Here are 100 books that Fish Out of Water fans have personally recommended if you like
Fish Out of Water.
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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.
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.
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!
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.
You know those books with characters so real that, when you’re not reading, you miss them and wonder what they’re up to? That’s what happened to me with Beatrice and Croc Harry. I didn’t think I liked stories involving talking animals, but wow, was I wrong. This book taught me that serious books can also be delightfully whimsical and funny. This novel is one of the best books I’ve read on hatred and racism, forgiveness, and love.
One of Canada’s most celebrated author’s debut novel for young readers
Beatrice, a young girl of uncertain age, wakes up all alone in a tree house in the forest. How did she arrive in this cozy dwelling, stocked carefully with bookshelves and oatmeal accoutrements? And who has been leaving a trail of clues, composed in delicate purple handwriting?
So begins the adventure of a brave and resilient Black girl’s search for identity and healing in bestselling author Lawrence Hill’s middle-grade debut. Though Beatrice cannot recall how or why she arrived in the magical forest of Argilia—where every conceivable fish, bird,…
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.
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.)
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…
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.
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!
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…
I was a teenager in the late sixties, born into a conservative household, with a huge rebellious streak. Starting with Woodstock, I was obsessed with hippie culture. Communes in particular held a special fascination for me, and later, as places of potential depravity. My sister-in-law lived in a commune in Oregon in the late 60s/early 70s. Many of the details in my novel are pulled from her life, and though she is no longer alive, her adult children shared stories from their childhoods. Her oldest daughter, whom I fictionalized as Shoshanna, became the character and voice I used to recount the family’s escape and eventual safe landing. The story still feels like uncovered family history.
I love The Age of Miracles because I was so taken with Walker’s scientific premise, that by the “slowing” of rotation, the world would come to its inevitable end. This scientifically grounded plot point was something I found arresting; it fascinated me immediately. I also loved Walker’s eleven-year-old protagonist, Julia. Julia is genuine, believable, set in her strange but also eerily recognizable nearing-the-apocalypse world. Julia also has a rich, and I felt very authentic, inner life. Her emotions rang true, and the plot not only riveted me, it broke my heart.
'It is never what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different - unimagined, unprepared for, unknown...'
What if our 24-hour day grew longer, first in minutes, then in hours, until day becomes night and night becomes day? What effect would this slowing have on the world? On the birds in the sky, the whales in the sea, the astronauts in space, and on an eleven-year-old girl, grappling with emotional changes in her own life..?
One morning, Julia and her parents wake up in their suburban home in California to discover, along…
I study wolves. For the past three decades, much of that interest has focused on understanding the ecology of wolves who inhabit a wilderness island in Lake Superior, North America. I also work to improve the relationship between humans and wolves–knowing very well that wolves are a symbol to so many of all that we love and fear about nature. As a distinguished professor at Michigan Technological University, I teach classes in population ecology and environmental ethics. What ties my interests together is the desire to gain insights from the commingling of science and ethics.
This book is fiction, infused with magical realism, and I am a scientist. Yet, this book definitely belongs on my list of best books about wild animals.
Superficially, it is about a boy, Dave, who regularly observes a pine marten, a kind of large weasel, in the lush forests of Oregon. I love this book because even the slightest chance of properly empathizing with a wild animal requires a powerful yet constrained imagination. Some of Dave’s attributions to Martin are self-projected, and some of his attributions are deeply true. Reliability in telling the difference is not always so simple.
This book never let me stop wondering, are the thoughts and life of a marten beyond my imagination?
Dave is fourteen years old, living with his family in a cabin on Oregon's Mount Hood (or as Dave prefers to call it, like the Native Americans once did, Wy'east). He is entering high school, adulthood on the horizon not far off in distance, and contemplating a future away from his mother, father, and his precocious younger sister. And Dave is not the only one approaching adulthood and its freedoms on Wy'east that summer. Martin, a pine marten (a small animal of the deep woods, of the otter/mink family), is leaving his own mother and siblings and setting off on…
Hi! We are writers currently living in Los Angeles after 18 years in New York. We wrote Margot Mertzafter reading American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Online Lives of Teenagersby Nancy Jo Sales. It was the first time we heard of boys cultivating and curating non-consensual nude pics, effectively treating them like Pokemon cards. It was infuriating, especially when we realized there are no federal laws to protect victims of revenge porn at the time. So it became a focus of our work. We love a main character who’s angry but also funny, and desperately seeking change.
The logline sounds like the most depressing character study you’ll ever read. A story of a pregnant teenager, Jane, who lives with her mom after the death of her father. Jane spends her days delivering pizzas and her nights drinking beers alone in a shed behind their house. But thanks to the prose, and the pacing of the plotting, this book is both funny, engaging, and something of a psychological thriller. Especially when Jane becomes obsessed with one of her regulars, a stay-at-home mom. We marveled at Kyoung Frazier’s ability to put us in the head of Jane, in a way that we actually wanted to stay there.
Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by work and the ways that it organizes the rest of life. Mining is one of those activities that brings together economics, politics, gender, class, kinship, and cosmology in especially tight proximity. I am also fascinated by Latin America, a region where mining has been important for thousands of years. These interests led me to become an anthropologist specializing in mining in Mexico and Colombia. It has been my privilege to work in this area for over twenty-five years now, making lifelong friends, learning about their lives and struggles, and sharing that knowledge with students and readers.
This was one of my favorite books as a child and probably one reason I became an anthropologist of mining.
Though I wouldn’t have put it this way at the time, I found it fascinating that in a place where everything is doing the same job, especially a highly dangerous and damaging job, other aspects of culture coalesce around that job and its meanings—things like religion, kinship, gender, leisure, ecology, etcetera. I was deeply moved by the description of the vast slag heap that slowly came to tower over the town, eventually engulfing the narrator’s small house.
All six episodes of the BBC adaptation of Richard Llewellyn's classic novel set in a Welsh mining community at the turn of the century. Gwilym (Stanley Baker) and Beth Morgan (Siân Phillips) work their hardest to provide for their children, but these are the years before the unions improved the miner's lot, and times are very hard indeed. However, the community in which the Morgans live is a close-knit one, and they are grateful for all the help they receive, especially from the Rev. Gruffydd (Gareth Thomas).
I am Casey Kelleher, a crime writer and author of 17 novels. I have always been a complete and utter bookworm, but my true passion is crime and psych thrillers. Most of my stories concentrate on the victim–or, as I prefer to call them, the survivor. That’s who I champion in my stories, highlighting the strength of that person who has overcome whatever harsh reality that’s been forced upon them. But I also like to get inside the perpetrator’s head. I want to know the ‘whys’ of what they do. Psychology is very complex, but I do believe that there can be good and bad/darkness and light in all of us.
This book was just something else completely for me. I went in blind, knowing nothing about the story or subject matter–which is dark and complex. The writing style is just perfection, and I can honestly say I’ve never been so obsessed with a book in my entire life. I don’t read books for a second time (because, let's face it, who has time for that when our reading lists are already never-ending), But I would happily devour this one all over again. In fact, I get jealous when I hear people start it for the very first time.
It's dark and complex, and it will split the audience in two, with no room for an in-between. You will either ADORE this book or LOATHE it. For me, it was perfection.
A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives.
As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing…
I have anxiety and depression. While obviously not a replacement for therapy and/or medication, reading books that somehow make me feel good is an important part of my self-care. They can be silly or witty or charming or whatever, but a book that makes me smile or giggle or just swoon is one I’ll reach for when I’m feeling down.
I devoured this book. It’s charming and funny, but this is one of those books where I loved it because of the main character. I’ve struggled with indecisiveness in my life and found that part very relatable. We really get inside her head. The voice is unique and the sentence structure is short and choppy. A quick wonderful read.
One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Ann Patchett on PBS NewsHour, Minnesota Public Radio, PopSugar, Maris Kreizman, The Morning News
Winner of Ploughshares’ John C. Zacharis Award
Winner of a Whiting Award
A Belletrist Amuse Book
At first glance, the quirky, overworked narrator of Weike Wang’s debut novel seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life: she is studying for a prestigious PhD in chemistry that will make her Chinese parents proud (or at least satisfied), and her successful, supportive boyfriend has just…
