Fans pick 99 books like Ramona the Pest

When I was nine, I stayed with my Grandparents for a week and went to the local bookshop every morning. One day, I randomly picked up Harriet the Spy, read the first page, and couldn’t stop. Over the years, I have read it over 50 times, and it still remains one of my all-time favorites.

This book has nothing to do with presenting and everything to do with being observant, a writer, and a spy. I couldn’t have a list of book recommendations without including this. Harriet is one of the best and most realistic heroines in children’s literature, and if you haven’t read it, you’re in for a treat.

Of course, if you’re talking classic impulse-control-challenged YA heroes, you’re almost obligated to mention Holden Caulfield.

So, okay: Holden Caulfield. But now let’s talk about Earl, who is not the protagonist of Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl, but the protagonist’s incredibly foul-mouthed, incredibly short, incredibly angry, incredibly funny sidekick and creative partner, who will windmill-kick you in the head if you mention his height to him.

Nonetheless, when alerted to the fact that the Girl is indeed Dying, it’s Earl who insists that Greg (Me) step up and be her friend, and it’s Earl who has the moral compass to teach Greg that compassion is more important than dignity. Earl might be a chain-smoking high-school dropout, but he has standards. 

Everyone should spend 30 minutes each day admiring Calvin and Hobbes, the best comic strip ever made.

Calvin is one of the truly magnificent heroes of children’s literature, an embodiment of all the imaginative and moral power that kids have and grownups don’t.

His best friend, Hobbes, is a profound thinker as well as an intermittently alive stuffed tiger, and together they live, squabbling and happy, in their own crazed world, triumphing over parents, teachers, and other authorities with dazzling illogic and hairbreadth escapes to other realities, much more interesting than this one, where you can evade chores by traveling into a future when they’ve already been done or mysteriously shrink to the size of an insect and wreak revenge on bullies.

Obviously, the Cat in the Hat is the King of Mayhem. But is he a hero?

I have to admit, The Cat in the Hat made me nervous as a kid—the Cat’s a force of chaos; the house is ruined; Mom will be mad! Even the happy ending seemed too precarious to enjoy and also involved lying to Mom, which, in my experience, never turned out well.

But when the Cat returns in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, he seems, after a spate of insanity, to become sympathetic to the protagonists’ fears (they are awfully law-abiding, those kids), and he reforms to the extent of providing a solution to the problem he’s created: VOOM, which in my opinion is a metaphor for nuclear power, is a great cleaning agent and soon everything returns to its original tranquility, proving that the while the Cat in the Hat is… show more.

This is a book series that poses mysteries that are short and fun to solve. The answers are not insultingly easy, nor are they so hard or obscure that kids can’t solve them. The main character is very likable and is described in a way that makes you feel like he is a kid you would want to be friends with.

Mercer Mayer writes books for kids that are so funny that I seek them out and read them when I don’t even have any kids with me. His pictures do a great job of showing the sarcasm of the story. For instance, there is a page where the child is explaining how he does his chores. He says, “I didn’t forget to water the plants, but they looked fine to me.” 

The picture has a very droopy-looking plant. On almost every page, there are funny side critters to watch for, like a Where’s Waldo find. He’s a great author and illustrator.

This is a book that teaches a lesson in a way that makes you laugh even when you have read it over and over. I like that the kids in the story don’t figure out the mystery, but the pictures help the reader to solve it. Funny pictures and a funny telling of a great story.

This simple story indirectly shows how even when things don’t go as planned, it can all turn out well in the end. It is told in a way that is funny and fun to read, using the same phrases over and over to help kids learn to read. They even chant along with me when I read it to them.

Austen writes sisters like no one else, and the dynamic between tempestuous Marianne and practical Elinor is the template for so many novels that have followed.

Austen keeps the two sisters from becoming caricatures by making them more alike than different, and the love that anchors their relationship is at the heart of the novel.

I first read this as a freshman in college, and I still think about it every time I’m writing sisters. A classic.

I’m a sucker for endpapers so, with inside covers that appear browned with age, this book instantly grabbed me. I was even more drawn in by the edges of all pages looking aged, with the book’s title repeatedly running along the bottom of each one like a handwritten footer. Once I was reading, the flavour of classics like those by the Bronte sisters and Jane Austin meant I couldn’t put it down.

Set in the later part of the 20th century, Kate’s story explores self-worth and finding purpose. First-person narrative uses language cleverly. It is easy to read, the voice unpretentious. I felt like I knew Kate. We have so much in common, including the ability to write in the dark and a penchant for taking laneways rather than main roads.