Here are 72 books that Made in the U.S.A. fans have personally recommended if you like
Made in the U.S.A..
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What can better give expertise on the books one loves than decades of reading? I’ve always had a passion for sympathetic, strong characters, especially women. At the core of all my novels, readers will find a sympathetic and strong heroine. In Girlfriend Trouble, Lian is the catalyst that changes the lives of everyone around her for the better; or, more precisely, Lian’s compassion, wisdom, and serene nature are what change things. I’m probably too idealistic, but it’s better than being a cynic. There’s an element of this in all the books I’ve recommended, and those I’ve written. I like to think there’s more of it in the real world too.
Like with my first recommendation, I feel that this book appeals to a desire for adventure that we all had as kids. Who didn’t dream of Time Travel adventures as a kid? And again, as an adult, I have of course come to realize that I’d not last a day if I were to fall into this sort of adventure – and although time travel is supposedly possible, albeit only as a one-way journey due to the nature of time-dilation, the undertaking of such a journey, and the physical aspects of what is involved, I’d never want to do it now. Of course, in Playing Beatie Bow, Abigail’s time travel method is very simple (and impossible), but the trouble she gets into in the past is complicated, complex, and dangerous. The book’s dual settings might not appeal to young readers of today, but its lessons about learning to live…
Disturbed that her mother could welcome back her unfaithful father, Abigail Kirk undergoes a mysterious voyage to nineteenth-century Australia, where her experiences help her to understand the power of love and to accept her father
Although I can enjoy almost any kind of book that sparks my humor or imagination, the ones that do the best job are those that put familiar characters into unfamiliar situations, whether harrowing or hilarious and challenge my understanding of what I might do if put in a similar situation. When average people are called into extraordinary situations, if not also absurd or ridiculous, I want to see how they handle it, how they overcome obstacles when they have no tool in the toolbox that would simplify it, or when their adversaries try taking the tools they do have away from them. I think these five books provide that spark.
Sometimes, I just want an uncomplicated novel with endearing characters who can entertain me without spinning me with florid words or energetic action pieces, characters who can capture my imagination with simple goals and relatable decisions that become catalysts for major life transformations because I want to believe such simplicity can always lead to such beautiful and unexpected outcomes as those that happen in this book.
When even the shallowest of characters can demonstrate such depth and growth over such a short span of time after pursuing what, on the surface, seems like a shallow goal through shallow means and doing so properly and hilariously, I’m hooked. This is my second favorite book of all time.
THE MILLION COPY NO. 1 BESTSELLER THAT BECAMEAN ACCLAIMED FILM STARRING HUGH GRANT AND NICOLAS HOULT
'A very entertaining and endearing read' The Times ___________________
Thirty-six-year-old Londoner Will loves his life. Living carefree off the royalties of his dad's Christmas song, he's rich, unattached and has zero responsibilities - just the way he likes it.
But when Will meets Marcus, an awkward twelve-year-old who listens to Joni Mitchell and accidentally kills ducks with loaves of bread, an unlikely friendship starts to bloom.
Can this odd duo teach each another how to finally act their age?
When I think of great novels, I don’t recall plot twists, beautiful language, or exotic settings. I remember the characters. How they met or didn’t meet, the challenges put before them. Great, unforgettable characters create great stories. They take risks, become friends with people society tells them not to, and don’t hide their motivations or fears. They show their humanity. A great character can make walking down a supermarket aisle an exciting adventure. Boring, one-dimensional ones can make a rocket launch seem like you’re reading about paint drying. All the books I discuss hit the character checklist tenfold.
In my mind, this book shows one of the great character arcs in literature. The persnickety thirteen-year-old Charlotte begins her 1832 voyage from London to America admiring iron-fisted Captain Jaggery of the Seahawk. When she overhears the crew speaking of mutiny, she snitches on them.
At one point, I was hoping she’d get swept overboard. But Charlotte bonds with the ship’s black cook, Zachariah, and begins to see life beyond her vantage of a rich white child of privilege. As conditions worsen on the Seahawk, Charlotte sides with the crew, becomes a deckhand, and eventually their captain!
This is an old-time, swashbuckling, wind to yer back, sea adventure. I can still smell the bilgewater years after reading it.
Avi's treasured Newbery Honor Book now with exclusive bonus content!
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!A Newbery Honor Book* "A thrilling tale, tautly plotted, vividly narrated." --Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewThirteen-year-old Charlotte Doyle is excited to return home from her school in England to her family in Rhode Island in the summer of 1832. But when the two families she was supposed to travel with mysteriously cancel their trips, Charlotte finds herself the lone passenger on a long sea voyage with a cruel captain and a…
I didn’t realize for a long time that I was drawn to reading and writing quiet, character-driven stories about found families–because I didn’t know that was a thing. But here we are. As an introvert, I love learning about people and exploring their relationships with one another, and I have devoted my writing and reading life to this endeavor (even before, again, I knew this was a thing). As a child, I spent my time in libraries, falling in love with these characters. Now, as an author and professor of writing, I believe these novels are also all incredible textbooks of character creation and storytelling.
I first read this as a teen and fell hard for the characters that populate this story and Novalee’s life. Pregnant and abandoned, Novalee’s life is the definition of loss at the start of the story—but by the end, her life is filled with such love and richness that it’s easy to forget how she started.
She continues to experience loss as the story continues, but the strength her found family gives her demonstrates how the right people can help us grow. These characters are quirky and loving, and I can’t help but wish they were all real every time I read it.
A 17-year-old pregnant girl heading for Califonia with her boyfriend finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But she's about to be helped by a group of down-to-earth, deeply caring people, including a bible-thumping nun and an eccentric librarian.
I have a great interest in personal stories, well written. My memoir, The Full Catastrophe, was published in 2016. I wanted an answer to my own question “How could a well-educated, intelligent woman marry an abusive man?” Writing allowed me to find my answers. From that time on, I have taught people to write their own memoirs, have lectured on memoir, facilitated group discussions on memoir, and written articles on memoir. I am now in the process of writing another memoir.
Both a captivating and heart-breaking memoir, this book is the story of a woman and her mother—the mother who abandoned her and her siblings and father. It moves back and forth in time from when the mother leaves and we hear stories of what happened to each of her children, to the present day as the mother lies dying. This memoir is beautifully told, with details so sharp and clear you can almost watch the action as it unfolds to finally tell you how Cistaro copes with the mother who refused to stay. This story is for all mothers and daughters, ones that stay and ones that go.
"A story that lingers in the heart long after the last page is turned." —HOPE EDELMAN, bestselling author of Motherless Daughters and The Possibility of Everything
This provocative, poignant memoir of a daughter whose mother left her behind by choice begs the question: Are we destined to make the same mistakes as our parents?
One summer, Melissa Cistaro's mother drove off without explanation Devastated, Melissa and her brothers were left to pick up the pieces, always tormented by the thought: Why did their mother abandon them?
Thirty-five years later, with children of her own, Melissa finds herself in Olympia, Washington,…
Being of Eastern European origins, and also a child of the 80s, definitely had a say in what my likings and my character would become growing up. From the cold long winters and the white landscapes, Fantasy genre, and everything Might and Magic have shaped my childhood, my studies, my art (traditional oil painting and clay sculpting) and lingered until now (and definitely beyond).
The Dwarves series (especially the first two books) bring the readers back in time and sets them up, straight from the beginning, on a simpler way of seeing things and also a simpler way of writing, while also being able to convey the true values of the fantasy genre with class.
For countless millennia, no man or beast has ever succeeded in breaching the stone gateway into Girdlegard. Until now . . .
Abandoned as a child, Tungdil the blacksmith is the only dwarf in a kingdom of men. But when he is sent out into the world to deliver a message and reacquaint himself with his people, the young foundling finds himself thrust into a battle for which he has not been trained. Not only his own safety, but the life of every man, woman and child in Girdlegard depends upon his ability to embrace his heritage.
In my high school creative writing class, my teacher once said that good writing was a bit like looking at a star. If you look directly at it, it gets a little fuzzy and hard to see. But if you look just off to the side, the star becomes vivid and clear. That, to me, is exactly the power of spooky stories for young readers. We all deal with monsters, to varying degrees, throughout our lives. Even kids. But if we look at it just off to the side, through the angle of a fun, spooky story, those monsters suddenly become much more comprehensible. More faceable. More beatable.
I still think about the setting of The Ash House all the time.
It is so vivid and so real. The eeriness and spookiness of this place starts from the first page, even the first sentence. We know something is off here in the ash house, and we watch as the main character starts being subsumed by the other kids here.
We worry as he starts losing his identity. But this is a powerful and haunting story about listening to yourself and remembering yourself no matter what else is going on around you, and no matter what anyone else believes.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children meets Lord of the Flies in the exciting debut from Angharad Walker. 'A mesmerising other-worldly story that got deep under my skin - I couldn't put it down.' JASBINDER BILAN, author of Asha & the Spirit Bird
'Dark, tense and intoxicating ... Seriously exciting.' LUCY STRANGE, author of The Ghost of Gosswater
A new boy arrives at the Ash House. He can't remember his name - or why he's been sent there.
Given the name Sol, and troubled by a mystery pain that no medicine can cure, he joins the gang of children living…
I am the author of two middle grade books, and I love writing about kids who may not have much materially but abound in heart and courage. I grew up in a small southern town and my childhood was just like that—low on income but full of love, hope, and friendship. I want kids to know that despite their circumstances there is hope for a better life. Like Wavie’s mom tells her in my book, Hope In The Holler, “You’ve got as much right to a good life as anybody. So go find it!”
Life is tough for Angel—her dad is in jail, her mom is irresponsible, and she has to take care of her seven-year-old brother. Paterson doesn’t hold back in this unflinching look at family brokenness, but as sad as the circumstances are, there is hope! Angel meets some new adults and through their small kindnesses, she learns that she is stronger than she ever knew. It’s a great message for any kid who is struggling with too much responsibility. It has a redemption arc that I also loved.
Angel's dad is in jail and her mum's abandoned her and her little brother at their great-grandmother's crumbling farmhouse. Grandma can't even look after herself, let alone two children, so Angel finds that it's left up to her. In a dreary and lonely world there is only one bright spot - a mysterious stranger who appears on clear nights to teach Angel all about the stars. Katherine Paterson is an internationally acclaimed author who has won the Newbery Medal (twice), the National Book Award for Children's Literature (USA) twice, and the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award.
I’ve loved reading novels about strong, quirky women since childhood (Nancy Drew, Ramona Quimby, Harriet the Spy, the heroines of Judy Blume novels, just for starting examples!). As I grew into writing my own stories, I also started studying women’s history. I merged these two interests to begin writing historical novels with strong women protagonists. I love the challenge of researching to figure out the details of women’s day-to-day lives–so many unrecorded stories!–and I love to advocate for the idea (fortunately not as revolutionary as it once was) that a woman can be the hero of her own story and that each woman’s story is important to tell.
Amy Bloom is one of the authors I admire most in the world, and I loved this story of two fascinating sisters, Eva and Iris, not just for Bloom’s enthralling use of language but also for the spiritedness and intrigue of who the sisters are. (While Iris, "the pretty one,” struggles to make it in Hollywood as a B-movie actress, Eva, “the smart one,” gets roped into offering tarot card readings to help support their ragtag family.)
I loved living in the world that Bloom created in a story that crisscrossed the U.S. and beyond in the 1940s, and I loved being constantly surprised by the sisters’ choices and the events that befall them–and by the riveting words used to describe them.
When Eva's mother abandons her on Iris's front porch, the girls don't seem to have much in common - except, they soon discover, a father. Thrown together with no mothers to care for them and a father who could not be considered a parent, Iris and Eva become one another's family. Iris wants to be a movie star; Eva is her sidekick. Together, they journey across 1940s America from scandal in Hollywood to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island, stumbling, cheating and loving their way through a landscape of war, betrayals and big dreams.
I’ve always been deeply interested in how people connect to those around them—it is something I write about constantly. My first novel, So Much Love, was about how a community reacts to terrible loss and uncertainty, and my recent book of nonfiction, These Days Are Numbered, is about how my own community—and I—reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic. I am always looking at how humans human, separately and especially together. That is one of the joys of narrative fiction for me—the way we can use it to examine our behaviour and interactions, and how we form relationships and communities. I hope these books enthrall you as much as they did me.
Yes, it’s a Victorian novel but it’s also the slenderest and sweetest one, by my lights.
Cast out from his narrow religious community by the acts of a dishonest friend, Silas Marner flees to a new village and resolves to live a life apart, money his only security. Then along comes a tiny child in need and Silas cannot help but help—even though this new challenge comes on the heels of a devastating robbery.
The man’s generosity has the effect of opening him up to the generosity of others until, little by little, he becomes a part of the community he has lived apart from for so long. There is never a bad time to read this lovely, hopeful little novella about the worst and best of human nature.
Gold! - his own gold - brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been taken away!
Falsely accused of theft, Silas Marner is cut off from his community but finds refuge in the village of Raveloe, where he is eyed with distant suspicion. Like a spider from a fairy-tale, Silas fills fifteen monotonous years with weaving and accumulating gold. The son of the wealthy local Squire, Godfrey Cass also seeks an escape from his past. One snowy winter, two events change the course of their lives: Silas's gold is stolen and, a child crawls across his threshold.
