Here are 100 books that Emily Carr fans have personally recommended if you like
Emily Carr.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I'm passionate about nature, our impact on it and the people who best know how to be its companion – Indigenous peoples. I grew up on B.C.'s west coast, swimming with seals and otters. That inspires me to protect the land and to write and draw about it.
As the author/illustrator of over 70 books I've been lucky to be able to present my thoughts on many topics. I learned early on to do my research and work with rigorous editors. With P'eska, I relied on members of the community I wrote about. I know I'm speaking to young kids so honesty is paramount.
Recommending kid's books means I'll be doing a bit of reminiscing and this book leads the pack.
As a child I'd float my toy boats down the stream and it was always an adventure to see what animals and plant life I met. This book does the same thing. The parade of animals and the sing-song story is a perfect vehicle for young readers to discover the world as a place to protect, enjoy, and involve yourself in.
As with all good kids books, there is an essential balance between the story and the illustrations. Both creators invite readers into a new world where Bob builds a boat and takes us along for a ride.
A humorous exploration of a northern river ecosystem with an intrepid young boatsman is paired with an extended author's note about its ecology and key species.
Young Ben sets out to explore the river equipped with a sturdy boat, some sample-collection gear, and his scientific curiosity. Along the way he meets a black bear taking a swim, a moose all wobbly and slim, a goose with a gorgeous grin, and a heron all proper and prim...but things really start happening after the owl HOOs loudly on a whim.
With fresh, easygoing verse from author Jen Lynn Bailey and art full…
I'm passionate about nature, our impact on it and the people who best know how to be its companion – Indigenous peoples. I grew up on B.C.'s west coast, swimming with seals and otters. That inspires me to protect the land and to write and draw about it.
As the author/illustrator of over 70 books I've been lucky to be able to present my thoughts on many topics. I learned early on to do my research and work with rigorous editors. With P'eska, I relied on members of the community I wrote about. I know I'm speaking to young kids so honesty is paramount.
I live on the West Coast of B.C., just like Deborah Hodge, so this book resonates with me.
The cover describes it as a Nature Alphabet book. It's that and much more. Each letter is followed by a description of different life forms found on the shore or in the sea. And that's what makes it special for me, there's a balance of recognition and discovery.
Reading the poetic writing and looking at the painterly illustration brings me back to my childhood turning over rocks, discovering starfish and clams in the endless tidal pools. Again what makes this book work is the perfect balance of art and words.
Celebrate the Pacific west coast with this gorgeous nature alphabet book.
This stunning nature alphabet book explores the fascinating ecosystem of the Pacific west coast - a magnificent area that combines an ancient rainforest, a rugged beach and a vast, open ocean, and where whales, bears, wolves, eagles and a rich variety of marine species thrive in an interconnected web of life.
Author Deborah Hodge has spent more than forty years on the west coast, frequently visiting the Pacific Rim region, and she knows it intimately. From A to Z she describes in vivid language the rainforest, ocean and beach,…
I'm passionate about nature, our impact on it and the people who best know how to be its companion – Indigenous peoples. I grew up on B.C.'s west coast, swimming with seals and otters. That inspires me to protect the land and to write and draw about it.
As the author/illustrator of over 70 books I've been lucky to be able to present my thoughts on many topics. I learned early on to do my research and work with rigorous editors. With P'eska, I relied on members of the community I wrote about. I know I'm speaking to young kids so honesty is paramount.
I wanted to include a board book in my recommendations because finding books that speak to pre-schoolers is a real gift.
Roy Henry Vickers, a well-known First Nations artist, employs warm colours and clear simple shapes to convey his love for animals, the land, and his culture. Words are used sparingly which makes us enjoy their sound. The story reads like in a poem, it's a sensory experience. Every page is a new setting, often with Indigenous imagery worked in.
Raven Squawk, Orca Squeak feels like an invitation to come and visit.
With bright and bold illustrations by celebrated Indigenous artist Roy Henry Vickers, this sturdy board book introduces iconic sounds of the West Coast and supports the language development of babies and toddlers. From the “geek geek” of the eagle, to the creak and rustle of cedar branches in the wind, to the sacred drumming of a potlatch and the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean, the rhythmic text, vibrant illustrations and glossy tactile finish of Raven Squawk, Orca Squeak will delight the very youngest readers.
The Real Boys of the Civil War
by
J. Arthur Moore,
The Real Boys of the Civil War is a research about the real boys who served during the war, opening with a historiography research paper about their history along with its 7-page source document. It then evolves into a series of collections of their stories by topic, concluding with a…
I'm passionate about nature, our impact on it and the people who best know how to be its companion – Indigenous peoples. I grew up on B.C.'s west coast, swimming with seals and otters. That inspires me to protect the land and to write and draw about it.
As the author/illustrator of over 70 books I've been lucky to be able to present my thoughts on many topics. I learned early on to do my research and work with rigorous editors. With P'eska, I relied on members of the community I wrote about. I know I'm speaking to young kids so honesty is paramount.
This might be a bit of a stretch from the others in my list but I wanted to include it because it's inspirational to me as a creator.
It takes place on the West Coast and it champions living with the sea and surroundings. There is a long history of tugboats in BC and it was something I grew up watching (and waving at as they chugged by). Even as a kid I was amazed that such a tiny boat could achieve so much. It was also an inspiration for one of my books (Tug, a Log Booms Journey) about the fascinating world of logging and tugboats.
This follow-up to the bestselling book Fishing with Gubby (Harbour Publishing, 2010) continues the adventures of Gubby, a commercial salmon fisherman, who heads home to his village on the Sunshine Coast at the end of another long season. His beloved old boat, the Flounder, is worn out and he commissions a Japanese-Canadian boat builder in historic Steveston to build him a new one. The story follows the stages of building a boat from selecting plans to preparing the wood to laying the keel to final finishing and launching.
Combining the masterful storytelling of Gary Kent and the striking illustrations of…
I’m the descendant of three generations of visual artists, a gene I thought had skipped me. However, art popped up in many of my stories when I started writing fiction. In 2012, I published The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob, and to promote it, I launched a street art campaign that included putting plaster blobs on the streets of Washington, D.C. This blossomed into several other street art projects and earned attention from The Washington Postand several D.C. TV news stations. My next two books centered around Frida Kahlo and Edvard Munch.
In trademark Vonnegut fashion, Bluebeard uses humor to juxtapose the horror and violence of World War II. In this way, it is similar to Slaughterhouse-Five.
However, Vonnegut skewers the art movement born out of the war’s aftermath: abstract expressionism. Bluebeard is the story of Rabo Karabekian (who first appeared in Breakfast of Champions), a war veteran and failed illustrator who accidentally found success as a contemporary of Rothko and Pollock. At the end of his life, he’s ready to unveil one final secret locked away in a damp potato barn.
“Ranks with Vonnegut’s best and goes one step beyond . . . joyous, soaring fiction.”—The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous young widow badgers Rabo into telling his life story—and Vonnegut in turn tells us the plain, heart-hammering truth about man’s careless fancy to create or destroy what he loves.
Praise for Bluebeard
“Vonnegut is at his edifying best.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer…
The world opened to me in a safe space when I learned to read as a child, and by 6th grade I regularly hauled home stacks of books from the library and, inspired by Jo March, hoped to be an author. I put aside my dream of writing and pursued other career goals until my marriage to Mark Buehner. It was his career as an illustrator that opened a path for me to write, and together we have created many picture books, including the Snowmen at Night series. I’ve learned that stories are told with pictures as well as words, and beautiful picture books can be savored at any age.
Local to me, I’ve been familiar with the gorgeous poster and mural art of Greg Newbold. More recently he has teamed up with his wife Amy to create a series of picture books showcasing the styles of renowned artists. This first book takes snowmen and imagines what they would look like if painted by artists such as Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso, O’Keefe, and others. An excellent introduction to the painting styles of famous artists, with informative text to reinforce the idea that “not all artists paint the same.”
From that simple premise flows this delightful, whimsical, educational picture book that shows how the artist's imagination can summon magic from a prosaic subject. Greg Newbold's chameleon-like artistry shows us Roy Lichtenstein's snow hero saving the day, Georgia O'Keefe's snowman blooming in the desert, Claude Monet's snowmen among haystacks, Grant Wood's American Gothic snowman, Jackson Pollock's snowman in ten thousand splats, Salvador Dali's snowmen dripping like melty cheese, and snowmen as they might have been rendered by J. M. W. Turner, Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Georges Seurat, Pablita Velarde, Piet Mondrian, Sonia Delaunay, Jacob Lawrence, and Vincent van…
This biography for middle-grade readers and up explains who Jane Addams was and why she caused such a stir worldwide. The story follows Addams' first childhood realization of how poverty limits lives, livelihoods, and health to her becoming one of the most beloved―and disliked―women of her day. She worked to…
I’m a Scottish writer, based in the USA after living in eight countries. I spent thirty years following work, family, and love, and my experiences seep into everything I write—so there are often elements of travel in my books. Thirteen years ago, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and underwent life-saving surgery. That experience gave me a new perspective on the power of the human spirit, and our ability to forge new and unexpected paths, in the face of adversity. I love to read about and create characters that take on life’s challenges and find inner strength they didn’t know they had. That’s why feisty female protagonists appeal to me.
Artemisia Gentileschi was a 17th-century Italian Baroque painter. One of the most fascinating and progressive artists of her time, she was also the first woman ever accepted into the prestigious Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. Her personal life was riddled with turmoil—from rape to torture and public humiliation, but she endured it all to pursue her passion for painting. Many artists sacrifice for their art, but this woman took on an entire city and the Inquisition, and still went on to paint what are considered some of the most brilliant paintings of all time. For me, she is the quintessential feisty female protagonist, beating the odds and the establishment and standing tall.
"Susan Vreeland set a high standard with Girl in Hyacinth Blue.... The Passion of Artemisia is even better.... Vreeland's unsentimental prose turns the factual Artemisia into a fictional heroine you won't soon forget." —People
A true-to-life novel of one of the few female post-Renaissance painters to achieve fame during her own era against great struggle. Artemisia Gentileschi led a remarkably "modern" life. Vreeland tells Artemisia's captivating story, beginning with her public humiliation in a rape trial at the age of eighteen, and continuing through her father's betrayal, her marriage of convenience, motherhood, and growing fame as an artist. Set against…
I have always loved reading biographies: we only get one life, but through stories of others’ lives we get to absorb into our own imagination their experiences and what they learned, or didn’t, from them. Having written poetry since childhood, I have long been an observer of myself and those around me, with a great curiosity about how people live and what motivates them. I’ve come to see that, no matter what genre I’m writing in, I’m driven to understand the connection between identity and place–for me, in particular, women in the southern U.S., and how each of us makes meaning out of the materials at hand.
I’ve been intrigued all my life by the women on my mother’s side of my family who were artists and writers. How did I fit into that familial line, and what could I learn from them?
Honor Moore’s investigation into her artist grandmother’s life drew me into her own examination of that question, and I was deeply moved by her mission of reviving her beautiful, brilliant grandmother’s reputation as an artist while offering an honest assessment of how societal pressures affected her mental health and problems with alcohol abuse.
Margarett Sargent was an icon of avant-garde art in the 1920s. In an evocative weave of biography and memoir, her granddaughter unearths for the first time the life of a spirited and gifted woman committed at all costs to self-expression.
My work has appeared in theAtlantic, Harper’s, andBest American Essays, among other places. My most recent book is Seventeen and Oh: Miami, 1972, and the NFL's Only Perfect Season. I grew up in Miami and as a writer had always intended to explore that wondrous year in Miami—when I was a nine-year-old fan—and I finally did so for its fiftieth anniversary. I wanted to write about much more than football; I hoped to bring alive the feel of old Miami, and to do so I reread many of my favorite books about South Florida. Here are a few of the best.
This noir pastiche is one long joke, a
satire on art, art criticism, and art collecting.
James Figueras, a cad
bachelor freelance art critic in 1960s Palm Beach, is tasked with stealing a
painting by the (fictional) French artist Jacques Deberiue.
Deberiue was the
founder of the Nihilistic Surrealism movement who retired after the creation of
one work, No.
One: an
empty frame mounted around a crack in a wall. The trail leads to the dusty
outskirts of Miami and a bloody murder in the Everglades, but the real mystery
surrounds the artist and his art.
And the fun is in the comedy: "The fact
that he used the EnglishNo. One instead of Nombre unemay or may not've influenced Samuel Beckett to
write in French instead of English, as the literary critic Leon Mindlin has
claimed."
The classic neo-noir novel acclaimed as Willeford s best, soon to be a major film
Fast-talking, backstabbing, womanizing, and fiercely ambitious art critic James Figueras will do anything blackmail, burglary, and beyond to make a name for himself. When an unscrupulous collector offers Figueras a career-making chance to interview Jacques Debierue, the greatest living and most reclusive artist, the critic must decide how far he will go to become the art-world celebrity he hungers to be. Will Figueras stop at the opportunity to skim some cream for himself or push beyond morality s limits to a bigger payoff?
In Heroes with Chutzpah, readers will meet 101 Jewish changemakers from the recent past and present, who challenged the status quo in the arts, sciences, social justice, sports, and politics. Each one-page biography is accompanied by an original digital portrait. This children’s book about Jewish heroes is inspiring and…
I am the author of 180 books for children, including the classic (30 plus years in print) picture book The Big Green Pocketbook. As a kid, I checked out more nonfiction books than novels. I read about stars, dinosaurs, ice age mammals, rocks, animals, and birds. I wanted to combine all those interests into one job: astronomer-paleontologist-geologist-zoologist-ornithologist, but I couldn’t even afford community college. I became a writer of children’s books, where I could be involved in all of those occupations and more. I’ve written 50 nonfiction books for children and believe the very best books being published for kids today are in the area of children’s narrative nonfiction.
Picture book biographies need to narrow their focus on a subject, and I love the way the author achieves this. She could have written about Van Gogh’s life in general, but she used the refrain “Vincent can’t sleep” to describe his childhood, schooling, boring jobs, and finally becoming an artist. Insomnia led to his most well-known painting, “The Starry Night.”
I also admire how gently she portrayed his mental illness by emphasizing his quest to find the colors of the night. Lean prose contrasts neatly with Van Gogh’s free-wheeling brushstrokes, richly illuminated by Grandpré’s sweeping illustrations.
A gorgeous, lyrical picture-book biography of Vincent van Gogh by the Caldecott Honor team behind The Noisy Paint Box.
Vincent can’t sleep . . . out, out, out he runs! flying through the garden—marigold, geranium, blackberry, raspberry— past the church with its tall steeple, down rolling hills and sandy paths meant for sheep, He dives at last into the velvety, violet heath, snuggles under a blanket of sapphire sky, and looks up, up, up . . . to visit with the stars.
Vincent van Gogh often found himself unable to sleep and wandered under starlit skies. Those nighttime experiences provided…
