Here are 87 books that My Father's Dragon fans have personally recommended if you like
My Father's Dragon.
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I fell in love with all things Greek around the same time I fell in love with my Greek Cypriot husband about 30 years ago. That was when I started reading books about Greece as well as fiction set in Greece. I also learned to cook Greek food, which made both my man and me happy. I traveled to as many Greek islands, and of course, Cyprus, as time would allow. Eventually, I started writing books set in Greece myself. I went to a Greek Orthodox church and took Greek language evening classes. I feel at this point and have been told by Greek islanders, that I am now essentially Greek.
I love Greece and Greek life, and I love animals and nature, so this book set in Corfu, which is the story of how Gerald Durrell spent his early childhood when his mother decided to move the entire family to Corfu, really hit all the buttons for me.
In my opinion, the book is even better than the television series. Gerald Durrell’s love of fauna and flora possibly began in the White House on Kalami Bay in Corfu. I was so excited when I arranged a holiday in Corfu and actually stayed in Kalami Bay myself. I ran around looking at lizards, birds, and plants, thinking of Durrell as a wild child, swerving away as far as possible from conventional education. What an idyll I found it truly was.
The inspiration behind ITV's hit family drama, The Durrells.
My Family and Other Animals is Gerald Durrell's hilarious account of five years in his childhood spent living with his family on the island of Corfu. With snakes, scorpions, toads, owls and geckos competing for space with one bookworm brother and another who's gun-mad, as well as an obsessive sister, young Gerald has an awful lot of natural history to observe. This richly detailed, informative and riotously funny memoir of eccentric family life is a twentieth-century classic.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics…
I fell deeply in love with books as a child, wrote oodles of stories growing up, majored in English literature, and built a writing career in advertising and TV. But my deep love of children’s books never faded. Somewhere in my 30s, I had an epiphany sitting on the couch one day: I clearly saw that writing children’s books was what I wanted to build my life around. It took a lot of time and effort to accomplish that, but with the aid of a helpful hamster named Humphrey – and his friend Og - I found my happy place, and I hope I never, ever “grow up.”
I was no longer a child when I read this book but I was still enchanted by children’s literature. This book, the first in a series, is a beautiful, touching look at a simple and true friendship, told with a minimal amount of words but packing a maximum of heart.
No rodents here, but there is a frog. I don’t think there’s a person on earth who wouldn’t be touched by this book reflecting the essence of friendship – at least not anyone I would care to know. This is a book for children of all ages.
This beautiful commemorative picture book edition of the Caldecott Honor title Frog and Toad Are Friends is the perfect way to celebrate Frog and Toad's 50th anniversary!
This handsome edition features matte paper, remastered artwork, and a green ribbon book marker. It makes a lovely gift for collectors, fans of children's literature, and anyone and everyone who loves Frog and Toad!
First published in 1970, Frog and Toad Are Friends was the first of the four beloved Frog and Toad books. This special edition contains all of the original stories-from the story about going swimming, to finding lost buttons!
I’ve always been fascinated by the names of people and things. Why do we use the names we do? What do they mean? Who made them up? Is there power in knowing something’s name? I later discovered that all these questions are very old—the idea that names have power goes back at least to ancient Egypt. When I became a biology professor, I found that my students and colleagues mostly didn’t know or care why animals and plants have the Latin names they do. But those names are fascinating, and there are stories to uncover whenever we tug on a name’s meaning like a loose thread.
I loved the Alice books as a child and even more as an adult. As a child, I loved their absurdist humor; the situations Alice gets into are ridiculous, and the ways she gets out are even more so. As an adult, I love that the absurdist humor asks really interesting questions about language and naming and self, our ideas of time and space, and social conventions and who’s in charge of them.
All this with hilariously eccentric characters and nonsense poetry that isn’t quite nonsense! To top it off, reading Alice as an adult is a trip because so many books, movies, songs, and other creative pieces have referenced events or language from the Alice books. What fun!
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat. 'We're all mad here.'
The 'Alice' books are two of the most translated, most quoted, and best-known books in the world, but what exactly are they? Apparently delightful, innocent fantasies for children, they are also complex textures of mathematical, linguistic, and philosophical jokes. Alice's encounters with the White Rabbit, the Cheshire-Cat, the King and Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and many other extraordinary characters have made them masterpieces of carefree nonsense, yet they also appeal to adults…
I’m a Lithuanian-American with a Chinese name, thanks to my husband. Thirty years ago, I found papers among my uncle’s possessions telling a WWII story about our ancestral Lithuania. I had heard about it in broad terms, but I could hardly believe what I was reading. I spent years validating the material. The result was Amber Wolf, a historical novel about a war within the war: the fight against the Russian occupation of Eastern Europe. While many countries were involved in separate struggles, I focused on Lithuania and their David and Goliath fight against the Russian army. After all this time, the story still moves me.
During WWII, the woods of Eastern Europe were home to Jews, resistance fighters, families hiding from the war, forgotten soldiers, and others. It was a safe-haven offering protection and support, at least for a while.
The Bielski Brothers is a touching story of Jews living in the woods of Belarus. It’s the true tale of three brothers who avenge family deaths by saving Jews marked for exile. At first, the brothers bring a few people to a camp deep in the forest. As others join them, the camp grows into a village.
By the end of the war, over a thousand Jews were living there, all testament to defiance, cooperation, and courage.
In 1941, three brothers witnessed their parents and two other siblingsbeing led away to their eventual murders. It was a grim scene that would,of course, be repeated endlessly throughout the war. Instead of running orgiving in to despair, these brothers -- Tuvia, Zus, and Asael Bielski -- foughtback, waging a guerrilla war of wits against the Nazis.
By using their intimate knowledge of the dense forests surrounding theBelarusan towns of Novogrudek and Lida, the Bielskis evaded the Nazis andestablished a hidden base camp, then set about convincing other Jews to jointheir ranks. As more and more Jews arrived each day,…
So look, I’m going to admit something: I’ve been casting myself as the heroine in historical adventures and mysteries since the age of six. I’ve been Sherlock Holmes’s daughter, Elizabeth Bennett’s slightly disreputable sleuthing cousin, the lone lady Pinkerton hunting down Butch and Sundance. These youthful fantasies combined three things I adored: puzzles, adventure, and geeking out on history. When I got a little older, I left off imagining myself in the starring role in favour of something even more immersive: becoming someone else entirely. Whether I’m writing them or reading them, books like the ones on this list transport me, and I hope they’ll transport you, too.
“Being a lady is a crashing bore, or hadn’t you noticed?” So observes Veronica Speedwell: lepidopterist, spinster and – much to her chagrin – a lady. But Veronica isn’t going to be bound by that, and she’s as happy chasing murderers as she is butterflies and men. This book is as much about her smoldering relationship with the enigmatic Stoker as it is a whodunnit, which is part of what attracted me to it. I’m a sucker for sexual tension, and this book has it in spades—along with the sort of dry one-liners that will have you snickering into your tea.
After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica Speedwell intends to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry-and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a sharpened hatpin with equal aplomb.But fate has other plans, as Veronica discovers when she thwarts her own abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron with ties to her mysterious past. The baron offers her sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker-a reclusive natural historian as intriguing as he is bad-tempered. But before the baron can…
I love imperfect characters. They are more interesting, memorable, and three-dimensional than characters who have everything figured out. Imperfect characters are the most believable and readable because they are mirrors of ourselves. We live their stories more easily, and imperfect characters live the most awesome stories. Finding an imperfect female main character inhabiting a world full of conflict and then watching her strength emerge through a well-told story is one of my favorite reading experiences.
Of the five recommendations I made, this one is the heaviest. Historical fiction set in Germany during WWII, and having our main character be a poor German girl offers such an interesting juxtaposition of the starkness of the global stage with homelife for Liesel.
Another reason I love this book: Death as the narrator. So awesome giving Death a voice and imagining how he might think/feel. I also love how multifaceted all the characters are–they are full of both light and darkness, but it’s their decisions that determine if light will shine in such dark times.
'Life affirming, triumphant and tragic . . . masterfully told. . . but also a wonderful page-turner' Guardian 'Brilliant and hugely ambitious' New York Times 'Extraordinary' Telegraph ___
HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
When I was pitching my then novel-in-progress, Me, Myself, and Him to editors and agents, I usually got one of two responses: either “That sounds like a tough sell” or “That sounds great, and not like anything I’ve seen before.” Of course, I preferred to hear the latter, but I also enjoyed winning over skeptics by giving them something much more accessible than they might have expected, based on my pitch. It all speaks to the special place I have in my heart for the books you never expect to love…and then love anyway.
I posted about this book on social media last year and called it one of my favorite reads, ever. A large handful of friends said it was one of theirs as well. There’s something about this book—deeply absorbing, compulsively readable, and edge-of-my-seat emotional—that just clicks. There’s even a kind of genius in the title itself, letting us know ahead of time that every one of the Thai boys’ soccer team stranded in that underground cave (a story you might remember from the news) were safely rescued at the end of the ordeal. From that vantage point, you can really just sink in and absorb this amazing story from every one of the many angles Christina Sonntornvat tells it. Bonus points for being something that kids and adults will love.
Winner of the 2021 Kirkus Prize for Young People's Literature A 2021 Newbery Honor Book A 2021 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book A 2021 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist A 2021 Orbis Pictus Honor Book
A unique account of the amazing Thai cave rescue told in a heart-racing, you-are-there style that blends suspense, science, and cultural insight.
On June 23, 2018, twelve young players of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach enter a cave in northern Thailand seeking an afternoon’s adventure. But when they turn to leave, rising floodwaters block their path out.…
I love books that take you to another world, stories that show you bits of our reality while exploring another. It’s thrilling to step into a world where anything can happen, where dragons exist, where our laws of nature may not apply. But also, I love seeing the familiar in fantastical places: love, friendship, and hope. Though the characters in books may inhabit worlds made mostly out of paper, ink, and imagination, their stories are universal.
A transporting and unforgettable blend of science fiction, dystopia, and Old West. The world of Dustborn is both familiar and unfamiliar at once, filled with tight-knit communities, dangerous villains, and maps to a better place. In these pages, you'll find a story of survival, family, and hope
Delta of Dead River sets out to rescue her family from a ruthless dictator rising to power in the Wastes and discovers a secret that will reshape her world in this postapocalyptic Western mashup for fans of Mad Max and Gunslinger Girl.
Delta of Dead River has always been told to hide her back, where a map is branded on her skin to a rumored paradise called the Verdant. In a wasteland plagued by dust squalls, geomagnetic storms, and solar flares, many would kill for it—even if no one can read it. So when raiders sent by a man known…
I’ve always loved to be scared! When I was young I turned off the lights to watch movies like Alien and It. When I got older, I played Resident Evil and Silent Hill. And when I got even older, I started writing things that would make me jump if the dog came in too suddenly mid-chapter. I think we are drawn to scary books and movies because they give us a safe way to explore the unknown – and, less philosophically, because sometimes it’s just fun to get sucked into a dark and creepy universe!
Pre-Covid, I loved to read about dangerous viruses taking over the world. The genre has lost a liiiiitle bit of its charm since then, but Contagion is too good a story to pass up. It reminds me powerfully of the Dead Space video games, with its mysteriously uninhabited space stations. Like the very best scary sci-fi, it blurs the line between the terrifying things close to home – like an unexplained illness – and the deep, dark, scary depths of space we have yet to understand!
Perfect for fans of Madeleine Roux, Jonathan Maberry, and horror films like 28 Days Later and Resident Evil, this pulse-pounding, hair-raising, utterly terrifying novel is the first in a duology from the critically acclaimed author of the Taken trilogy.
After receiving a distress call from a drill team on a distant planet, a skeleton crew is sent into deep space to perform a standard search-and-rescue mission.
When they arrive, they find the planet littered with the remains of the project—including its members’ dead bodies. As they try to piece together what could…
When I was eight years old, I walked into a movie theater to see Spider-Man and walked out forever obsessed with superheroes. Specifically, I saw him kiss Mary-Jane with his mask on while hanging upside down and my tastes never changed in 20 years. Now, when not writing, I cosplay from my favorite comics, video games, and anime with my husband, who I met at a comic-con while dressed as Gwenpool (he was Symbiote Spider-Man—see, I told you my tastes never changed).
If you’re a fan of Marvel’s Black Widow, then this book is a must-read.
This dystopian science fiction novel features a tough and snarky (yet lovable) protagonist and enemies-to-lovers romance in a cyberpunk setting. When the protagonist turns 18, she finds out the mind-control processor in her brain implanted by the corporation she’s worked for over the last decade will kill her by the time she turns 20.
Mindwalker is fast-paced, full of action, and great for those looking for a book on the cusp of YA and NA that blends action and romance to keep you on the edge of your seat. This sci-fi is friendly to genre beginners, making it a great read for everyone.
'Mindwalker is a cinematic gut punch of action and espionage. Sharp-edged, tense and thrilling, you'll be holding your breath until the last page' Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne
Eighteen-year-old Sil Sarrah is determined to die a legend. But with only twelve months left before the supercomputer grafted to her brain kills her, Sil's time is quickly running out.
In the ten years she's been rescuing field agents for the Syntex corporation - by commandeering their minds from afar and leading them to safety - Sil hasn't lost a single life. And she's not about…
