Here are 94 books that The Little Island fans have personally recommended if you like
The Little Island.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
As an adoptive parent and a Korean-American immigrant, caring for others is my passion. I was only nine months old when I made the journey to America with my parents, so I only felt “American” growing up. It wasn’t until college that I genuinely started to appreciate my heritage. But perhaps, if I had seen more stories that reflected me, sharing family stories with love and finding hope amidst hardship, maybe I would’ve appreciated and even celebrated my difference a little more. That’s why I love sharing my family stories now. Everyone can relate to them on different levels.
I love this beautiful ride on a bus through the child’s inner city neighborhood. With grandma, the little boy encounters the colorful people that make up his community.
It’s a gentle and sweet reminder to me that diversity is beautiful. And though people may not seem as monetarily wealthy as others, love and care make them rich.
Every Sunday after church, CJ and his grandma ride the bus across town. But today, CJ wonders why they don't own a car like his friend Colby. Why doesn't he have an iPod like the boys on the bus? How come they always have to get off in the dirty part of town? Each question is met with an encouraging answer from grandma, who helps him see the beauty and fun in their routine and in the world around them. This energetic ride through a bustling city highlights the love and understanding between grandparent and grandchild as the world comes…
Reading allows us to climb inside other people’s heads, to think their thoughts and feel their feelings. For children, in particular, books can be a way to understand new emotions. To name them and start to think about where they come from. As my son started to grow up, I wanted to write a story that helped him think about other people’s feelings. And that’s what The Hug and its follow-ups are all about.
If you happen to know a child on the autism spectrum then I’m sure the word ‘empathy’ will have taken on a whole new dimension. This series of picture books has been written specifically for sensitive children, and I can’t recommend them more highly. As well as being extremely funny, they’ve really helped myself and my son talk about parts of the day we both find challenging. And to see things from the other’s point of view.
Children are often picky eaters, but for kids on the autism spectrum or with sensory issues, trying new foods can be especially challenging. In Nope! Never! Not for Me! a young child refuses to try a bite of broccoli - that is, until her mom guides her through a careful exploration of the new food. First she looks, then she sniffs, then touches, and finally takes one tiny bite. What do you know? Broccoli isn't so overwhelming after all!
With simple, reassuring text and bold illustrations in a limited palette, Nope! Never! Not For Me! espouses a patient approach to…
Reading allows us to climb inside other people’s heads, to think their thoughts and feel their feelings. For children, in particular, books can be a way to understand new emotions. To name them and start to think about where they come from. As my son started to grow up, I wanted to write a story that helped him think about other people’s feelings. And that’s what The Hug and its follow-ups are all about.
Here’s one for slightly older children. The story of two siblings, one with Asperger’s syndrome, who find themselves at the centre of a riveting detective story. They’re on the hunt to find their cousin Salim, who’s gone missing from a sealed carriage on The London Eye. Throughout the book, we are challenged to see the world from different people’s points of view in order to solve the mystery.
'A whip-smart puzzle with unforgettable characters' Robin Stevens, bestselling author of Murder Most Unladylike 'Compulsive Reading' Independent 'Thoroughly gripping' Sunday Telegraph
A story about family, self-belief and bravery, The London Eye Mystery is a brilliantly inventive crime-caper perfect for fans of Enola Holmes, High-Rise Mystery and A Kind of Spark. 11.32 a.m. Ted and his sister Kat watch their cousin Salim get on board the London Eye. The pod rises from the ground, high above the city.
12.02 p.m. The pod lands and the doors open. Everyone exits - everyone but Salim.
Has he spontaneously combusted? (Ted's theory.) Has he…
Reading allows us to climb inside other people’s heads, to think their thoughts and feel their feelings. For children, in particular, books can be a way to understand new emotions. To name them and start to think about where they come from. As my son started to grow up, I wanted to write a story that helped him think about other people’s feelings. And that’s what The Hug and its follow-ups are all about.
A little lost bear, all alone in a major transport hub, 6,000 miles from Peru, with only his name pinned to his tiny little duffle coat and the crumbs of his last marmalade sandwich rattling round his case. If that doesn’t melt your heart, then there’s no hope for you. Rumored to have been inspired by children sent away from cities during the Blitz. Has been making children think of others ever since.
The classic story of Paddington, the bear from Darkest Peru, who was found lost on Paddington Station.
"A bear on Paddington Station?" said Mrs Brown in amazement. "Don't be silly - there can't be."
The Browns first met Paddington on a railway station - Paddington station, in fact. He had travelled all the way from Darkest Peru with only a jar of marmalade, a suitcase and his hat.
The Browns soon found that Paddington was a very unusual bear. Ordinary things - like having a bath, travelling underground or going to the seaside became quite extraordinary, if a bear called…
My passion for small islands began as a child. I spent my summer holidays on the Isles of Scilly, where everyone knew each other, and the sea wiped the landscape clean, leaving it pristine each morning. Since then, I’ve visited dozens of islands, keen to understand the islanders’ survivalist mindset. I worked as an English teacher before becoming a writer. It allowed me to share my love of storytelling, but the tales that linger with me still take place on small islands where the consequences of our actions are never forgotten. I hope you enjoy exploring the ones on my list as much as I did!
I loved this book because it was so gripping. It made me long to be a writer. Although it was written over a hundred years ago, the dark story spoke directly to me.
I read it at the darkest time in my life. I was fourteen, and my alcoholic father had become a terrifying force in our home, just like Dr. Moreau, who rules his island with vicious power. I had never dreamed that a crazed leader could break an entire population, but the idea seems shockingly prescient now.
The book made me realize that I, too, could escape from the trap around me, just like the book’s hero, and learn to use my imagination to tell stories.
Simon Michael Prior loves small islands, and has travelled to remote countries in search of unique island experiences. He inflicts all aspects of life on himself so that readers can enjoy learning about his latest exploits. During his forty-year adolescence, he’s lived on two boats, sunk one of them; sold houses, street signs, Indian food, and paper bags; visited fifty countries, lived in three; qualified as a scuba diving instructor; learnt to wakeboard; trained as a Marine Rescue skipper, and built his own house without the benefit of an instruction manual.
As an Englishman, I’m very taken by books which combine travel with English history. Ben Fogle takes us through the last remnants of the British Empire, tiny islands that have refused independence and resolutely fly the Union Jack. His adventures in Tristan da Cunha, Diego Garcia, and St Helena took me to three places I had never been to. Like me, Fogle is an islandophile and I recommend this for anyone wanting to know about these islands that are in many ways more British than Britain.
Welcomed with open arms, derided as a pig-ignorant tourist and occasionally mocked mercilessly for his trouble, Ben Fogle visited the last flag-flying outposts of the British Empire. With caution, dignity and a spare pair of pants thrown to the wind, he set out to discover just exactly who would choose to live on islands as remote as these and - more importantly - tried to figure out exactly why. Landing himself on islands so isolated, wind-swept, barren and just damned peculiar that they might have Robinson Crusoe thinking twice, Fogle: almost becomes lunch on the appropriately named Carcass Island; gets…
As a curious Pratt Institute art school professor and loving parent of a daughter who has also written and/or illustrated sixteen children’s books I want to share my favorite books with other children’s book connoisseurs. It also helps that I have lots of opinions. Too many to count. And when someone actually wants to listen to my opinions I get very excited. I’m hoping one of my favorites becomes one of your favorites.
This book by the author of Shrek and one of my favorite artist/authors is a story of an island inhabited by crazy awful disgusting creatures and how they make it a terrible rotten island until nature takes hold and corrects all that.
A great book when thinking about our planet and environment. And the artwork is magnificent.
What would happen if every creature on land and sea were free to be as rotten as possible? If every day was a free-for-all; if plants grew barbed wire; if the ocean were poison? That's life on Rotten Island. For creatures that slither, creep, and crawl (not to mention kick, bite, scratch, and play nasty tricks on each other), Rotten Island is paradise. But then, on a typically rotten day, something truly awful happens. Something that could spoil Rotten Island forever. Out of a bed of gravel on the scorched earth, a mysterious, beautiful flower begins to grow...
I’ve been a fan of dinosaurs and other mega-monsters ever since I watched the original Godzilla movie as a kid. It scared me half out of my wits! There’s something about big, scaly, dangerous beasts that makes for a great adventure story. Add fascinating human characters and you’ve got my full attention. I started writing my Dinosaur Wars books precisely to fill the void where there are far too few stories of this type in current literature. Challenges between human heroes and giant beasts have been part of literature from the start, featuring dragons, titans, and ocean leviathans. I see my writings as efforts to continue that tradition.
James Gurney originally intended this to be a children’s book, but strong interest by adult readers changed his mind, and the three subsequent tales were developed as young-and-old-alike books. The stories are textually brief, but that lack is more than compensated by Gurney’s many illustrations, which tell much of the story visually.
The artwork initially attracted me, but I also found the reading quite engaging. Central to the story are father-and-son castaways Arthur and Will Denison, storm-tossed onto an uncharted south-sea island where dinosaurs still hold sway.
I found the notion of intelligent, peaceful, talking dinosaurs to be conceptually engaging and very unlike Jurassic Park’s huge, uncommunicative, and superlatively dangerous beasts.
When James Gurney's Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time first appeared in 1992, it was immediately hailed as a fully imagined world of the caliber of J. R. R. Tolkien's. Gurney's premise — of an undiscovered island where a race of mystical humans co-exists in harmony with intelligent dinosaurs — has been since reiterated over and over in numerous films and by scores of other writers. Now, Calla Editions brings Gurney's spectacular artistry to a new generation in this 20th anniversary edition. Digitally re-rendered from the original transparencies, Gurney's dramatic panoramas of Dinotopia and close-up character studies of its inhabitants…
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 didn’t know what to expect when I picked up this book. I wanted to read about Greece and Greek life, but I wasn’t certain I wanted a murder mystery. But this book is delivered with lots of local Greek colors and colorful characters.
It is atmospheric, enigmatic, and thoroughly beautiful. The nitty-gritty scenes of Greek life contrasted with Mediterranean passions, which at times ran very high. I was so pleased to discover there were more books to read by Zouroudi.
Idyllic but remote, the Greek island of Thiminos seems untouched and untroubled by the modern world. So when the battered body of a young woman is discovered at the foot of a cliff, the local police - governed more by archaic rules of honor than by the law - are quick to close the case, dismissing her death as an accident.
Then a stranger arrives, uninvited, from Athens, announcing his intention to investigate further into the crime he believes has been committed. Refusing to accept the woman's death as an accident or suicide, Hermes Diaktoros sets out to uncover the…
I'm a writer and poet who loved reading books set in fantasy worlds like Narnia as a child. When I began writing for children, I realised my own magical experiences had been on family trips to India, where goddesses and temples, palaces swarming with monkeys, ice-capped mountains, and elephant rides were part of everyday life. The term ‘magic realism’ seemed to better fit my own fantasy world, Indica. Here, elemental magic is rooted in the myths and culture of young hero Minou Moonshine, expanding her experiences and guiding the search for her destiny. The children’s books I've chosen also contain supernatural and magical elements which are intrinsic to the protagonist’s world – no wardrobe needed!
It's hard to believe that Kiran Millwood Hargrave’sThe Girl of Ink and Starsonly came out in 2016.
The book has become a modern classic, combining beautifully poetic writing with the compelling first-person voice of Isabella, the mapmaker’s daughter. When Isabella ventures into the mysterious interior of the island of Joya Governor, to search for her friend, the Governor’s daughter, she must navigate a mysterious labyrinth, supernatural demon dogs, and a volcano-dwelling deity.
The magic elements here are inspired by the indigenous culture of the Canary Isles.
