Here are 81 books that The Magical Christmas Horse fans have personally recommended if you like
The Magical Christmas Horse.
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I am a writer, educator, and mother. Finding books in local libraries or bookstores is necessary so children will read a diverse assortment of stories that teach a lesson and engage their interest. I’ve found that all young children at home and in schools like books with interesting pictures that they can follow along. Children want to share stories and have time to read and absorb the content. Sometimes children see details in illustrations that adults might not notice. Kids learn in different ways. These books will capture the child’s attention and teach about kindness, friendship, and determination.
I like how Santa Mouse, Santa’s little mouse friend, wrapped a special present and took good care of it, despite falling from Santa’s sleigh and getting lost. Santa Mouse wouldn’t let the present out of his grip until he found a special Christmas tree inside a house with a special light to set the present on. The book shows the reader the importance of using care to protect something treasured. Santa Mouse’s determination pays off. This is a great message for kids.
Santa's littlest helper gets lost and must find his way back to Santa's sleigh in time to save Christmas in this delightful holiday picture book.
Every Christmas, Santa Mouse becomes Santa's little helper. This year, when Santa's ready to take off in his sleigh, Santa Mouse scurries onto his shoulder-only to fall off into the deep, dark snowy ground below. How will he ever find Santa and help him deliver presents to the children?
I am a writer, educator, and mother. Finding books in local libraries or bookstores is necessary so children will read a diverse assortment of stories that teach a lesson and engage their interest. I’ve found that all young children at home and in schools like books with interesting pictures that they can follow along. Children want to share stories and have time to read and absorb the content. Sometimes children see details in illustrations that adults might not notice. Kids learn in different ways. These books will capture the child’s attention and teach about kindness, friendship, and determination.
I loved this story and how Suzy was willing to go the extra mile to make Christmas special for her friends. Suzy is a caring goose who would do anything to make the outside Christmas tree aglow with the brightest star in the sky. When she flies off hilltops and wanders far away from her friends, she doesn’t stay lost very long as her friend's onomatopoeia calls lead her back home, and Suzy discovers a special surprise on the tree. The book shows miracles do happen.
Suzy, the silly goose with a mind of her own, returns in a brand new read-aloud Christmas picture book.
When Suzy Goose decides that the Christmas tree is missing a star, she sets off on a journey to fetch the shiny star in the sky. No matter how far she travels, she never reaches it. But when she finds herself back at the tree, everyone has a beautiful Christmas surprise!
I am a writer, educator, and mother. Finding books in local libraries or bookstores is necessary so children will read a diverse assortment of stories that teach a lesson and engage their interest. I’ve found that all young children at home and in schools like books with interesting pictures that they can follow along. Children want to share stories and have time to read and absorb the content. Sometimes children see details in illustrations that adults might not notice. Kids learn in different ways. These books will capture the child’s attention and teach about kindness, friendship, and determination.
Snow Sounds may seem like a simple book on onomatopoeia, but the beautiful illustrations tell their own story of community workers, a boy, and the boy’s family working together to make sure the boy can get to school on time and deliver a specially wrapped gift. Readers will smile at the illustrations as they absorb the story’s message.
Sweep, crunch, swoosh, scrape . . . All night long, snow falls silently, bringing forth a world blanketed in white—and a very noisy day. For at dawn’s light, machine, man, and child begin to dig out: first the big highway grader and snowplow, then the smaller town plow, a father’s snow blower, and a boy’s shovel . . . But will the streets get cleared in time?
Spare poetry and elegant watercolor paintings cleverly bring to life this unique story of snow removal and the fun onomatopoeic sounds accompanying it.
Secrets, misunderstandings, and a plethora of family conflicts abound in this historical novel set along the Brazos River in antebellum Washington County, East Texas.
It is a compelling story of two neighboring plantation families and a few of the enslaved people who serve them. These two plantations are a microcosm…
I am a writer, educator, and mother. Finding books in local libraries or bookstores is necessary so children will read a diverse assortment of stories that teach a lesson and engage their interest. I’ve found that all young children at home and in schools like books with interesting pictures that they can follow along. Children want to share stories and have time to read and absorb the content. Sometimes children see details in illustrations that adults might not notice. Kids learn in different ways. These books will capture the child’s attention and teach about kindness, friendship, and determination.
Bear Stays Up for Christmas skillfully portrays how friends will work together to help each other achieve their goals. The book also shows that each of us is unique, and we cannot be expected to do everything exactly the same as our friends. The message of kindness, friendship, acceptance is clear throughout the story.
Celebrate the holidays with Bear and his friends in this sweet picture book from bestselling author Karma Wilson!
Bear’s friends are determined to keep Bear awake for Christmas! So they wake Bear up and have him help them find a Christmas tree, bake cakes, hang up stockings, and sing Christmas songs. Bear stays up—by discovering that giving is one of the best Christmas presents of all!
I am uniquely qualified to assemble this list because I gave my heart and head to the fictional and true West in fourth grade. When I learned California history, enraptured by images of wild horses and vaqueros, the cruelty of bear and bullfighting (no one talked then about cruelty to “converted” Native Americans), and the myth of Zorro. I grabbed the chance to move to the cowgirl state of Nevada, where I learned to love the scents of sagebrush and alkali flats. Research for my fiction and non-fiction has given me license to ride in a Pony Express reenactment and 10-day cattle drive and spend all night bottle-feeding an orphan mustang.
This ranch-centered book puts a human face on the cost of war.
A best in the West (or at least his small Nevada town) bull rider is physically and mentally torn apart by war. He can’t see the future he envisioned for himself anymore. But the story is really about his younger brother, Cam. I love Cam’s humor most of all, but his devotion to his idolized big brother is what makes this more than a story about a skateboarder turned bull rider.
This book is about family in an opposite way from The Red Pony it confirms the safety net family can provide.
Cam O'Mara, grandson and younger brother of bull-riding champions, is not interested in partaking in the family sport. Cam is a skateboarder, and perfecting his tricks—frontside flips, 360s—means everything until his older brother, Ben, comes home from Iraq, paralyzed from a brain injury. What would make a skateboarder take a different kind of ride? And what would get him on a monstrosity of a bull named Ugly? If Cam can stay on for the requisite eight seconds, could the $15,000 prize bring hope and a future for his big brother?
I love scary books for kids, and scary mysteries in particular. I’m a strong advocate for literacy and reaching reluctant readers, and the author of the multi-award-nominated middle-grade mystery Daybreak on Raven Island and Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, among others. The recent resurgence of horror has brought a fresh new bunch of scary stories for kids. And I love reading these books, even though I’m well out of the target age range. These new scary books for kids blend genres, tackle difficult issues, and show kids that even in the darkest, smallest hour of the night, you can solve the problem at hand and come out on the other side—better, stronger, smarter.
I love a good short story, especially when it’s written for kids.
In More Tales to Keep You Up at Night, main character Gilbert finds audio tapes after his brother is injured in a mysterious accident, and starts to listen to them. Gilbert soon figures out that the stories are connected to his family, and that he’ll have to listen to all of them to save his brother…
Perfect for readers of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. And as you probably can tell from the title, there is a first book by the same author. Dan Poblocki is one of those authors who just know how to tell a scary story for the middle-grade audience.
From the co-author of the #1 New York Times bestselling series The Magic Misfits comes a spectacularly creepy follow-up to Tales to Keep You Up at Night that will keep you up way past bedtime.
Perfect for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark!
Gilbert is visiting his injured brother, Ant, in the hospital, when he sees a shadowed figure leave behind a satchel filled with old cassette tapes. Despite a strange, garbled voicemail telling him "Don't listen to the tapes," Gilbert can't resist playing them and listening to the chilling stories they reveal: tales of cursed seashells,…
Historical fiction inspired by the story of Mary Leakey, who carved her own path to become one of the world's most distinguished paleoanthropologists.
It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the…
I’m a huge thriller fan, and I love finance. In fact, I worked in the industry for over twenty years. I have an MBA from Duke and have been the CEO of three different SEC/FINRA-registered broker-dealers. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself deep into a thriller with a financial component that turns out to be implausible, overly simplistic, or both. It breaks the narrative for me. With these books, that’s not a concern. Financial thriller aficionados unite!
Looking for a touch of fiction with your finance: The Millionaires is not only fun, it’s a great look at how easy (and tempting) it can be when working in finance to cross the line and act for personal gain.
As someone who has worked in the finance industry for decades, I’ve become all too accustomed to moving millions, sometimes tens of millions with the touch of a button. What happens when an average guy has that authority? What if that average guy is actually innocent?
Read The Millionaires for an entertaining look at the possibilities.
Two brothers who are desperately chasing success get more than they bargained for in this suspenseful cat-and-mouse thriller of wealth, crime, and social climbing.
Two brothers. Three secret service agents. And millions for the taking.
Charlie and Oliver Caruso are brothers who work at Greene and Greene, a private bank so exclusive there's a $2 million minimum to be a client. But when the door of success slams in their faces, the brothers are presented with an offer they can't refuse: $3 million in an abandoned account that can't be traced. It's the perfect victimless crime. Charlie and Oliver opt…
I started writing children's books to connect more with my daughter. When she was born, I struggled to bond with her because I felt like I had lost part of who I was. My husband reminded me how important it was to build a strong bond with her, so I began spending more one-on-one time with her. Our favorite activity was looking for the moon together, which led to my first book, "Mommy, Mommy, Where Is The Moon?". When my son came along, I made sure my daughter knew she was still loved, promising our special time together wouldn't stop and she would always be my first baby.
I loved that this book tells the story of him introducing his new baby sister, Margaret, to the reader. It also focuses on how Daniel can be a big helper in the family in an easy and relatable way.
The book also mentions the importance of special time with just Mom and Dad, which assures the older sibling that he or she is not forgotten and still loved.
A new generation of children love Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, inspired by the classic series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood!
Daniel Tiger is learning to be a good big brother to Baby Margaret in this sweet shaped board book, based on a very special episode of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood!
Daniel Tiger is so happy: He’s just gotten a new baby sister! Baby Margaret is very little, and she needs lots of care from Mom and Dad. But not to worry, big brother Daniel is here to help!
This adorable story is perfect for little ones who are about to become big brothers or…
Raised alongside three feral younger brothers in the rash-inducing, subtropical climate of Cairo, Georgia, I am a lifelong resident of the South. A circumstance, no doubt, leaving an indelible mark on my voice as a writer. At this point in my writing career, I write what I know. As a reader, I enjoy exploring the rich stories woven by Southern authors, capturing other places, people, and experiences beyond my own frame of reference. Ultimately, as a Southerner, I endeavor to reconcile the South’s troubled past of racial and social oppression with the romanticized notion others have of this place I call home.
This 2002 novel follows young Harriet Cleve Dufresnes in 1970s Mississippi during the aftermath of the death of her nine-year-old brother, who was killed by hanging in the shadow of unexplained circumstances. I am particularly enamored by the novel’s focus on the customs and dynamics of Harriet’s extended Southern family.
Tartt best describes in her own words why I love this novel: It is “a frightening, scary book about children coming into contact with the world of adults frighteningly.”
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch comes an utterly riveting novel set in Mississippi of childhood, innocence, and evil. • “Destined to become a special kind of classic.” —The New York Times Book Review
The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet—unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets…
Head West in 1865 with two life-long friends looking for adventure and who want to see the wilderness before it disappears. One is a wanderer; the other seeks a home he lost. The people they meet on their journey reflect the diverse events of this time period–settlers, adventure seekers, scientific…
I’m intrigued by baseball. The passion and drama of the games and the way the sport is nearly always linked to a meaningful relationship with someone dear. That curiosity has only been fueled by the books I’ve read over the years and inspired me to write a baseball story of my own. The All-American is my ninth novel and I couldn’t feel more privileged to have been able to write it.
My college literature professor lent me a copy of this novel twenty-five years ago and I spent an entire summer savoring it while it made me fall in love with baseball.
This epic novel follows the lives of the Chance brothers as they come of age, leave home, and grapple with the changing world of the 1960s. And it’s about the passion and drama and absolutely relational nature of baseball.
I still have my professor’s copy of the book on my shelf. I tried to return it a few years ago, but George wouldn’t take it back. He, apparently, has a habit of keeping several copies on hand to give to students so they’ll fall in love with it as much as he did.
Once in a great while a writer comes along who can truly capture the drama and passion of the life of a family. David James Duncan, author of the novel The River Why and the collection River Teeth, is just such a writer. And in The Brothers K he tells a story both striking and in its originality and poignant in its universality.
This touching, uplifting novel spans decades of loyalty, anger, regret, and love in the lives of the Chance family. A father whose dreams of glory on a baseball field are shattered…
