Here are 71 books that Grandfather Tang's Story fans have personally recommended if you like
Grandfather Tang's Story.
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As a boy, Joseph D’Agnese grew up absolutely convinced that he was terrible at two school subjects: math and science. Lo and behold—he ended up making a career writing about both! For more than seven years, he edited a children’s math magazine for Scholastic, and was rewarded for his work by multiple Educational Press Association Awards. His children's book about the Fibonacci Sequence, Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, is available in five languages worldwide, and as a classroom DVD. Blockhead is an Honor Book for the Mathical Book Prize—the first-ever prize for math-themed children's books. Joe’s work in science journalism has been featured twice in the prestigious annual anthology, Best American Science Writing.
Big numbers are just as amazing to kids as dinosaurs, and for the same reason. They’re so incredibly huge that they boggle the mind. This book helps kids comprehend big numbers using everyday objects and scenarios. If a million kids sat on each other’s shoulders, how high would they be able to reach? How long would it take to count to a million? Once they master a million, your kid will be well on their way to tackling quadrillions, nonillions, and, heaven help us, decillions!
“A jubilant, original picture book.” —Booklist (starred review)
Ever wonder just what a million of something means? How about a billion? Or a trillion? Marvelosissimo the mathematical magician can teach you!
How Much Is a Million? knocks complex numbers down to size in a fun, humorous way, helping children conceptualize a difficult mathematical concept. It's a math class you'll never forget.
This classic picture book is an ALA Notable Book, a Reading Rainbow Feature Selection, and a Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Book for Illustration.
The repackage of this fun look at math concepts includes a letter from the author that…
As a boy, Joseph D’Agnese grew up absolutely convinced that he was terrible at two school subjects: math and science. Lo and behold—he ended up making a career writing about both! For more than seven years, he edited a children’s math magazine for Scholastic, and was rewarded for his work by multiple Educational Press Association Awards. His children's book about the Fibonacci Sequence, Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, is available in five languages worldwide, and as a classroom DVD. Blockhead is an Honor Book for the Mathical Book Prize—the first-ever prize for math-themed children's books. Joe’s work in science journalism has been featured twice in the prestigious annual anthology, Best American Science Writing.
This is a classic mathematical fable that has been brought to life by several authors. Demi sets the story in India, and it’s marvelous to watch how quickly the numbers add up when you take a single grain of rice and double it day after day. The illustrations, inspired by traditional Indian art, are breathtaking, and may well inspire your child to create their own mathematical art. At the very least, they’ll start demanding more tasty rice dishes at the dinner table.
Long ago in India, there lived a raja who believed that he was wise and fair. But every year he kept nearly all of the people's rice for himself. Then when famine came, the raja refused to share the rice, and the people went hungry. Then a village girl named Rani devises a clever plan. She does a good deed for the raja, and in return the raja lets her choose her reward. Rani asks for just one grain of rice, doubled every day for thirty days. Through the surprising power of doubling, one grain of rice grows into more…
Full disclosure: I don’t know much about swords. But as a children’s author and English teacher, I’ve learnt what makes kids want to pick up a book. In short, make it fun! My teenage membership in the Young Archaeologists Club sparked my love of history and archeology. It wasn’t quite as glamorous as Indiana Jones would have you believe, but the idea that hidden treasures might be lurking under our gardens has fascinated me ever since.
As much a book about language as anything else, its central message may be the need for a love of education, but don’t let that put you off. It’s full of wordplay, puns, and wonderful whimsy.
Take, for instance the ‘watchdog’ called ‘Tock’ who’s large, can speak, and has alarm clocks on each side of his body. You might call it ‘picaresque,’ you might call it ‘bonkers,’ but never ‘predictable’!
With almost 5 million copies sold 60 years after its original publication, generations of readers have now journeyed with Milo to the Lands Beyond in this beloved classic. Enriched by Jules Feiffer’s splendid illustrations, the wit, wisdom, and wordplay of Norton Juster’s offbeat fantasy are as beguiling as ever.
“Comes up bright and new every time I read it . . . it will continue to charm and delight for a very long time yet. And teach us some wisdom, too.” --Phillip Pullman
For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only…
I started writing maths books because I wanted to share my love of the subject with people who had never really engaged with it at school. I soon discovered that the hardest part is getting somebody to start reading the book in the first place. Why read a book about maths unless you’re already into maths? Over the years I’ve found that the best way of engaging adults in maths is by linking it to things they are interested in – ‘the maths of everyday life,’ if you will. When you add to that a combination of stories, humour, and surprises, I’ve found it’s possible to reveal the joys of mathematics to a much wider audience.
Among my children’s bedtime stories The Number Devil was a favourite. It’s about a boy who finds his school maths lesson dull and pointless. One night in his dreams he gets visited by the Number Devil, who introduces him to the astonishing patterns to be found in numbers. By making the lead character a maths-sceptic, the author carries the reader along so that we are all drawn into the hidden beauty of mathematics. The book has wonderful colour illustrations, which adds to its charm. Parents love it too.
Twelve-year-old Robert hates his maths teacher: he sets his class boring problems and won't let them use their calculators. Then in his dreams Robert meets the Number Devil, who brings the subject magically to life, illustrating with wit and charm a world in which numbers can amaze and fascinate, where maths is nothing like the dreary, difficult process that so many of us dread. The Number Devil knows how to make maths devilishly simple.
I’ve been told I live under a rock. I don’t know much about popular media, I can’t name any actors, and when I catch onto a trend, it’s usually five to six years after said trend has died out. People alert me of my lack of knowledge like it’s a bad thing, but I think if they could see all the books they’re missing out on, they’d feel otherwise. There are hundreds of thousands of fantastic stories that are neither glamorous nor gritty enough to make it to the forefront of the internet, and every time I find one, it changes my life. Living under a rock: 10/10 would recommend.
This book is one of my earliest inspirations, and I’ve never met anyone else who’s even heard of it.
Poisonis the very first book that made me think, “Wow. I want to be able to write something like this.” I loved the story, but what I’ll never forget is how the ending made me feel. This book is both simple and complex; a wild, unpredictable journey and a natural progression of events.
I write with the hopes of someday completing something as lovely as this.
Perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton, this is no ordinary fairy tale.
When Poison's baby sister is stolen by phaeries, Poison sets off on an incredible and dangerous journey to get her sister back from the Phaerie Lord.
But as Poison travels to the Realm of Phaerie, she discovers that her story - and her destiny - is not in her control, and that she will need all her wits about her to survive.
A fantasy where the power of story maybe the only thing that will save you, and where imagination knows no bounds.
I have been fascinated by the richness of fairy tales since I was a child. The fantasy writing offers endless possibilities to nourish my mind’s eye and pearls of wisdom that I can transfer to real life. I remember from childhood that I cried reading the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. This childhood memory never left me. Fantasy writing is interwoven with the realm of nature and beings other than humans that offer a tapestry for the tradition of storytelling and nature writing, which I found a fascinating field to explore. I hope you can find the same in the books on this list.
This book is a classic story that transported me to a realm where fairies come alive—I felt I could be there dancing with them, too.
I love the story's initial opening with the magical expression, “Once upon a time.” It’s like opening a gateway to my mind’s eye, imagining life in that country that was very close to Fairy Land, guided by the exquisite illustrations in the book.
I like also very much the simplicity of the names of the characters, like for example, “Princess Niente (Princess Nobody) and of the structure of the story divided into three chapters.
The end is sweet: “Journeys end in lovers meeting, and so do stories.” And offered me a pearl with the quote of Apuleius and the poem.
Many kids love fairy tales and so did I but I was always puzzled by the lack of fairies in these tales. The idea of a separate world containing these beautiful but flawed creatures enthralled me from an early age. I read everything about them so that I could get my hands on, whether the book was fiction or nonfiction. When doing my Master's in Children’s Literature, I studied fae tales that appear around the world which evoked a thirst in me to write my own…so I did. All the books on this list give a glimpse of the chaotic nature of the fae, of the world that surely exists beyond our comprehension. I hope they are as much a treat for your imagination as they were mine.
Holly Black is a master of the fae tale. Much has been said about this trilogy already but I assure you, the praise is well-deserved. Each book has a tight and dynamic plot, prose that fairly flies off the page, and a conclusion that is very satisfying. The first book was almost deceptive in the way it presented a not-very-strong protagonist until she evolves and becomes so much more than the reader thinks her to be. It’s the best kind of fictional surprise.
Discover Holly Black's epic bestselling The Folk of the Air series in this complete e-book collection which includes: The Cruel Prince, The Lost Sisters, The Wicked King, and The Queen of Nothing.
Of course I want to be like them. They're beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her…
One might read for many reasons, but one of the main reasons for me is to connect and relate to the character. Female voices are very underheard, and I feel incredibly passionate about changing that and creating and reading stories where the female protagonists have strong voices and are not afraid to be heard. I think it’s important that we continue to create female characters that are raw and real and that portray subjects and feelings that need to be heard more.
I loved this entire series, but there was something about this book that was my favorite. It’s told from a different perspective than the others, giving it a really fresh view of the world. My favorite thing about this book was the character development.
You follow one of the main female characters, who at the beginning is spiteful and hurt and constantly lashing out, and you see her grow into herself. She takes responsibility for her mistakes, and reading about her opening up again really warmed my heart as I can heavily relate to it.
I think her character is very real and raw, and her development as a person is portrayed beautifully. I didn’t always like her initially, but I ultimately loved her.
THE LATEST BOOK IN THE #1 BESTSELLING SERIES
'With bits of Buffy, Game Of Thrones and Outlander, this is a glorious series of total joy' STYLIST
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Sarah J. Maas's sexy, richly imagined A Court of Thorns and Roses series continues with the journey of Feyre's fiery sister, Nesta...
Nesta Archeron has always been prickly - proud, swift to anger and slow to forgive. And since the war - since being made High Fae against her will - she's struggled to forget the horrors she endured and find a place for herself within the strange and deadly Night Court.
The…
Mary Losure is the author of The Fairy Ring, or Elsie and Frances Fool the World. Though she doesn’t happen to believe in fairies herself, when she went to Cottingley, England, and explained that she was writing a children’s book about the girls who took the Cottingley Fairy Photographs, she met a surprisingly large number of people who did. Plus, she’s always been interested in imaginary worlds. Her most recent book, Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal’d, is the story of a magic-seeking boy who grew up to become the world’s greatest alchemist. Oh, and also discovered the secrets of the universe….
For a serious look at English fairy lore, try The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature by K.M. Briggs. It’s only one of the author’s many books on fairies, so if you’re interested in English fairy lore, the work of Katharine. Briggs is a gold mine.
Fairies fascinate young and old alike. To some they offer tantalizing glimpses of other worlds, to others a subversive counterpoint to human arrogance and weakness. Like no other author, Katharine Briggs throughout her work communicated the thrill and delight of the world of fairies, and in this book she articulated for the first time the history of that world in tradition and literature.
From every period and every country, poets and storytellers have described a magical world inhabited by elfin spirits. Capricious and vengeful, or beautiful and generous, they've held us in thrall for generations. And on a summer's morn,…
I have always been fascinated by fairies. I remember watching dragonflies in my backyard, convinced that they carried fairies on their backs. I hung pictures of fairies on my bedroom walls. I even moved my dollhouse furniture outside and set it up under a tree so the fairies would be comfy. This wasn’t as farfetched as it sounds when you consider that I grew up before the digital age and was always encouraged to use my imagination. When the movie Peter Pan was released, I fell in love with Tinkerbell. I’m convinced that all of this prepared me to become the writer of a series of fairy books. Who knew?
I love children’s series that encourage young readers to keep track of what their favorite character is up to in the next book…and the next. Pixie Tricks is an early chapter book series that does just that. In the first book, the main character finds a portal to the fairy world right in her own backyard. In the following books, she must deal with baffling situations such as mysteriously leaking faucets and figuring out a way to rescue her cousin who is somehow trapped inside a video game. There are 5 books in this series and children ages 6 to 8 love to collect them all.
Fairies + magic + fantasy + New York Times bestselling author Tracey West = Pixie Tricks!
Pick a book. Grow a Reader!
This series is part of Scholastic's early chapter book line, Branches, aimed at newly independent readers. With easy-to-read text, high-interest content, fast-paced plots, and illustrations on every page, these books will boost reading confidence and stamina. Branches books help readers grow!
Eight-year-old Violet didn't expect to find a portal to the fairy world in her backyard. And she certainly didn't think she would have to defend the human world from trickster pixies! With the help of her new…