100 books like The Year We Fell from Space

This middle-grade horror novel follows Corinne, a courageous girl who isn’t afraid to go into the forest she’s been warned about, but when she does, something evil follows her back out.

The jumbies of Caribbean folklore are malevolent tricksters, and there is one image from this book that I will never, ever get out of my head. I’m not going to tell you what it is! But it’s toward the end and has to do with the douens and backward feet. It’s a great spooky read, but I really love how the heart of the story is rooted in loss, memory, and trying to save a parent. And not for nothing, it’ll make you crave oranges! 

When I think about magical books that talk about real-world stuff, my first thought is this incredible retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses that examines (through a magical lens) the toll of parental alcoholism.

Four sisters all have different ways of coping with the dysfunction caused by their mother’s alcoholism, but together they escape into magical worlds through their house’s closets. The youngest sister, Silly, has been left out for a long time, but she makes their magic stronger once her sisters finally let her join them.

The metaphors are so rich here—the escapism, the secrets and shadows hidden in family closets, and the seemingly perfect but oblivious dad—that this story goes beyond fairytale and becomes personal myth. I love it so much. It’s gorgeous.

The first half of the book takes place in Minnesota, and the second half is in a fairy tale world peopled by Hans Christian Anderson characters.

It’s a jarring reading experience, probably similar to how Hazel (our main character) feels when her best friend Jack seemingly doesn’t want to be friends with her anymore. When Jack follows a strange ice woman into the forest and disappears, Hazel goes after him to bring him back.

As magical as this book is, Jack’s disappearance and Hazel’s pursuit have real-world consequences, and this blurring of fairy tale and friendship is one of the best I’ve ever read. It touches on divorce, parents with mental illness, and how friendships evolve as we grow up. It’s so good.

As a big fan of cryptids like Nessie, mermaids, and catamounts, I was all in when I saw there was a book about Mothman.

This novel-in-verse is about grief, growing into who you truly are, being confused by friendship and crushes, and of course, Mothman! Noah is a trans boy whose best friend Lewis died in a car crash, and since his passing, Noah’s begun writing letters to Mothman, a cryptid that looks like a big moth with big red glowing eyes. And maybe Mothman is answering?

I was crossing my fingers with every page and hoping with Noah that Mothman was real. This is a wonderfully warm book about queerness, feeling monstrous and misunderstood, and how beautiful we all are in our weirdness. 

Daisy Johnson is a force of her own. I’ve read all three of her books and was the most taken with her more recent novel, Sisters. This has a moody, gothic feel to it. Very well narrated by one of the two sisters, and is the ultimate story about disappearance, and the traumatic effect it can have on a loved one. Brutal, surreal, and with a setting as real as its characters: a crumbling moldy cottage, near the shore, that lives and breathes with the characters. And includes a twist you won’t see coming.

Run, don’t walk, to get your hands on this book! As a huge astrology nerd, I was intrigued by the title and the cover, which displayed all twelve zodiac signs. I was a huge fan of the way that Peckham uses clever foreshadowing in each character’s morning astrology readings. It is genius.

The story follows two female twins who end up finding out they are heirs to the throne in a highly corrupted, ‘fey eat fey world,’ where only the strong survive. But the throne isn’t handed over to them so easily. They are put to the test, both mentally and physically, as they enroll and start school at Zodiac Academy, learn to use their elemental magic, and prove they are strong enough and worthy enough to rule Solaria. This book hooked me from chapter one, and I followed the story of the Vega sisters throughout the nine-book series. 

This book is a fun story that shows the ups and downs of middle school life and has some fascinating bird facts.

Though a parrot isn’t the pet that Arden wanted, it turns out to be the pet she needed, and I loved her scientific approach to figuring out why Ludwig the parrot is so smart.

I read this in one sitting, not only because it’s a quick read but because I had to find out how Arden was going to stand up to her bully and figure out the mystery tied to Ludwig’s brilliance.

As a workplace bullying researcher, my bookshelves are filled with hundreds of books specifically and adjacent to the topics of workplace abuse, toxic environments, creative cultures, and destructive leadership.

Of all the books I have read on the topic, Duffy’s and Sperry’s is the best. Coming from both a research and clinical perspective, they clearly lay out the causes, significance, and often tragic fallout of workplace abuse.

In addition, they bring the concept of mobbing, a term more often used in Europe, to the United States, detailing the trauma that ensues when a group of people joins forces, exhibiting the predatory behavior of pack animals, with the shared mission to denigrate the target’s reputation and drive her out of a job.

Most importantly, after offering the reader a rich education on toxic group dynamics, they give specific strategies survivors can use to heal and eventually thrive in the workplace. 

This book was another eye-opener. Educator Rachel Simmons lifted the lid on how not all meanness and bullying among children is overt, obvious, or easily spotted. She decodes relational aggression between young people - a kind of stealth attack, using words and exclusion, and techniques like seat-saving, gossip, and silent treatment. This kind of behaviour can be particularly painful for young people to understand or process because it is so hard to name. But in this book, Simmons put her finger on it, so it can be understood and recognized. It means that when young people experience it, they will not feel so hurt and singled out by it.

Game-obsessed kids will love Josh Baxter. While the story is realistic, his whole worldview is informed by gaming and pop culture. Josh is trying to fit in at a new school and he treats it like a video game. Each chapter ends with a video game-inspired graphic showing his level, health, and new skills unlocked. There is barely a page where he doesn’t reference a character from The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Minecraft, Pokémon, Marvel, or some other game. You can just tell the author loves video games as much as Josh does.