Fans pick 100 books like Mio, My Son

This book had me cracking up. I would recommend this book for kids aged seven to ten but I also think adults would love reading it. Oliver is the child of adventurers who now want to settle down. Well, the itch to adventure is still pretty powerful. So, of course, off they go again. Oliver has to find them so he too goes off to search for them. On his journey, he meets some other creatures, including a mermaid, an albatross, a depressed island, and some very obnoxious weeds. I’m being super non-spoilery and vague here because I want you to happen upon the silly puns and wordplay by yourself. I will also resist the urge to tell you what sea wigs are. 

What I like about this story is that Oliver is a normal kid. His sense of adventure came about second-hand, and he had no great urge to go… show more.

I love time travel stories. Stories where protagonists swap lives with other people are so much about acculturation and “passing.” Dislocation, confusion, etc. aside, the main issue is to not be found out. In the story, Charlotte is not always herself. Sometimes she’s in a boarding school in the fifties and sometimes she’s back in time at the same boarding school in the First World War. So we’re dealing with a borrowed life here. The life that Charlotte sometimes borrows belongs to Clare. Charlotte has very little in common with Clare. And even less knowledge of how establishments like this worked back in the day. Some quick learning and imitative skills are needed if she is not to be caught. For instance, she has to deduce what others expect and require of her. But she also has to not lose herself in all this pretense. 

When I came to the… show more.

As a kid, I accidentally memorized the first three or four paragraphs of Edgar Allen Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart". My memory is not as great as it used to be but my love for odd, tragic figures still remains. I love this book. It’s rhapsodic, mesmerizing, and spellbinding. It’s also bitter and obsessive. Give me a bitter character and I am hooked. The protagonist Colin is crippled and very cynical about humanity. He finds a seal on the shore and identifies with it. Perhaps because it’s clumsy on land but so graceful in water. His obsession with the seal made me somewhat uncomfortable but maybe that’s just my mind working overtime. After a while, his obsession leads him to become obsessed with living underwater. This is where the seal lives, this is where his true family lives. Now, not all disabled characters—mercifully—are vaguely psychotic. And imagination is a… show more.

The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is a fable, and as with all good fables, you’re going to find yourself commiserating with an animal. Sprout is a hen who is past her childbearing years. There is no rooster around. Well, there’s one. But he’s got a partner. Childlessness is an unplanned journey for some, and the book shows the grief that many people in this situation might deal with. Just as we’re feeling there is absolutely no hope for our infertile, partner-less, hen, she ends up becoming a mother. But now another unplanned journey pops up. Well, decisions and sacrifices have to be made. 

There are so many reasons why I like this book. After my son was born, I was suddenly on an unplanned journey. I didn’t expect my son to be sickly and developmentally delayed and even now I still pray for a miracle for him. The… show more.

I absolutely loved the way that Emma wrote these characters. I related to Seraphina and fell for Rafe’s charm time and time again. They’re a couple that’s perfect for each other.

Some book couples you read and think they may not make it past the last page, but I could see these two together forever. The whole book made me swoon and laugh. 

This book is so sweet, and I loved the epistolary format! My husband and I wrote each other many letters (yes, by hand) and emails while we were dating, so reading all the exchanges between Izzy and Brodie brought me back to those first fluttery feelings of falling in love. Izzy is such a sweet heroine, and Brodie really saw her, which I also loved!

Napoli is a master at rewriting fairy tales and other classic stories, and Zel might just be my favorite of her works. A young adult retelling of Rapunzel from three perspectives, it sticks to the original tale’s basic plot points but deeply expands the reader’s understanding of each character, particularly Rapunzel’s mother, whose feelings and motivations are written with exquisite nuance. Though it’s written for a YA audience, I still enjoy this story as much now as I did when I first read it at age 13, and now that I’m a mother myself, I experience it on an entirely different level. This is a deceptively simple book that really has layers upon layers to unwrap. 

When I was young I devoured Bullfinch's Mythology from cover to cover. Looking back, I am amazed that I had the time and the devotion to read the whole 900-odd pages, which give short, matter-of-fact recaps of the Greek and Roman myths, as well as the legends of King Arthur and Charlemagne. You'll find these tales far more beautifully told in the original Ovid or Virgil versions, I suppose, but if you just want the facts, Ma'am, the who's who of it all, then this is a fine place to start.

An elderly man goes in search of a cat to make him and his wife less lonely. He comes home with not one but millions of them: how to choose which to keep? The cats solve the problem by fighting among themselves until “they must have eaten each other all up.” But one unexpected little kitten is left…. 

I couldn’t have articulated this when I first sat raptly turning its pages, but Ga’g’s fable, with its handwritten text and charming 1928 black-and-white drawings, acknowledges both the ferocious and the vulnerable in children’s natures.

This book's heightened literary consciousness suggests a lifetime of practice, but it is, in fact, Gwendolyn Kiste's debut (she has quickly become one of contemporary dark fiction’s most celebrated, leading figures). Throughout Untether, the author examines both societal and individual forms of suffering (e.g. depression, dissociation, and the dangers of socially imposed normativities). My favorite piece is “Skin Like Honey and Lace,” which depicts a group of women who achieve social induction by taking skin from strangers and applying it to their own bodies. A staggeringly accomplished collection.