ferris Boyd isn't like anyone Delly or Brud have ever known. Ferris is a mystery and a wonder. Through friendship, though, Delly, Brud, and Ferris discover truths that will change their lives. And bring them the best surpresent of all. Includes…


Book cover of The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library

Michelle Mulder Author Of After Peaches

From my list on kids’ stories about speaking up.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a kid, I rarely spoke up, and I certainly didn’t think I had much influence. As a young adult, though, I came across true stories of kids who stood up for what they believed in. These kids inspired many of my own books, and now whenever I’m looking for something to read, I look for novels about kids who screw up their courage to speak up for a fairer, more inclusive, richer world.

Michelle's book list on kids’ stories about speaking up

Michelle Mulder Why did Michelle love this book?

Just like me, Eddie loves books. Unlike me, Eddie is a shiny, green bug. (Clearly, I need to get over my bias against books including talking creatures!) Linda Bailey told this story so vividly that I soon became Eddie, painstakingly making my way across the ginormous landscape inside the school. How on earth could a tiny bug save his aunt, nevermind an entire school library? You’ll have to read the book to find out, but I can tell you that readers finish this story feeling like we can do anything we set our minds to!

By Linda Bailey, Victoria Jamieson (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 7, 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?


Eddie, a passionate reader and a shiny green bug, saves the school library in this funny, heartwarming tale that fans of Flora & Ulysses and Charlotte's Web will love. Includes black-and-white illustrations throughout from Newbery Honor Medalist and New York Times-bestselling author-artist Victoria Jamieson.

Eddie is a tiny green bug who loves to read and who lives behind the chalkboard in the fourth-grade classroom with his parents, his 53 brothers and sisters, and his aunt Min. But when Aunt Min goes to the school library to read a book and never returns, Eddie leaves the comfort of his home for…


Book cover of Fish Out of Water

Michelle Mulder Author Of After Peaches

From my list on kids’ stories about speaking up.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a kid, I rarely spoke up, and I certainly didn’t think I had much influence. As a young adult, though, I came across true stories of kids who stood up for what they believed in. These kids inspired many of my own books, and now whenever I’m looking for something to read, I look for novels about kids who screw up their courage to speak up for a fairer, more inclusive, richer world.

Michelle's book list on kids’ stories about speaking up

Michelle Mulder Why did Michelle love this book?

Everyone expects Fishel “Fish” Rosner to do “boy” things, which doesn’t include his favourite activities of knitting and dancing. I loved watching Fish learn to stand up for himself, and even more, I love how this story invites readers to imagine a world where everyone has the confidence to be themselves, no matter what anyone else thinks. This book kept me grinning long after I finished reading.

By Joanne Levy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fish Out of Water as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Twelve-year-old Fishel (Fish) Rosner doesn’t like regular “boy” things.


He hates sports and would prefer to read or do crafts instead of climbing trees or riding dirt bikes with his friends. He also loves to dance. But all his interests are considered “girly.” Fish doesn’t get why that’s a bad thing. He’s just interested in different things than other boys. When he asks his Bubby to teach him to knit, she tells him to go play outside. When he begs his mom to take him to Zumba, she enrolls him in water polo instead. Why does everyone else get to…


Book cover of The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances

Nita Sweeney Author Of Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink (Running Can Be the Best Therapy for Depression)

From my list on why people run when not being chased.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a best-selling author featured in the Wall Street Journal, mental health advocate, certified meditation-leader, wife, and dog-mom. And I run. Every runner has heard, "I never run unless I'm being chased." Right. But runners don't run because we have to. We run because we can or, more often, because we must. It's a powerful mental health tool. I also write books: the award-winning running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving TargetYou Should Be Writing, and, available for preorder, Make Every Move a Meditation. I live in central Ohio with my husband and biggest fan, Ed, and our yellow Labrador Retriever, Scarlet.

Nita's book list on why people run when not being chased

Nita Sweeney Why did Nita love this book?

Much of my struggle with any form of exercise stems from lack of self-confidence and poor self-image. In his humorous collection of comics, best-selling author “The Oatmeal” lays out what goes in inside most runners’ (and many non-runners’) minds. Food! Weight! Getting lost! Oh my! By poking fun at this somewhat insane sport that I’ve come to love (which many nonrunners call punishment) and his naming of that inner critic as “The Blerch” made me feel seen and heard. It’s truly a classic and one of his best works.

By Matthew Inman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is not just a book about running. It's a book about cupcakes. It's a book about suffering.

It's a book about gluttony, vanity, bliss, electrical storms, ranch dressing, and Godzilla. It's a book about all the terrible and wonderful reasons we wake up each day and propel our bodies through rain, shine, heaven, and hell.

From #1 New York Times best-selling author, Matthew Inman, AKA The Oatmeal, comes this hilarious, beautiful, poignant collection of comics and stories about running, eating, and one cartoonist's reasons for jogging across mountains until his toenails fall off.

Containing over 70 pages of never-before-seen…


Book cover of Black Boy

Marita Golden Author Of Migrations of the Heart

From my list on why memoir can be both literature and art.

Why am I passionate about this?

Marita Golden is an award-winning author of over twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her books include the novel The Wide Circumference of Love and the memoirs Migrations of the Heart, Saving Our Sons, and Don’t Play in the Sun One Woman’s Journey Through the Color Complex. She is the recipient of many awards including the Writers for Writers Award from Barnes & Noble and Poets and Writers, an award from the Authors Guild, and the Fiction Award for her novel After, from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, been featured as a question on Jeopardy!, and is a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee. 

Marita's book list on why memoir can be both literature and art

Marita Golden Why did Marita love this book?

In the introduction to the first edition of Black Boy, Richard Wright acknowledges that while inspired by his life the book is both a record of his life and an imagined autobiography of all the “black boys” he knew who like him came of age in the segregated south.

Wright’s book is an early example of the use of creative nonfiction techniques that make this memoir gripping, suspenseful, deeply psychological, and a testimony to the power of dreams and the will to prevail against adversity.

By Richard Wright,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Black Boy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe

Arun Kundnani Author Of The Muslims Are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror

From my list on racism in Britain.

Why am I passionate about this?

Kundnani writes about racial capitalism and Islamophobia, surveillance and political violence, and Black radical movements. He is the author of The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic War on Terror and The End of Tolerance: racism in 21st century Britain, which was selected as a New Statesman book of the year. He has written for the Nation, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Vice, and The Intercept. Born in London, he moved to New York in 2010. A former editor of the journal Race & Class, he was miseducated at Cambridge University, and holds a PhD from London Metropolitan University. He has been an Open Society fellow and a scholar-in-residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.

Arun's book list on racism in Britain

Arun Kundnani Why did Arun love this book?

I became involved in anti-racist politics as a student. The first campaign I organized was a protest against a lecturer who had written an essay advocating the deportation of everyone in Britain who was not white. The lecturer presented his argument in terms of the need for cultural homogeneity, which meant he did not have to make easily discredited claims of racial superiority. While the racism was obvious to me, I was struck by how many people believed the lecturer’s cultural argument. To respond to it required understanding how racist arguments could change their form, as older racist ideas lost their plausibility. For a while, I struggled to make sense of this. Then I came across Martin Barker’s book and all my confusion was dispelled. Accessible even as it wrestles with complex ideas of culture and biology, The New Racism shows how, from Enoch Powell onwards, conservatism in Britain has…

By Martin Barker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked New Racism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

localization


Book cover of Burgers in Blackface: Anti-Black Restaurants Then and Now

Andrea Freeman Author Of Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch

From my list on food that won’t make you hungry.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love to eat and want to understand why we make the food choices we do—when we are lucky enough to have choices. I have an insatiable appetite for books that examine the underbelly of food traditions and policies. I have been studying the relationship between food and racism for over fifteen years, and I am still not even close to full.

Andrea's book list on food that won’t make you hungry

Andrea Freeman Why did Andrea love this book?

A restaurant where customers walked through a caricatured Black man’s mouth to enter? A fine dining establishment that advertised itself as a Slave Market? An eatery housed in a giant mammy that sells mammy-shaped lamps? This sounds like a racist dystopia, but it’s not–it is the reality documented in Naa Oyo A. Kwate’s book about racist restaurants, past and present. You may feel queasy about going out to eat after ingesting these sordid tales. 

By Naa Oyo A. Kwate,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Burgers in Blackface as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Exposes and explores the prevalence of racist restaurant branding in the United States

Aunt Jemima is the face of pancake mix. Uncle Ben sells rice. Chef Rastus shills for Cream of Wheat. Stereotyped Black faces and bodies have long promoted retail food products that are household names. Much less visible to the public are the numerous restaurants that deploy unapologetically racist logos, themes, and architecture. These marketing concepts, which center nostalgia for a racist past and commemoration of our racist present, reveal the deeply entrenched American investment in anti-blackness. Drawing on wide-ranging sources from the late 1800s to the present,…


Book cover of Friday Black

Steven Sherrill Author Of The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break

From my list on short stories to send your mind into the sublime.

Why am I passionate about this?

Most of my public success has been as a novelist. My MFA, from the Iowa Writers Workshop, is in poetry. When I grow up, I want to be a short story writer. The dirty truth is, though, I’ve been making trouble with stories since I was a kid. During my first attempt in 10th grade, I wrote a story that got me suspended for two weeks. No explanation. No guidance. Just a conference between my parents, teachers, and principal (I wasn’t present), and they came out and banished me. I dropped out of school shortly after. I reckon that experience, both shameful and delicious, shaped my life and love of narrative.

Steven's book list on short stories to send your mind into the sublime

Steven Sherrill Why did Steven love this book?

Such a rule breaker. A complete disregard for the laws of nature. That can’t happen! I shouldn’t feel so for those characters! And yet, and yet! The characters that people these pages are real and convincing. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah takes us in and out of realities. His world is dark sibling to our everyday world, but even his most flawed characters resonate with dignity, and through skillful well-crafted revelation, the reader comes to understand why these characters struggle—often against societal forces larger/older/engrained—and even when his characters make bad decisions (lord knows a misbehaving character is what good fiction is about) a glimmer of the potential for human goodness is exposed. This a contemporary voice, fierce and fresh, and worth paying attention to.

By Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Friday Black as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The instant New York Times bestseller
'An unbelievable debut' New York Times

Racism, but "managed" through virtual reality

Black Friday, except you die in a bargain-crazed throng

Happiness, but pharmacological

Love, despite everything

A Publisher's Weekly Most Anticipated Book for Fall 2018

Friday Black tackles urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest, and explores the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. In the first, unforgettable story of this collection, The Finkelstein Five, Adjei-Brenyah gives us an unstinting reckoning of the brutal prejudice of the US justice system. In Zimmer Land we see a far-too-easy-to-believe imagining of…


Book cover of You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism

Alex Travis Author Of The Only Black Girl in the Room

From my list on young, Black, and all together.

Why am I passionate about this?

Reading these books has given me people to relate to in a way that I didn’t have when I was younger, and it’s fun to see Black women learning how to thrive in both life and love since that’s not an image I’ve gotten to see very often in media. As a recent Ph.D. grad, immersing myself in fictional romantic worlds and humor has been a great way to unwind but also think through how I want to operate in the world as a (sort of??) adult. These books can appeal to anyone, but this has just been a bit of why they resonate with me. 

Alex's book list on young, Black, and all together

Alex Travis Why did Alex love this book?

I absolutely love Amber as a comedian, so when I found out she and her sister were writing a book about racism, I was all kinds of intrigued. This book is hilarious, of course, but it also highlights the inherent ridiculousness of racism in a way that can be difficult to show in fiction. I mean, how else can you be mistaken for a prominent historical figure who has been dead for centuries at the bank?

This book made me laugh, made me angry, and made me feel so seen. Sometimes, I need a spoonful of sugar to help the hard lessons go down, and this book offers a whole lot of humor to really drive home important messages about how society treats us as Black women. 

By Amber Ruffin, Lacey Lamar,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

*A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND INDIE NEXT PICK*

Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism.

Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe…


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