Love My Strange Shrinking Parents? Readers share 100 books like My Strange Shrinking Parents...

There is so much we love about this book. Every page stretches the imagination on how much one can love in physical distance form and it makes you realize that love, in a sense, has not bounds. You can’t guess how much Little Nutbrown Hare is loved, but he are loved endlessly. Not only is this book warm and fuzzy vibes, it makes you want to cry with this father and child relationship. Vivienne’s dad is a big inspiration in my life and it makes her realize how much she love him and hope to be just like him one day.

This sweet, tiny Japanese book is part of a three-book series revolving around a little bear named Kuma Kuma Chan. The story perfectly captures what it feels like to go visit a friend who lives far away. Even though the visit is not particularly eventful, the moments shared drinking bear tea and eating gifted chocolates feel so relatable. The illustrations are simple and serene, paired with an equally quiet and sweet story of friendship.

This book is composed of beautifully rendered landscapes in a considered color palette. A mother-daughter story sits at the heart of the book and is accompanied by breathtaking environments juxtaposed with everyday settings. This story shows that whether we are climbing a large mountain, or watching the shadows stretch in the afternoon, as long as we are together, there is nowhere else we rather be.

This heartwarming watercolored picture book follows a crocodile as he sets off into the great metropolis for his morning commute. With no words at all, this book expertly shows the bustling, dynamic city life with both human and animal inhabitants. Each page is compositionally unique, and it is a masterclass in pacing and paneling. Despite the urban landscapes, the illustrations are rendered in a way that feels like a breath of fresh air. And best of all, the last page will make you want to revisit the entire book from beginning to end.

Nazaré is a charming fable, showcasing the pursuit of justice in an authoritarian world. Kin, a young homeless boy, originally accused of sorcery and forced to flee, eventually leads a band of revolutionaries pitted against their oppressive dictator. His army is made up of delightful misfits, along with a variety of wild animals.

I love the rebels in this parable for the modern world. How could any writer or reader not appreciate revolutionaries who, while living rough in the countryside, impose a reading hour on their members. There is such beauty in the author’s language, unexpected humor throughout, and the most appealing charm.

If you believe in magic, as well as the the power of right to prevail against tyranny, despite impossible odds, this is the novel for you.

I’m always impressed by how Karen Russell pulls the reader into her stories with no warning about what we’re getting into. No easing into strange situations. She places her characters in what we publicly claim can’t be real but privately know to be true.

To make a fabulist story work, images must cling to the reader’s mind like golden treacle. Each one either grounding us in the familiar or firmly establishing the unfamiliar as quotidian. Russel is a master at this. Her stories flow so easily, and her characters’ unforgettable voices hit the reader in the first paragraph.

A friend recommended this book when I told her about my Shepherd theme. A neurotic fugitive, hiding on a deserted island, discovers that he is not alone. This novella is classed as magical realism—there’s a foreword by Borges—but like my book it eventually provides a scientific explanation for the strange occurrences. And like almost all my other choices, it’s a first-person narration, so we are kept wondering how much is true. It flags a bit after the initial premise, but once the revelations start, it grips you. Amazingly for a book written in 1964, its speculations address issues at the forefront of digital technology and science today. I won’t say more, except: don’t read the introduction or foreword, which contain plot spoilers!     

I love this book because it really erases the line between the real and the fantastic. I’ve been a Neil Gaiman fan since Sandman. This is a middle-grade book written for me. The path I took through this book led me back to my childhood and reminded me of Where the Wild Things Are, with its nearly seamless transition between the “real” world and the imagined.

Neil’s done this before with Caroline and the Graveyard. But Ocean is different. Here, I never lose touch with the real world. The turn to fantasy just makes the real world more dangerous. I think that’s an important change. When I was a child, when I daydreamed or pondered the things and people and dark corners that I didn’t understand, when I added the additional layer of the fantastic, it wasn’t really an escape.

It just made the challenges of being a child… show more.

Paranormal Women’s Fiction: This is a relatively new genre that “celebrates either a midlife or older woman who navigates her life while discovering or developing her own magical powers. Being an older woman, I leapt on this one! Magic realism is present here as is often the case with the paranormal. Interweaving individual paranormal abilities within the town of Myrtlewood, which is itself a city of quirks, with a mystery and a murder demanding to be solved. 

The personalities of the two main characters seem to ruffle the feathers of some readers. However, I viewed the interactions of the mother and daughter as evolutionary journeys, individually and in their relationships with each other. Did it present frustrating moments? Of course, but this is what makes it good.

As both a novelist and a monk whose life focuses on blending the material and spiritual, I consider this a very important work. Despite a privileged Jewish upbringing in New York City, Latin culture has forever been an important part of my life. The fact is, I’ve always been surrounded by South American friends and spent time in South America in my teen years.

This book brings to life the mystical heart of so much that drives South American culture, revealing it in a way that pulls you straight into the arms of a parallel world, or if not parallel, then one that exists both above and below what we superficially see and feel. I find it a great read and one that remains alive in my imagination year after year.