100 books like Eating Stone

The late Edward Abbey might be a controversial figure, but you can’t write about desert literature without mentioning this iconic book.

In this book, Abbey captures his experience as a winter caretaker of Arches National Park (before it was a national park and before the road in was paved). In 18 chapters that read like short stories, he chronicles long days on horseback, jaw-dropping tales of flash floods, journeys up remote canyons, and more adventures that do an uncanny job of conveying the spirit of the desert and what it was like to explore it mid-century.

Abbey’s writing is blunt, colorful, and engaging, and this book is a romp of a read. 

This novel considers what will happen when the Southwest runs out of water, a very real possibility, especially with climate change, and something I care about as a Utah resident.

It pulls you into the action right away and keeps you on your toes until the very end, weaving together the narratives of a few different characters, including a journalist, a refugee from Texas, and a henchman (aka “the water knife”) who’s paid to destroy rival water supplies.

An alum of Oberlin College (like me!), Paolo Bacigalupi is a master of telling engaging stories about possible futures defined by climate change. I highly recommend this thoughtful novel and his other books! 

You would probably recognize the landscape of Monument Valley from classic Westerns and other films. Stagecoach, the HBO series Westworld, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Forrest Gump are just a few! But aside from a film set, this iconic setting is, first and foremost, the home of the Navajo people.

Based on extensive interviews with Navajo residents of Monument Valley, this book weaves together a portrait of the place and people, from Indigenous cultural traditions and the dawn of Hollywood to mining and the significance of the monuments themselves. 

Organized by the roads of Utah, this book helps you make sense of what you’re looking at out the window and along the trail. This is an essential guide to keep in your car if you’re road-tripping through the state!

Written by the late female geologist Halka Chronic and her two daughters, this book has great maps, photos, and writing that will turn you into an armchair geologist in no time and give you a deeper appreciation for the mountains, canyons, spires, and more formations of the Utah desert and beyond. 

Even now people refer to the parable of the one lost sheep that Jesus told over 2000 years ago—how a shepherd leaves 99 sheep to find the one that’s missing.

With her picture book, Sassi takes a beloved Bible story and adds rhyme and a counting element to the joy of young readers. It’s easy to imagine how “Little Ewe” falls away from the flock while chasing frogs and spying on sparrows. He’s happy to count his new friends and discover the big world around him until he realizes it’s dark and 10 spooky owl eyes are staring back at him from the trees.

Good news, though. The shepherd, like our Heavenly Father, knows where to look for his one lost sheep, so we have hope Little Ewe will arrive home again. 

I love what Young is doing—breaking out of her “college prof” shell and talking directly to us about her life with animals—dead and alive. She starts with her dog Frankie’s cancer diagnosis and wraps her own reactions to his treatments into her study of 19th-century fiction that focuses on animals—like the famous horse narrative Black Beauty and the equally-famous-but-now-forgotten dog narrative Beautiful Joe. Her travels take her through both physical and imaginative time and place—from Beautiful Joe’s origins in Nova Scotia to her meditations on the art of animal taxidermy. I learned a lot about the history of animal/human relations from this book, and I really enjoyed Young’s voice and puns. It’s a great addition to our goal to bring academic knowledge out into the public sphere. 

I love this book because it presents complex data in the most stunning and visually appealing way. It focuses on a subject (animals of the world) that is almost universally popular with children.

The originality in the way in which animal statistics are presented is magnetic—I could dip in and out of this book for hours! Every page is a revelation, every page is beautiful, and every page is packed with information about animals.

My daughter, a children’s librarian, says this storytime favorite is sure to delight the toddler crowd.

It’s packed with interactive fun, with invites to hi-five various animals. “Hi-five a lion. Hear him GROWL. YOO-HOO-HOO! Hi-five an owl.” Each one’s paw or wing is sized just right for toddlers to do just that on this sturdy board book (A Never Bored Book!). They can hi-five both antlers on a moose and, at the end, “Hi-five an octopus, I say. But only if you have all day!”

The final spread encourages the toddler to high-five the reader.

This is a wonderful tale about an armadillo, who loves to hide and spy on other animals and tell tall tales (lies) about what he hears. Cute fable of sorts on why the armadillo has such small ears. The book claims he started with very tall ears and every time he eavesdropped in other’s conversations, his ears got smaller. As a preschool teacher and grandmother, I encourage the children to “tell” us adults what is happening to get someone OUT of trouble, rather than to “tattle” on someone to get them IN trouble, which is not helpful. Through lyrical text and vivid illustrations, children learn that it is important to respect the privacy of others and avoid telling lies that hurt feelings.

Kids get more excited than adults about the shift from fall to winter – new boots and coats and mittens before they are lost!

I like to share in the library the way animals prepare for winter, too. Some sleep, some change color, some fly south. The spare lyrical text makes this a good read aloud supporting themes and units for preschool and Kindergarten of winter, snow, and solstice.

In addition circles details on each page explain more about the approach to winter for children to explore later.