Here are 100 books that Blackout fans have personally recommended if you like
Blackout.
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I have always loved animals and felt a deep empathy for every living creature. But it wasn’t until the COVID lockdown that I truly connected with them. Locked up with a partner, a boy, two dogs, and three cats in a small house with a yard, I realized that it's not just us taking care of them—they're doing their best to take care of us, too. Trained in art since childhood by my mom, it was during the COVID lockdown that I began to draw our furry companions in earnest. I spent every waking hour capturing their funny and endearing moments, ultimately putting it all together in a picture book.
This book immediately conquered my heart with its unique illustration style. The artwork is so captivating that you can get lost in it with your young reader, discovering new exciting details every time you look.
This charming tale of a dog's day out in the city is something both children and adults can relate to. I love how it teaches empathy for the dog's feelings without ever explicitly saying it, letting the pictures truly tell the story.
The book takes us on a delightful journey through New York City and to the beach, beautifully capturing the lives of a dog and his human in the bustling city.
4
authors picked
Hot Dog
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE 2023 CALDECOTT MEDAL • This glowing and playful picture book features an overheated—and overwhelmed—pup who finds his calm with some sea, sand, and fresh air. Destined to become a classic!
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • New York Public Library
“An utter joy from beginning to end!” —Sophie Blackall, two-time Caldecott Medal winner
This hot dog has had enough of summer in the city! Enough of sizzling sidewalks, enough of wailing sirens, enough of people's feet right in…
I’ve been a writer all my life in one form or another, and I love to observe the world around me and the people in it. I’ve had a fascination with dusk, in particular, since I was a child. I remember having the most adventurous time playing with my sister and our neighborhood friends after dinner in the summertime and soaking in everything that time of day had to offer—from the beautiful colors of the sunset to the croaking toads to the smell of the freshly cut grass. Each time of day—sunrise to midnight—offers a sensory overload if you are open to it. These books I have recommended dive into that delight.
This is the new bedtime book for all, as it perfectly captures the sounds that might happen at night when you are trying to fall asleep in the city.
Families in a red brick building are fast asleep until a baby wakes up crying, and then mayhem ensues with a loud parrot, a game of flashlight tag, and a car alarm set off by a cat. Now that everyone is awake, it’s time to settle back to bed with the more soothing sounds of the night. My family can relate to these city sounds, as they were raised near downtown Austin.
A fresh, urban take on bedtime stories in the spirit of The House That Jack Built and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, from debut author Anne Wynter and Caldecott Honoree Oge Mora.
Everybody in the red brick building was asleep. Until . . .
WaaaAAH!
Rraak! Wake up!
Pitter patter STOMP!
Pssheew!
A chain reaction of noises wakes up several children (and a cat) living in an apartment building. But it's late in the night, so despite the disturbances, one by one, the building's inhabitants return to their beds-this time with a new set of sounds to lull them to sleep.
I’ve been a writer all my life in one form or another, and I love to observe the world around me and the people in it. I’ve had a fascination with dusk, in particular, since I was a child. I remember having the most adventurous time playing with my sister and our neighborhood friends after dinner in the summertime and soaking in everything that time of day had to offer—from the beautiful colors of the sunset to the croaking toads to the smell of the freshly cut grass. Each time of day—sunrise to midnight—offers a sensory overload if you are open to it. These books I have recommended dive into that delight.
If the title doesn’t grab your interest, then open the book.
This story focuses on the subtle and simple sounds that you may hear during the beginning of a day. The illustrations evoke all things sunrise and the words match with their lyrical flow and call to action. This book will encourage everyone, even late sleepers like me, to throw off their covers, jump out of bed, and see what the day has to offer.
This beautiful companion to What Color Is Night? helps children explore and celebrate their morning routines.
At the first morning light, everything is quiet. Or is it?
Listen.
Welcome the day by exploring the subtle wonders-and exciting sounds-of the morning with this lyrical and picturesque story.
In the first morning light, all might seem quiet. In this companion to What Color Is Night?
Grant Snider explores the sounds-and silences-of morning. Ending in an
inspiring call to action-to toss off the covers, throw open the window,
and fill the world with your song-this uplifting book is sure to help
families feel…
I’ve been a writer all my life in one form or another, and I love to observe the world around me and the people in it. I’ve had a fascination with dusk, in particular, since I was a child. I remember having the most adventurous time playing with my sister and our neighborhood friends after dinner in the summertime and soaking in everything that time of day had to offer—from the beautiful colors of the sunset to the croaking toads to the smell of the freshly cut grass. Each time of day—sunrise to midnight—offers a sensory overload if you are open to it. These books I have recommended dive into that delight.
In this wordless picture book, a young child comes out of his tent to find his boot all with the help of a trusty flashlight.
Then he begins to explore the wilderness at night, shining his flashlight on various animals and plants. It’s like another world is revealed. This story is playful and full of opportunities to seek and find all the amazing nocturnal creatures that enjoy the cover of darkness. At our current home, we have lots of nocturnal animals lurking around. Time to get out the flashlight!
Inside a tent it's cozy. But what is going on outside? Is it dark? Is it scary? Not if you have your trusty flashlight! Told solely through images and using a spare yet dramatic palette, artist Lizi Boyd has crafted a masterful exploration of night, nature, and art. Both lyrical and humorous, this visual poem-like the flashlight beam itself-reveals that there is magic in the darkness. We just have to look for it.
There’s something about a horror story set in the winter, especially with characters stuck in a snowstorm, that makes it more chilling to me. My first novel, Ancient Enemy, was inspired by my love of horror set in the dead of winter. If you haven’t read these books on my list, I hope you’ll check them out. It was difficult narrowing the list down to just five – I can think of so many other great winter-themed horror novels.
While not technically a horror novel, this book paints a scary possibility – an unflinching look at what a nationwide blackout in the middle of winter would be like, focusing on a group of people in an apartment building in Manhattan. They are trapped, trying to find food, trying to stay warm, trying to survive. Loved this book. I always recommend this one.
The incredibly realistic story of one family's struggle to survive the apocalyptic destruction of New York. GoodReads Award winning million-copy international bestseller now in development with NETFLIX.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Shows how dangerous our transition to an interconnected infrastructure has become." —Karic Allega, Joint Military Cyber Command, US NAVY
New York goes dark in the dead of winter... A terrifying mystery begins... But who is the enemy?
Mike Mitchell is an average New Yorker struggling just to keep his family together and take care of his two-year-old son when a string of disasters shreds the bustling city around…
I worked as an industrial electrician for over two decades. At one point during a meeting to discuss an upcoming project, a question was posed about the delivery time of a specific piece of equipment. When the answer was given that it would be about a year away, it got me thinking: what if a specialized piece of equipment—critical to the grid and with an equally long lead time—was destroyed, how would the grid survive? More importantly; how would we survive? That single statement was the spark that ignited the fire in me to learn all about the grid, and to write Dark State.
I chose Outage by Ellisa Barr because it came from a unique viewpoint with regards to an attack that brings down an electrical grid; namely, a young person’s perspective. While other novels about grid attacks primarily have adults as a protagonist, Outage tackles the topic from a younger person’s frame of reference, along with all the unique adolescent problems that come with it.
And while the temptation would be for the main character, an adolescent girl, to become a courageous and seasoned adult overnight, the author wisely takes her time and sets us on a journey of a slower evolution. While not containing any revelatory information about what elements of a society beset with no electricity would have to endure, I still liked this book as it reminded me to not always see things from my adult perspective.
When fifteen-year-old Dee is left at her grandpa's farm in rural Washington, she thinks her life is over. She may be right.
An electromagnetic-pulse attack has destroyed the country's power grid, sending the United States back to the Dark Ages. Now Dee and Grandpa must face a world without electricity and clean water-let alone cell phones and the Internet-as well as the chaos brought on by this sudden catastrophe. Soon their town begins to collapse as disease and lawlessness run rampant. With handsome, troubled Mason and friendly boy-next-door Hyrum at her side, Dee fights to survive and deals with a…
I lived in small towns with “ordinary” people most of my life, so books where people from small towns contend with situations beyond the ordinary fascinate me. I also served in the US Army as a nuclear, biological, and chemical operations specialist and am a military history buff, so anything with a military spin is all that more engaging for me and I developed a morbid fascination for just how easy it would be for us to end civilization as we know it. Therefore, military science fiction and post-apocalyptic fiction are among my favorite genres.
Unlike the typical post-apocalyptic fare of nuclear war or other identifiable disasters, Dies the Fire posits an interesting question: What if everything just stops working? Everything we rely on to drive modern society, from combustion to electricity, fails. Against this backdrop, a cast of characters from varied backgrounds all must struggle to adapt to this new reality. Civilization falls apart, and new orders spring up in their place. What drew me most to this was the different ways in which the characters responded to this situation. Some seek simply to survive, while others seek to exploit this new reality for their own gains at the expense of others.
S. M. Stirling presents his first Novel of the Change, the start of the New York Times bestselling postapocalyptic saga set in a world where all technology has been rendered useless.
The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and fuels inoperable—and plunged the world into a dark age humanity was unprepared to face...
Michael Pound was flying over Idaho en route to the holiday home of his passengers when the plane’s engines inexplicably died, forcing a less than perfect landing in the wilderness. And…
I am an author who also penned a novel during the pandemic, with a timeline that stretched into the first six months of the pandemic–against the advice of my agent and the publishing industry at large. I know many authors choose not to write about intense political and social happenings, but that “life will never be the same again” feeling was something I couldn’t avoid. The pandemic threw people together and kept us apart at the same time. I was intensely interested in its incubator effect as well as the silo aspect quarantining had on all of our lives.
The opening of this book knocked me out, and I was hooked.
I usually veer toward literary, slower, familial dramas, but this book combined what I love in literary family dynamics with the frightening premise of an inexplicable disaster occurring in the outside world. The suspicion we were quick to possess about others during the early days of the pandemic is heightened to a new level with two couples pitted against each other, one preoccupied with the welfare and antics of their children.
I loved the construct that had even spouses second-guessing each other. The intensity of the situation brought out the worst and eventually the better sides of all the characters, a phenomenon that resonated as I read this book during the first year of the pandemic, at the same time rioters invaded our nation’s capital.
I’m a Canadian writer living in southern British Columbia. When I was young, most people thought I was too small and frail to do awesome things. It wasn’t until I got older that I began to understand that my love for wild places and adventures was at the heart of who I was, and I began to see that I was much stronger than I thought. These days, I hike, climb, kayak, cross-country ski, and snowshoe – anything that gets me outside in nature. And I've done some awesome things out there! I want to change the way people see nature, not as something to be conquered, but to be treated with affection and respect.
I’ve read post-apocalyptic novels for adults, but I know that children have even more reason for anxiety about potential present-day disasters.
96 Miles is a survival novel for readers aged 9-12 that appealed to me because the disaster is a believable, wide-scale power outage. The setting is identifiably now, and it takes place on a lonely road in the desert in Nevada.
The book is a page-turner, but there’s also a sense of hope that kept me reading. The four children pool their resources: food, water, knowledge, and maybe most importantly, emotional support. Their teamwork and a few practical survival skills keep them going when many adults would have given up.
21 days without power. 2 brothers on a desperate trek. 72 hours before time runs out...
The Lockwood brothers are supposed to be able to survive anything. Their dad, a hardcore believer in self-reliance, has stockpiled enough food and water at their isolated Nevada home to last for months. But when they are robbed of all their supplies during a massive blackout while their dad is out of town, John and Stew must walk 96 miles in the stark desert sun to get help. Along the way, they’re forced to question their dad’s insistence on self-reliance and ask just what…
I have always believed that everyone has a story to tell. I have connected to people throughout my life because I chose to sit, listen, and share stories. I do this in my own neighborhood and on my travels worldwide. I do it with people I don’t have anything in common with and people I think I might not like. Every time, without exception, I learn something. Often, I am inspired. These experiences have tested and grown my compassion, empathy, kindness, and understanding capacity. I suppose this is why I love reading. It’s like meeting strangers and sharing stories.
In the voice of her little girl self, Karr masterfully tells of her fractured childhood. Innocent, vulnerable, and pure, Karr describes life with her sister, a mentally ill, alcoholic mother, and a mostly absent father as only a child can.
She is sure life isn’t supposed to be this way, but without any responsible adults, she doesn’t really know how it should be. It’s beautifully written. I found myself rereading sentences and underlining my favorites. I wanted to read everything about Mary Karr when I had finished.
#4 on The New York Times' list of The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years
The New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of a hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation
"Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet's ear." -Oprah.com
The Liars' Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr's comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J.…
