73 books like Le Petit Prince

I simply love this book and read it at least once a year. It’s in the YA genre, and I am more like an MAA (middle-aged adult) but the main character, Auggie Pullman, and his friends and family are so enticing that I’m drawn in every time.

Auggie has an incredibly rare facial deformity and when we first meet him, he’s off to school for the first time. The book is written with a light touch and from many different voices, something the author pulls off with aplomb. It’s notoriously difficult to get away with multiple narrators, but this really works.

I root for Auggie every time, and the sheer humanity of the book, along with great humour and characterisation means that I come back to it again and again.

This book was my favorite book for most of my life, so it holds a special place in my heart. It was only bumped by Well Witched (Verdigris Deep). 

This is the book I read over and over to my two children. One of whom loved to act out being the indomitable Bilbo Baggins. The prose is beautiful, the plot is tight, the adventure is fun, the wonder is wondrous. Who doesn’t love forest elves? And the world-building is amazing. I guess we all know that was Tolkien’s specialty!

I will argue with anyone that this is the best story Tolkien ever wrote. The prose is beautiful to read. It doesn’t wander, it doesn’t get off track, there’s a humor, and let’s not forget the dragon, and all packed into 310 pages!

Amari Peters is a Black girl from a low-income housing project with a lot of heart.

Yet when she’s sent to the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs and discovers the world of the supernatural, she must compete with other students who have enjoyed a lot of privilege. It isn’t just that the world around Amari is spectacular and well-built, but we’re getting a glimpse into her challenges both at home and at this new school.

I loved being in the perspective of someone who never thought they could be a hero before. Someone who looks at things from a different lens can help us build a whole lot of empathy.

I originally picked up this book after hearing it was Hayao Miyazaki’s favourite childhood book. But the more I read, the more I saw how it changed me too. Thought-provoking and philosophically balanced, How Do You Live? asks questions that will throw any reader into a realm of introspection. A story about a 15-year-old boy and his uncle may seem simple, but its deeply human core provides angles and dimensions that range from history, science, and sociology. An experience to read. 

Although this title seems obscure, most people will recognize the classic movie adaptation under the name The Thing.

For a science fiction story written before the Second World War, this book stands up surprisingly well. It’s the First Contact story we don’t want, where instead of meeting an intelligent extraterrestrial species, we come face to face with a monster. And it is intelligence that saves the day, not brute force or strength.

Although it is out of print, this book can be read online. 

I bought the book out of curiosity not even knowing it was for kids. And once I realized what it was, I read it to my son. He loved it. Let me describe it in the style it is written:

High-energy text right from the beginning. Honestly the inspiration for my own series and its style of writing. The protagonist has special powers that are ranked in a game-like manner using levels. It appeals to the gamer youth of today, relating to the games that they play even now despite having been written thirty years ago. A solid A plus production.

I get bored when aliens always seem to land on the National Mall in Washington or hover over Los Angeles, so I was delighted to discover that at least one alien ship prefers to land in the lagoon off Lagos, Nigeria.

It’s a city as big or bigger than New York, after all. There is the challenge of dealing with very enigmatic visitors, but the time is the present and readers get a whirlwind tour of one of the world’s megacities. It’s like having the most highspeed guide you can imagine… who happens to be one of the most compelling SF writers today.

Emperor Mollusk is the evil genius I’ve been waiting for—having conquered earth (and alienated the rest of the galaxy), he’s retired from world domination to pursue (mad) science for the sake of science. He’s got just enough sense of responsibility to stick around to protect earth’s denizens while his inflated ego allows him to ignore that his creations are often what’s putting the planet in peril. Arguments over nomenclature (is it a reverse temporal receiver or an anti-time radio?) made this lol funny, and the fast pace kept me turning pages. I love a good mashup, and this had the right mix of sci-fi archetypes, including a lizard warrior, a Tarzan-like alien in a dinosaur land, an Atlantean goddess, and of course the mysterious “Brain” in an exosuit. 

Good space opera is built on time-honored tropes, and Pratt hits them all on the head. Space princess? Check. Ragtag crew? Check. Strange, otherworldly aliens and a dash of romance? Double check. The Wrong Stars is space opera at its finest, with a classic adventure between humans and aliens, good versus evil, and technological innovation that makes you stop and consider current trends. 

The romance line is sapphic, age gap, flirtatious and commanding. Callie is our commanding captain, cool and in charge. Elena has been in cryosleep on a generational ship that was attacked by violent aliens and has some trauma to work out. Who better to help than Callie? And of course the whole crew needs to go investigate these new aliens. The fate of the galaxy is at stake!

In a future US where NASA and the space program is all but defunct, former astronaut Sally Jensen is brought out of an involuntary retirement to lead a new, barely-qualified team on a most intriguing—and dangerous—mission to an asteroid that's slowing down as it approaches Earth. Gripping and addictive, I found myself not able to put this book down once I started it. This definitely falls into the sci-fi horror camp, a blend which—fortunately—this story handles really well. If you’re looking for a hard science fiction novel with a hefty helping of horror mixed throughout, you cannot go wrong with this gem!