71 books like The Secret Island (Secret Series)

I first read this extraordinary, heartwarming story of self-reliance and survival when my own children were growing up, and I’ve returned to reading Island of the Blue Dolphins often throughout my adult years, typically at times when I find myself struggling to regain my footing as I face personal problems and challenges.

Published in 1960, this book tells the story of a young girl named Karana who spends nearly two decades abandoned and alone on the desert island her tribe evacuates after a deadly conflict with Aleutian otter hunters. I’ve often recommended this slight but powerful tale to women friends suffering from feelings of desolation and helplessness, and Karana’s courage, resilience, and creativity have succeeded in lifting their spirits and inspiring hope.

I love this book because it teaches about real-life situations like children being orphaned, being homeless, family alienation, and even some survival tips (if that’s what you’re into). I would say that this book is cute, but now that I think about it, it’s really not. It’s cute in some aspects but mainly sad and scary.

I didn’t really understand what was going on in it back when I last read it (I was really young), but I do now.

This historical novel has been heralded as a fresh look at the era of the Little House books, and it does a wonderful job of looking at frontier life in Dakota Territory in 1880 from the perspective of Chinese-American Hanna. It’s also an examination of a daughter trying to navigate an often prickly relationship with her white father, made even more difficult after the death of Hanna’s Chinese-Korean mother. I love Hanna’s careful study of everyone around her—observances that are borne from a need to protect herself from racism, but which are also windows to empathy and understanding. Despite her father’s resistance to Hanna following her dream to become a dressmaker, Hanna prevails, using her knowledge of her father’s own nature to win him over.

Maddy is a city kid spending her first summer alone at her Grandmère’s house on the bayou in Louisiana. Her grandmother is a little bit strange, but she and Maddy get along perfectly and can even read each other’s minds. At Grandmère’s side, Maddy learns to cook, to care for her chickens, to make healing potions, study the weather and tides, but she also learns not to stare, not to mumble, not to be quick to judge. And when an environmental and emotional disaster occurs, Maddy is called on to lead and to heal all on her own. Her triumph is thanks to what she learned from Grandmère. This multigenerational story, gorgeously written by Coretta Scott King award-winner Rhodes, is heartwarming and exciting and Maddy’s survival skills are impressive.

For those of us who lived through 9/11, it’s easy to forget that kids in school today weren’t even born in 2001; to them, the events of 9/11 are ancient history. I Survived is the kind of book that can jump-start their interest by dropping them right into the thick of the events of that day. Lucas is a football-obsessed teen who makes a series of completely relatable bad decisions that leave him right at Ground Zero just as the planes hit the towers. Told in age-appropriate but heart-stopping detail, this book captures a perfect snapshot of the confusion, fear, heroism, and resolve on display that extraordinary day. 

This book is different from the rest on the list in a few ways. It doesn’t transport the characters to new, magical realms. There are no whimsical beasts or mystical creatures. And, perhaps most significantly, I read this one as a “grown-up.” I had the honor of reading this book aloud to my children, along with its sequels, over the course of several months. My kids were delighted by these bright, young protagonists who, using their wits, imagination, and moral compass, save their loved ones from a devious villain intent on obliterating individuality. I fell in love with these characters, just as my children did. And when we read the final page of the final chapter of the final book, my daughter burst into tears. Not because the story was sad, but because spending time with these imaginary people had been a real experience. 

Good stories take us to other… show more.

I couldn’t resist adding a Tintin graphic novel to my list since Herge’s adventure series is widely beloved — and this one is a particular favorite. The story opens when the miserly millionaire, Laszlo Carreidas, "the millionaire who never laughs," invites Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Professor Calculus to accompany him on his private jet to Sydney instead of taking commercial Flight 714. It all seems rather jolly — until the millionaire’s jet is hijacked and diverted to a volcanic island in Java. As always, Herge nails the geographical details, plot twists, cheeky humor — and the idiosyncrasies of human nature, like grizzled Captain Haddock’s constant frustration with absentminded Professor Calculus. As a kid, these books opened entire worlds to me — I couldn’t wait to grow up and embark on my own adventures!

I loved this book’s whimsical storytelling and beautifully lyrical writing. It is a refreshing take on one of my favorite Chinese myths, the story of Chang’e and Hou Yi (the Moon Goddess and the Archer).

In this compelling adult fantasy, Chang’e’s daughter, Xingyin, must find help from unlikely allies—including dragons—to save her mother and herself.

This middle-grade novel introduces us to a real place—the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York City—and invites us to imagine the historical children who lived there as freedom fighters. Those fights for freedom, it turns out, take place on the back of dinosaurs! While the surprising addition of dinosaur battles might seem like a diversion from the hard work of learning about slavery’s painful history, in Older’s hands, the dinos offer young readers a way to meditate on power and its abuses. Viewed in the context of a Black radical tradition that insists on alternate timescapes, Freedom Fire’s dinosaurs do not function as a bit of whimsical unreality that overwrites difficult historical truths. Instead, their discordant presence actually offers a space for readers—children and educators both—to better inhabit the surreal, disorienting history of enslavement and freedom in the United States.

Geraldine DeRuiter validates the outrage I feel at the absolute absurdity of being a woman in America. This is because she is just as outraged, but she conveys it with sarcastic, self-deprecating, and biting humor. 

Reading If You Can’t Take The Heat is like having margaritas with your BFF and tipsily yelling at the top of your voices about the injustices of everyday misogyny. Your hilarious, ferocious, fantastically brilliant BFF, that is. All while stuffing your face with chips and guacamole and simultaneously worrying about packing on the pounds. You’ll gossip about food, family, and feminism, and all will magically be linked together by DeRuiter. It’s absurd. It’s infuriating. It's cathartic. And I have never felt so seen.