100 books like The White Blackbird

By Honor Moore,

Here are 100 books that The White Blackbird fans have personally recommended if you like The White Blackbird. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

Patti McCracken Author Of The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History's Most Astonishing Murder Ring

From my list on true crime books that are literary keepers.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was a practicing journalist, I preferred getting my stories from the back road—“off the beaten path,” as is said. What I’m drawn to is the way a story is told, and since my game is journalism, I like the true ones. My father was a pretty good storyteller. My brother-in-law is wicked good. I hang with my jaw open, waiting on his next word. It’s like being able to tell a good joke. Few can do it. When it comes to True Crime, forget the blood and body count. Anyone can lay out the facts. It takes master storytelling to deliver us to the army of small truths that brought forth the crime—and the humanity that dissolved along the way.

Patti's book list on true crime books that are literary keepers

Patti McCracken Why did Patti love this book?

The Professor and the Madman (The Surgeon of Crawthorne in the UK) is true crime through the side door. It tells the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the crucial role a murderer played in it. That juxtaposition alone is pure gold.

The book is exhaustively researched but doesn’t read like it, which I deeply respect. The writing is so lovely, so eloquent. I want to dress up when I read Simon Winchester, and put out the good china.

By Simon Winchester,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Professor and the Madman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A New York Times Notable Book  

The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary—and literary history.

The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. But their surprise would pale in comparison to what they were about to discover when the committee insisted on…


Book cover of All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw

Jennifer Horne Author Of Odyssey of a Wandering Mind: The Strange Tale of Sara Mayfield, Author

From my list on nonfiction books on lesser-known but fascinating figures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always loved reading biographies: we only get one life, but through stories of others’ lives we get to absorb into our own imagination their experiences and what they learned, or didn’t, from them. Having written poetry since childhood, I have long been an observer of myself and those around me, with a great curiosity about how people live and what motivates them. I’ve come to see that, no matter what genre I’m writing in, I’m driven to understand the connection between identity and place–for me, in particular, women in the southern U.S., and how each of us makes meaning out of the materials at hand.

Jennifer's book list on nonfiction books on lesser-known but fascinating figures

Jennifer Horne Why did Jennifer love this book?

I moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for graduate school in 1986, eleven years after this book was published, thirteen years after Nate Shaw’s death.

Reading the life of a man whose parents had been enslaved, a cotton farmer and sharecropper who bravely joined a union and stood up for other Black farmers, opened my eyes to the reality of life in the twentieth century for Black farmers in the state I now called home.

Told in expert storyteller Nate Shaw’s (a pseudonym for Ned Cobb) voice, based on interview transcripts, the book introduced me to a person and a way of life unlike anything I had encountered growing up in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas.

By Theodore Rosengarten,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked All God's Dangers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Nate Shaw's father was born under slavery. Nate Shaw was born into a bondage that was only a little gentler. At the age of nine, he was picking cotton for thirty-five cents an hour. At the age of forty-seven, he faced down a crowd of white deputies who had come to confiscate a neighbor's crop. His defiance cost him twelve years in prison. This triumphant autobiography, assembled from the eighty-four-year-old Shaw's oral reminiscences, is the plain-spoken story of an “over-average” man who witnessed wrenching changes in the lives of Southern black people—and whose unassuming courage helped bring those changes about.


Book cover of The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72

Jennifer Horne Author Of Odyssey of a Wandering Mind: The Strange Tale of Sara Mayfield, Author

From my list on nonfiction books on lesser-known but fascinating figures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always loved reading biographies: we only get one life, but through stories of others’ lives we get to absorb into our own imagination their experiences and what they learned, or didn’t, from them. Having written poetry since childhood, I have long been an observer of myself and those around me, with a great curiosity about how people live and what motivates them. I’ve come to see that, no matter what genre I’m writing in, I’m driven to understand the connection between identity and place–for me, in particular, women in the southern U.S., and how each of us makes meaning out of the materials at hand.

Jennifer's book list on nonfiction books on lesser-known but fascinating figures

Jennifer Horne Why did Jennifer love this book?

This book was on the bedside table at a friend’s house where I was staying. I picked it up, started it, and stayed up much later than I had planned!

I was so engaged with the idea of an eighteenth-century woman who began making these botanical paper cut-outs and achieved attention for her work in late life, and I was drawn along by Peacock’s clear, lyrical prose and how she wove in aspects of her own life as a poet.

I loved Mary Delaney’s creativity, spirit, and grit, and she now feels to me like a friend from 250 years ago. 

By Molly Peacock,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Paper Garden as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Mary Delany was seventy-two years old when she noticed a petal drop from a geranium. In a flash of inspiration, she picked up her scissors and cut out a paper replica of the petal, inventing the art of collage. It was the summer of 1772, in England. During the next ten years she completed nearly a thousand cut-paper botanicals (which she called mosaicks) so accurate that botanists still refer to them. Poet-biographer Molly Peacock uses close-ups of these brilliant collages in The Paper Garden to track the extraordinary life of Delany, friend of Swift, Handel, Hogarth, and even Queen Charlotte…


Book cover of The Story of Chicago May

Jennifer Horne Author Of Odyssey of a Wandering Mind: The Strange Tale of Sara Mayfield, Author

From my list on nonfiction books on lesser-known but fascinating figures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always loved reading biographies: we only get one life, but through stories of others’ lives we get to absorb into our own imagination their experiences and what they learned, or didn’t, from them. Having written poetry since childhood, I have long been an observer of myself and those around me, with a great curiosity about how people live and what motivates them. I’ve come to see that, no matter what genre I’m writing in, I’m driven to understand the connection between identity and place–for me, in particular, women in the southern U.S., and how each of us makes meaning out of the materials at hand.

Jennifer's book list on nonfiction books on lesser-known but fascinating figures

Jennifer Horne Why did Jennifer love this book?

I fell in love with Ireland on a trip there in 2003 and have been there many times since. As a result, I have read many books by Irish writers, including O’Faolain’s memoirs.

I picked up the story of the woman known as Chicago May with no expectations but was immediately drawn in by the way O’Faolain connected her life with May’s, and individual history with national—both Irish and American—history.

I admire how the author imbued a biographical investigation with the pacing of a novel and a larger-than-life main character. 

By Nuala O'Faolain,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Story of Chicago May as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A portrait of the legendary woman outlaw describes her childhood in post-famine Ireland, work as a confidence trickster and grifter in America, love affair with a big-league criminal, successful robbery of Paris's American Express, imprisonment, and later years. By the author of Are You Somebody? 75,000 first printing.


Book cover of If Picasso Painted a Snowman

Caralyn M. Buehner Author Of Snowmen at Night

From my list on snow and snowmen.

Why am I passionate about this?

The world opened to me in a safe space when I learned to read as a child, and by 6th grade I regularly hauled home stacks of books from the library and, inspired by Jo March, hoped to be an author. I put aside my dream of writing and pursued other career goals until my marriage to Mark Buehner. It was his career as an illustrator that opened a path for me to write, and together we have created many picture books, including the Snowmen at Night series. I’ve learned that stories are told with pictures as well as words, and beautiful picture books can be savored at any age.

Caralyn's book list on snow and snowmen

Caralyn M. Buehner Why did Caralyn love this book?

Local to me, I’ve been familiar with the gorgeous poster and mural art of Greg Newbold. More recently he has teamed up with his wife Amy to create a series of picture books showcasing the styles of renowned artists. This first book takes snowmen and imagines what they would look like if painted by artists such as Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso, O’Keefe, and others. An excellent introduction to the painting styles of famous artists, with informative text to reinforce the idea that “not all artists paint the same.” 

By Amy Newbold, Greg Newbold (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked If Picasso Painted a Snowman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

From that simple premise flows this delightful, whimsical, educational picture book that shows how the artist's imagination can summon magic from a prosaic subject. Greg Newbold's chameleon-like artistry shows us Roy Lichtenstein's snow hero saving the day, Georgia O'Keefe's snowman blooming in the desert, Claude Monet's snowmen among haystacks, Grant Wood's American Gothic snowman, Jackson Pollock's snowman in ten thousand splats, Salvador Dali's snowmen dripping like melty cheese, and snowmen as they might have been rendered by J. M. W. Turner, Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Georges Seurat, Pablita Velarde, Piet Mondrian, Sonia Delaunay, Jacob Lawrence, and Vincent van…


Book cover of The Guardian of Mercy: How an Extraordinary Painting by Caravaggio Changed an Ordinary Life Today

Idanna Pucci Author Of The Lady of Sing Sing: An American Countess, an Italian Immigrant, and Their Epic Battle for Justice in New York's Gilded Age

From my list on far-flung places and times.

Why am I passionate about this?

Early in life, I felt the presence of a “guardian angel” who would take my hand and accompany my mind to imagine distant cultures. I grew up in Florence, and in our history, there were so many tales of people coming from afar, and of Florentines traveling across deserts and oceans. And as time passed, I would be drawn to beautifully written true stories which opened windows onto different epochs and dramas of life in both near and far-flung places of the world.

Idanna's book list on far-flung places and times

Idanna Pucci Why did Idanna love this book?

In this wondrous book on Caravaggio, the world of Naples unfolds from the inside through an electrifying reading experience. Written with grace, almost every sentence imparts an epiphany. The author challenges us to undertake soul-work, even if one is a secular reader. Reading becomes an act of empathy and passion. In the words of Wallace Stevens, potential readers will become ‘necessary angels’.

By Terence Ward,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Guardian of Mercy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Profound New Look at the Italian Master and His Lasting Legacy

Now celebrated as one of the great painters of the Renaissance, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio fled Rome in 1606 to escape retribution for killing a man in a brawl. Three years later he was in Naples, where he painted The Seven Acts of Mercy. A year later he died at the age of thirty-eight under mysterious circumstances. Exploring Caravaggio's singular masterwork, in The Guardian of Mercy Terence Ward offers an incredible narrative journey into the heart of his artistry and his metamorphosis from fugitive to visionary.

Ward's guide…


Book cover of Phoenix Extravagant

Kelly Vincent Author Of Uglier

From my list on reminding us that nonbinary people are human too.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a Gen X kid growing up in a very conservative place, I struggled with gender, not feeling like the girl I was supposed to be. I knew I wasn’t a boy, and that just led to uncertainty and perpetual emotional discomfort. When I first heard about the concept of nonbinary gender a few years ago, my mind was blown. I knew if I were young, I would have immediately come out as nonbinary. But as an older person, it felt weird and pointless. Writing and reading books about people struggling with gender gave me the courage to finally be true to myself, and acknowledge that I am agender. 

Kelly's book list on reminding us that nonbinary people are human too

Kelly Vincent Why did Kelly love this book?

I love stories about artists, and I loved the creativity of the whole idea behind this adult fantasy set against an Asian-inspired backdrop, where art is magic and can be used to make things happen in the physical world.

But even better is the fact that the main character—a skilled artist roped into working for a corrupt entity—is nonbinary, and this is nothing more than a mundane fact. It’s a clear reminder that gender is just one part of a person’s existence—and probably not the most important one. 

By Yoon Ha Lee,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Phoenix Extravagant as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dragons. Art. Revolution.

Gyen Jebi isn't a fighter, or a subversive. They just want to paint.

One day they're jobless and desperate; the next, Jebi finds themself recruited by the Ministry of Armor to paint the mystical sigils that animate the occupying government's automaton soldiers.

But when Jebi discovers the depths of the Razanei government's horrifying crimes-and the awful source of the magical pigments they use-they find they can no longer stay out of politics.

What they can do is steal Arazi, the ministry's mighty dragon automaton, and find a way to fight...


Book cover of Emily Carr: At the Edge of the World

Scot Ritchie Author Of P'esk'a and the First Salmon Ceremony

From my list on the First Peoples of the West Coast for children.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm passionate about nature, our impact on it and the people who best know how to be its companion – Indigenous peoples. I grew up on B.C.'s west coast, swimming with seals and otters. That inspires me to protect the land and to write and draw about it. As the author/illustrator of over 70 books I've been lucky to be able to present my thoughts on many topics. I learned early on to do my research and work with rigorous editors. With P'eska, I relied on members of the community I wrote about. I know I'm speaking to young kids so honesty is paramount.

Scot's book list on the First Peoples of the West Coast for children

Scot Ritchie Why did Scot love this book?

Going to the Vancouver Art Gallery when I was a kid I saw my first Emily Carr painting and it drew me in with its dark beauty.

This book brings to life the story of Emily Carr, a talented painter and (although the word wouldn't have been used then) ecologist. She passionately pursued her art in ways proper young ladies of the time just didn't do. She revered the First Nations people and their cultures. The gift was returned when she received her own honourary name, Klee Wyck (Laughing One) from the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) people.

I love this book because of its honesty, it is about a person and a place, firmly rooted in a love of nature.

By Jo Ellen Bogart, Maxwell Newhouse (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Emily Carr as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for the 2005-2006 Red Cedar Book Award, Nonfiction

Selected as Honour Book by the Children's Literature Roundtable Information Book of the Year

The brilliant artist Emily Carr lived at the edge. When she was born, in 1871, Victoria, British Columbia was a small, insular place. She was at the edge of a society that expected well-bred young ladies to marry. For years, she was at the edge of the world of artists she longed to join.

Emily Carr’s life was not an easy one. She struggled against a family that did not approve of her art and against poor…


Book cover of Dancing Through Fields of Color: The Story of Helen Frankenthaler

Nancy Churnin Author Of Beautiful Shades of Brown: The Art of Laura Wheeler Waring

From my list on children’s books about art.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an award-winning children’s book author who writes stories about ordinary people, like you and me, that discovered their unique gifts and used those gifts, plus perseverance, to make the world a better place. All my books come with free teacher guides, resources, and projects on my website where kids can share photos of the great things they do.

Nancy's book list on children’s books about art

Nancy Churnin Why did Nancy love this book?

When kids think of artists, male names usually come to mind. That’s why I was delighted to discover Dancing Through Fields of Color, a lyrical story about Helen Frankenthaler, an abstract expressionist of the 1950s who deserves to be better known. Author Elizabeth Brown shows how Frankenthaler’s difficulty fitting in and creating the art she was told to create ultimately led to her discovering her true gifts and a style that would come to be known as “soak-stain painting.” The rich and joyful colors of Aimee Sicuro’s illustrations of Helen dancing through vibrant flowers, will spark young readers’ imaginations, making them thirst for more.

By Elizabeth Brown, Aimée Sicuro (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dancing Through Fields of Color as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

They said only men could paint powerful pictures, but Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) splashed her way through the modern art world. Channeling deep emotion, Helen poured paint onto her canvas and danced with the colors to make art unlike anything anyone had ever seen. She used unique tools like mops and squeegees to push the paint around, to dazzling effects. Frankenthaler became an originator of the influential "Color Field" style of abstract expressionist painting with her "soak stain" technique, and her artwork continues to electrify new generations of artists today. Dancing Through Fields of Color discusses Frankenthaler's early life, how she…


Book cover of Vincent Can't Sleep: Van Gogh Paints the Night Sky

Candice Ransom Author Of Bones in the White House: Thomas Jefferson's Mammoth

From my list on nonfiction children’s break boundaries.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the author of 180 books for children, including the classic (30 plus years in print) picture book The Big Green Pocketbook. As a kid, I checked out more nonfiction books than novels. I read about stars, dinosaurs, ice age mammals, rocks, animals, and birds. I wanted to combine all those interests into one job: astronomer-paleontologist-geologist-zoologist-ornithologist, but I couldn’t even afford community college. I became a writer of children’s books, where I could be involved in all of those occupations and more. I’ve written 50 nonfiction books for children and believe the very best books being published for kids today are in the area of children’s narrative nonfiction.

Candice's book list on nonfiction children’s break boundaries

Candice Ransom Why did Candice love this book?

Picture book biographies need to narrow their focus on a subject, and I love the way the author achieves this. She could have written about Van Gogh’s life in general, but she used the refrain “Vincent can’t sleep” to describe his childhood, schooling, boring jobs, and finally becoming an artist. Insomnia led to his most well-known painting, “The Starry Night.”

I also admire how gently she portrayed his mental illness by emphasizing his quest to find the colors of the night. Lean prose contrasts neatly with Van Gogh’s free-wheeling brushstrokes, richly illuminated by Grandpré’s sweeping illustrations.

By Barb Rosenstock, Mary GrandPre (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vincent Can't Sleep as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

A gorgeous, lyrical picture-book biography of Vincent van Gogh by the Caldecott Honor team behind The Noisy Paint Box.
 
Vincent can’t sleep . . .
out, out, out he runs!              
flying through the garden—marigold, geranium, blackberry, raspberry—
past the church with its tall steeple, down rolling hills and sandy paths meant for sheep,
He dives at last into the velvety, violet heath, snuggles under a blanket of sapphire sky, 
and looks up, up, up . . . to visit with the stars. 
 
Vincent van Gogh often found himself unable to sleep and wandered under starlit skies. Those nighttime experiences provided…


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