Here are 100 books that Roller Coaster fans have personally recommended if you like
Roller Coaster.
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I’d been a preschool teacher and a children’s author for years before I decided to become a mom. I was pretty sure I’d kill it at motherhood, I mean, I knew all the songs and I had lots of books. I was always up for giving advice to the caregivers at my school, heck, I was the perfect parent before my son was born. I knew everything then. Not anymore. Thank goodness for books. Over the years, my child has asked some tough questions, read on…you’ll see. Do they sound familiar? If so, these books might help you find your footing as you go looking for answers.
My kid can be a real jerk. He picks a genre of child and decides they’re terrible. He’s been horrified by the existence of girls, boys, toddlers, big kids, and human babies. It’s straight-up bigotry, and it’s not okay with me. I’ve preached and preached on sharing space and being nice. Each Kindness doesn’t preach. We stand in the main character’s shoes as she decides who deserves kindness and who doesn’t. We feel the consequences.
WINNER OF A CORETTA SCOTT KING HONOR AND THE JANE ADDAMS PEACE AWARD!
Each kindness makes the world a little better
This unforgettable book is written and illustrated by the award-winning team that created The Other Side and the Caldecott Honor winner Coming On Home Soon. With its powerful anti-bullying message and striking art, it will resonate with readers long after they've put it down.
Chloe and her friends won't play with the new girl, Maya. Every time Maya tries to join Chloe and her friends, they reject her. Eventually Maya stops coming to school. When Chloe's teacher gives a…
I write fiction and nonfiction. I tell the truth, but on occasion, I twist the truth to create entertaining stories to feed your soul like soul food Sunday. I write for kids: for the teeny tots and rebel rousers. Stories both short and long with characters brave, bold, and strong. Settings that transport you to a world so captivating, you don’t want to leave. My stories are like quilts, threaded with themes of love, hope, family, and food. They provide comfort, keeping you hopeful through times of despair. I handle your heart, mind, and soul with care. I love seeing children have agency on the page. I love that they do them, and they are unapologetic about what they do.
I am personally recommending this book because it is hands down one of the funniest books I have ever read. Trevor Lee is unapologetic. He is who he is. He is an Appalachian boy who doesn’t like school much and doesn’t want anyone to know he is not a big reader. To escape Parent’s Night, he tries and fails to get out of it and has to seek his Maw-Maw’s help. I love this book. Whenever I am in a negative space, I can always count on the dog-eared pages to have me cracking up.
For me, it is humor and laughter can be the light we need in the darkest of days. I also love how Maw-Maw has the answer. This book is about the support of family as well. Trevor Lee is unapologetically hysterical. I love this book so much. Everyone should have a copy on his…
If there's one thing everyone knows, it's that Trevor Lee and school don't mix. Like pickles and peanut butter. When his new teacher announces all the third graders must read in front of everyone at Parents Night, Trevor Lee and his best friend Pinky need to create a masterful plan and put it into action. Trevor Lee has a secret that no one can find out--he can't read!. After several over-the-top attempts at getting out of Parents Night, Trevor Lee enlists the help of his Mamaw. "Some days are just bad. You gotta hold your head high and keep moving,"…
My expertise and passion for the theme of children’s dreams for themselves and how they achieve them began with reading wonderful children’s picture books to my kids and grandkids when they were very young. After writing one young adult novel and four cozy mysteries for adults, I realize my true calling as a writer is to create books that little readers will not only love but return to again and again to reinforce their own dreams and sense of worth as well as awareness of others. Many picture books dwell on what elders dream for their children rather than what young ones wish for themselves.
Nigel dreamed large with three goals: to become an astronaut, a dancer, and a superhero, but he was too shy to tell anybody—except for the moon. He also felt his mom and dad would not understand his big dream.
Career week at school finally loosened his lips in a surprising way, which I loved as much as every child reader will.
From debut author Antwan Eady and artist Gracey Zhang comes a glowing tale about the young dreaming big. A perfect story to demonstrate how pride in where we come from can bring a shining confidence.
When Nigel looks up at the moon, his future is bright. He imagines himself as...an astronaut, a dancer, a superhero, too!
Among the stars, he twirls. With pride, his chest swells. And his eyes, they glow. Nigel is the most brilliant body in the sky.
But it's Career Week at school, and Nigel can't find the courage to share his dreams. It's easy to whisper…
I write fiction and nonfiction. I tell the truth, but on occasion, I twist the truth to create entertaining stories to feed your soul like soul food Sunday. I write for kids: for the teeny tots and rebel rousers. Stories both short and long with characters brave, bold, and strong. Settings that transport you to a world so captivating, you don’t want to leave. My stories are like quilts, threaded with themes of love, hope, family, and food. They provide comfort, keeping you hopeful through times of despair. I handle your heart, mind, and soul with care. I love seeing children have agency on the page. I love that they do them, and they are unapologetic about what they do.
This book is the first of its kind. It is a dystopian picture book. Flowers are almost non-existent. It’s a rarity. So, every year, there is an annual race. Rou wants to win, but not for her. She wants the flowers for her grandmother. I love that she put someone before her. This book is gorgeously illustrated and the message of what you would do to please the ones you love is abundantly clear. I love this book.
Rou and the Great Race: In a time when a flower is so rare that it is the grand prize of an annual race, Rous only wish is to win for her grandma, who is haunted by memories of when flowers were once abundant. But sometimes the real prize is not whats offered by others, but what we make for ourselves.
My name is Elle Rivers, and I’ve been a romance reader and writer for over ten years. I started reading when I was in high school because I was a lonely kid who loved watching people fall in love. I love the romance genre because it always has a happy ending, and reading about characters overcoming their struggles reminds me that I can also face any hard moments in life. I try to write the same kinds of characters in my books. They’re all a piece of me, and I am so excited that others can read them, too.
This novel is set in the fictional amusement park of Honeywood Acres, and it follows two characters who pretend to date as their characters in the park. I love a good fake dating story, especially when it’s for a job, and the two leads hate each other at the start of the book.
It’s a slower burn, which is always fun because it gives us time to fall in love with the characters. The author has a talent for world-building, and I got lost in this book!
I’m a contemporary mystery junkie. Realistic tales always grab my attention. A touch of romance never hurts. In college, one professor suggested the old ‘write what you know’ approach. I don’t know everything, but I know what I like. Mysteries! I thrive on distinctive characters, those who are willing to put every effort into getting to the bottom of the situation. Sharp, tight dialogue and descriptions are essential. Give me that, and I’ll be back for more. This is my passion. Come along if you want a thrill and a surprise or two.
King and I share a love of mysteries. This beauty, set in the early 1970s, fits the bill for a cozy story. Teenagers working at the amusement park are just trying to make some money and get ready for college. But there’s an unsolved murder that captures their attention as well.
King’s ability to create great characters, both good and bad, has always been one of his many talents. That’s evident in this story and it pulled me in right from the start. This isn’t a traditional mystery, with experienced detectives chasing down leads. As with many of his stories, I’ve read this one more than once.
A STUNNING NEW NOVEL FROM ONE OF THE BEST-SELLING AUTHORS OF ALL TIME!
The #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.
"I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts. That combo made Hard Case Crime the perfect venue for this book, which is one of my favorites. I…
I was a cop for twenty years. And while I always saw True Crime as a busman’s holiday, I loved crime fiction all along. Eventually my own writing took me there, as well. I love how crime fiction, much like good science fiction, explores the nature of human behavior in a way that isn’t as prevalent in other genres. As a result, I’ve read widely in the field, always gravitating toward the darker and grittier entries. The lone wolf protagonists who either live by a code or undergo a fascinating change within the book or series has also been my focus.
I love this book because, like all of the Parker novels, it starts in the middle of the action, with Parker and his associates spilling out of a car, on the run. Parker hides in an off-season theme park and what follows is a story that is better than Die Hard (and pre-dates it by a decade).
I love the Parker novels for this sort of action and the way that Parker adheres to his particular code. It is not one most heroes abide by but you have to admire this tough thief who lives by the words he speaks – there’s something honorable in that.
By the time Richard Stark sat down to write "Deadly Edge" in 1971, he'd been chronicling the adventures of his antihero, Parker, for nearly a decade. But it turns out he was just warming up: the next three "Parker" novels would see Stark crank everything up a notch - tightening the writing, heightening the violence, and, most of all, hardening the deadly heister at the books' heart. "Deadly Edge" kicks things off by bidding a brutal adieu to the 1960s: Parker robs a rock concert, but the heist goes sour, and he finds himself - and his woman, Claire -…
I love books that keep me up at night. I'm constantly trying to get into a good, healthy bedtime routine—but I am also constantly sabotaging that effort by finding books that I simply can’t put down. The feeling of being drawn so deep into a story that the hours slip away is easily one of my favorite feelings in the world. I also love books that make me wake up in the middle of the night, books that slide into my brain and plant new ideas there. As an author, I am always striving to write those books. I can think of no higher compliment than “I stayed up all night reading it.”
Hide feels like a book tailor-made to pull me in and refuse to let go. The pitch—a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek in an abandoned amusement park—is solid gold, and the book delivers so much more than it promises. With relentless, cutting-class commentary and a truly ferocious sense of clarity, Hide excoriates systems of exploitation with incredible efficiency. I found myself sneaking chapters wherever I could.
A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White, perfect for fans of Stephen King and SQUID GAME.
The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don't get caught.
The prize: enough money to change everything.
Even though everyone is desperate to win - to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts - Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that.
It's the reason she's alive, and her family isn't.…
I’m the author of five books, the most recent of which is The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies. The “doctor” ran infant incubator sideshows for forty years at Coney Island (among other places) where the public would pay to view tiny preemies. Bizarre as it seems, and despite Martin Couney’s many fabrications, he was the rightful father of American neonatology, not only getting rich but also saving thousands of children when the medical establishment couldn’t or wouldn’t do it: Some of his patients are still alive. During my years of research, I needed to immerse myself in the history and culture of America’s trippiest, naughtiest seaside playground, with its amusement parks, freak shows, sideshows, hijinks, and hanky panky. (Sigmund Freud reportedly said that Coney Island was the only thing of interest to him in America). Along with many trips to Coney Island as it is today, including the Coney Island Museum, these were the books that really helped me feel it.
First published in 1957 (and re-issued with a welcome epilogue by historian Michael P. Onorato), the book vividly portrays the storied seaside’s heyday. McCullough was Coney Island royalty: His grandfather was one of its earliest settlers, his uncle was among its greatest showmen, and his dad owned a dozen amusement-park shooting galleries. The family’s love of the place seeps through these pages (a sub-sub title reads “the most rambunctious, scandalous, rapscallion, splendiferous, pugnacious, spectacular, illustrious, prodigious, frolicsome island on earth”—which about sums it up). Particularly moving is the heartbreaking fate of the show animals on the night of a tragic fire in 1911.
Coney Island is more than a national institution: it was probably the most celebrated amusement resort in the world. This book, by a man whose family helped to build the Island's fantastic reputation, presents its lively and nostalgic history. Touched with sentiment, occasionally with acid, it is frank, outspoken, sometimes biting, but always imbued with humor.
This new edition of McCullough's book includes an introduction by Brian J. Cudahy, who has written extensively about New York's waterways and subways, and an epilogue by Michael P. Onorato, a retired history professor whose father managed Coney Island's famed Steeplechase Park from 1928…
Hola, I’m Yawatta Hosby, and I have an open mind about monsters, ghosts, and urban legends. I believe they’re real, especially the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. Earth is too big to only have humans. I have a passion for the topic being terrorized by things that go bump in the night. My book, Urban Legends, plays into that theme. October, the spooky season, is my favorite. Halloween is my favorite holiday. Every year, I watch a horror movie every day for 31 days straight. I also love reading horror books and researching urban legends. I’d like to think I’m an expert in horror, but it could all be in my head haha.
I loved how I got fooled into thinking someone was the main character, but he got an untimely end at the beginning of the book. It was refreshing to see the author not afraid to have a surprising twist. This werewolf story held my interest from chapter one to the end. The author never sugarcoated the werewolf’s victims, describing every tear from limb to limb. He wasn’t afraid to make the story as scary as possible. No room for interpretation–the original werewolves were clever hunters and definitely villains. The bonfire scene was very creepy, in a good way.
"...this is what werewolf horror is supposed to feel like: gruesome, bloody, dark, angry, messy, and downright terrifying." - Howling Libraries
Aside from a quaint amusement park, the small town of Lakeview offers little excitement for Duane, Savannah, and their friends. They're about to endure their ten-year high school reunion when their lives are shattered by the arrival of an ancient, vengeful evil.
The werewolf.
The first attack leaves seven dead and four wounded. And though the beast remains on the loose and eager to spill more blood, the sleepy resort town is about to face an even greater terror.…
