63 books like Fearless

McDunn covers a lot of ground in her heartwarming novel about Elliott, an aspiring young cook who finds refuge in the kitchen. Elliott struggles with ADHD, his best friend has moved away, and his dad and stepmom are getting ready to welcome their new baby. Everything feels chaotic and difficult—and it only gets worse when Elliott has to team up with the popular and wicked-smart Maribel for a huge school project.

Sure, there are some pretty big obstacles for Elliott to overcome in Honestly Elliott, but I love that his voice is unwavering and brave, and his journey from sesame noodles to “desperation pies” (cool historical reference alert!) is nothing short of delightful. 

Janowitz’s romp of a story centers on twelve-year-old Tristan, who loves reading cookbooks and making desserts. Life is sweet—until Tristan’s parents announce they’re leaving New York City and moving to the middle of nowhere. When he learns there are zero bakeries in his new town, Tristan pledges to bring back the famous Petersville chocolate cream doughnut, which sets him on an unexpected and entertaining adventure. He learns how to craft a business plan, buy ingredients in bulk, and manage demanding customers.

Spoiler alert number one: l like that even though Tristan nails the renowned doughnut, he puts his own delicious spin on things. Spoiler alert number two: this book will make you very hungry. Prepare accordingly.

Stamper’s tender, touching novel introduces readers to thirteen-year-old Eli, a Minnesota native who has relocated to New York City with his anxiety-ridden father. Struggling with the recent loss of his mom, Eli desperately wants to watch her old instructional cooking videos on YouTube. Still, his clueless (and, frankly, misguided) dad bans them out of his own overwhelming feelings of grief.

Fortunately, Eli makes a new friend in his apartment building. With help from the unflappable (and cute!) Mathias, Eli purchases ingredients, hones his skills in the kitchen, and even writes computer code for baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie. The result? A journey that’s complicated, messy, and super sweet. 

Eleven-year-old Ellis is the hapless, harmonica-playing main character of Amos' book. He’s spending summer vacation with his newly divorced dad, who’s laser-focused on his goal of opening a brand-new cookie shop in Hollywood. Ellis gets roped into helping him, and shenanigans ensue, many of them involving chocolate chips, bags of sugar, and industrial-size mixers.

I love that Amos loosely based his debut on his own childhood in the 1970s when he helped his father—Wally “Famous” Amos (perhaps you’ve heard of him?)—open a cookie shop on Sunset Boulevard. Woven throughout Ellis’s story are spunky neighbors, Blues music, Black pride, and lessons celebrating the value of hard work. These components add depth to Amos’s otherwise fizzy story. 

The true-life story of the ’70s and ’80s in New York City and the world of theatre—when the Great White Way was basically slated to become a parking lot—as it is saved by a colorful host of characters (and a boardroom coup!) is just begging for a musical of its own. Until that happens, we will have to be content with this page-turning book from a saucy and witty theatre columnist, which chronicles the entire amazing ride of how Broadway was reborn. 

Along the way, we get a thorough probing of Broadway history and the highs, lows, and everything in between including some scandal, gossip, and shocking reveals. See? How is this not a musical already?! Riedel is a dramatic and verbose writer who holds back nothing, thankfully. Recommendation: Don’t expect to be using a bookmark too often. I couldn’t put this book down.

If you are looking for a highly opinionated and passionate account of the Broadway musical and the changes it has undergone over the decades, this book is for you. Grant does not pull his punches and the general tone is one of despair at the decline in the quality of musicals. But the book is well researched and offers many provocative ideas which the die-hard musical fan will find fascinating. It's the kind of work that you want to read after you have a solid knowledge of American musical theatre and you want to have your traditional ideas challenged.

Set in the seventies, a sexy female celebrity journalist sets out to find the reason for the break-up of a singing/comedy duo alá Lewis and Martin and uncovers a gruesome murder. Full of sex, drugs, and behind-the-scenes entertainment business debauchery, this story is told in a masterful way that is funny, frightful, suspenseful, and disturbing. A truly unique noir tale where no one comes away clean. Just how I like it. And written by my good friend and former employer, Rupert Holmes. The same guy that gave us “Escape, The Pina Colada Song” and the Broadway hit The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Woolford describes his book as a prenatal guide for musicals and it is indeed just that. He breaks down the process from idea to opening night for a thorough examination of what goes into each part of writing a musical. From the tickle of inspiration—and everything that went into its construction after that point, including the steps back and sideways, trying to find the right formula for success—there isn’t much left out. Warning: You might be inspired to try your hand at writing once you finish this book! 

I felt as if I’d taken a college-level theatre course at the end of How Musicals Work, with an instructor who revels in the complicated chaos that is musicals! It opens up a whole extra level to watching/experiencing a musical.

While the prose style of Act One is a little fussy, florid, and overly eager to impress, this is still a moving, funny, and emotional biography of a talented, ambitious young man who is determined to make his mark as a Broadway playwright. And, at the end, when he single-handedly turns his out-of-town failure (co-written with George S. Kaufman) into a hit, you want to stand up and cheer.

Everything that can wrong in live theatre happened to Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark—and on the biggest scale possible. How Glen Berger, the only non-rich and famous person on the creative team of The Lion King director Julie Taymor and U2 rockers Bono and The Edge, managed to tell all without being sued is a mystery. Maybe it’s because the fights, failures, and firings are all just another day at work on Broadway—as are the accidents. Every outrageous incident Berger relates I have personally experienced in the musicals I’ve written—from on Broadway to Off-Off-Broadway and around the globe. Reading Song of Spider-Man prepared me for the worst, from producers applying Mafia-style pressure to witnessing an actor plummet to the stage like a dead weight.