Here are 78 books that This Journal Belongs to Ratchet fans have personally recommended if you like
This Journal Belongs to Ratchet.
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I wrestled with big questions as a child, particularly concerning gender inequality. I was aware of the issue as young as 7 years old. I didn’t even feel comfortable challenging the way things were until I was a young adult. Thus began my journey of researching, studying, and embracing women’s rights and gender equality. I feel very passionate about presenting those big questions earlier in the lives of girls, so they start feeling comfortable challenging the places where things don’t make sense, or the areas where inequality still exists. There is a need for more books like these in the market, but I hope you enjoy this list!
This one’s a novel in verse written from the perspective of a girl going through puberty in real time.
Celi Rivera is thinking about the way her body’s changing; she’s considering a crush on a boy; and she’s feeling a little apprehension about the “moon ceremony” her mother’s promised when she gets her first period.
I love this one for so many reasons—but mostly because it celebrates becoming a young woman and standing up for herself.
The dazzling story of a girl navigating friendship, family, and growing up, an Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? for the modern day, from debut author Aida Salazar.
****Four starred reviews!****
* "A worthy successor to Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret set in present-day Oakland." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Celi Rivera's life swirls with questions. About her changing body. Her first attraction to a boy. And her best friend's exploration of what it means to be genderfluid.
But most of all, her mother's insistence she have a moon ceremony when her first period arrives. It's an…
I wrestled with big questions as a child, particularly concerning gender inequality. I was aware of the issue as young as 7 years old. I didn’t even feel comfortable challenging the way things were until I was a young adult. Thus began my journey of researching, studying, and embracing women’s rights and gender equality. I feel very passionate about presenting those big questions earlier in the lives of girls, so they start feeling comfortable challenging the places where things don’t make sense, or the areas where inequality still exists. There is a need for more books like these in the market, but I hope you enjoy this list!
This book is for a slightly older reader (probably 16+), but the first scene opens with a period. Blood. It’s one of the things I love most about it.
The story revolves around Bisou Martel, who becomes a wolf hunter. She is at her strongest when she has her period, and she saves girls who are in danger of being violated by boys and men. Talk about female empowerment!
A dark, engrossing, blood-drenched tale of the familiar threats to female power-and one girl's journey to regain it. Five starred reviews greeted this powerful story from Elana K. Arnold, author of the Printz Honor winner Damsel.
You are alone in the woods, seen only by the unblinking yellow moon. Your hands are empty. You are nearly naked. And the wolf is angry.
Since her grandmother became her caretaker when she was four years old, Bisou Martel has lived a quiet life in a little house in Seattle. She's kept mostly to herself. She's been good.
I wrestled with big questions as a child, particularly concerning gender inequality. I was aware of the issue as young as 7 years old. I didn’t even feel comfortable challenging the way things were until I was a young adult. Thus began my journey of researching, studying, and embracing women’s rights and gender equality. I feel very passionate about presenting those big questions earlier in the lives of girls, so they start feeling comfortable challenging the places where things don’t make sense, or the areas where inequality still exists. There is a need for more books like these in the market, but I hope you enjoy this list!
Addie Ramirez, the main character of Tumble, is the kind of girl who takes charge of her situation—whether it’s searching for her father or meeting new people or speaking her mind about wrestling.
I felt such a personal connection to Addie; she loves her stepdad, but she still wonders about her father and embarks on a journey to find him and get to know him. And along the way, she meets her wrestling family and learns firsthand how powerful women wrestlers can be.
I loved that readers get to see powerful women in a sport traditionally dominated by men!
Twelve-year-old Adela "Addie" Ramirez has a big decision to make when her stepfather proposes adoption. Addie loves Alex, the only father figure she's ever known, but with a new half brother due in a few months and a big school theater performance on her mind, everything suddenly feels like it's moving too fast. She has a million questions, and the first is about the young man in the photo she found hidden away in her mother's things.
Addie's sleuthing takes her to a New Mexico ranch, and her world expands to include the legendary Bravos: Rosie and Pancho, her paternal…
I wrestled with big questions as a child, particularly concerning gender inequality. I was aware of the issue as young as 7 years old. I didn’t even feel comfortable challenging the way things were until I was a young adult. Thus began my journey of researching, studying, and embracing women’s rights and gender equality. I feel very passionate about presenting those big questions earlier in the lives of girls, so they start feeling comfortable challenging the places where things don’t make sense, or the areas where inequality still exists. There is a need for more books like these in the market, but I hope you enjoy this list!
I love this book because it tackles big questions on the female front—including those young girls have about religion: Why is Eve blamed for everything? Why is God always portrayed as a man?
Main character Agnes itches with questions. But girls aren’t supposed to question authority. As she thinks more and more about the deep things, Agnes wrestles when her own opinions and finds her courage to challenge the status quo—as every girl needs to do!
Agnes has been encouraged not to question authority by her mum-but that's especially hard in religion class, where it bugs her that so much gets blamed on Eve and that God's always pictured one way. Fortunately, Agnes' anthropologist neighbour, Gracy, gets Agnes thinking after they rescue an opossum together. Playing dead didn't serve the opossum well, so maybe it's time for Agnes to start thinking for herself. And when Agnes learns that some cultures picture God as a female, she feels freed to think-and write-about things from new perspectives. As she and her best friend, Mo, encourage each other to…
I’m a bibliophile who loves dogs and prefers the country to the city. I’m the kid who yelled at my kindergarten teacher because she hadn’t taught me to read by the end of the year. That same tenacity followed me when, at seven years old, I learned that James Cameron was making a movie based on the Titanic. With righteous fury, I yelled at my befuddled parents, before asking why they had not told me about this ship. I pleaded with my parents to take me to see the movie for my upcoming eighth birthday, and they relented, with my mum buying my first fictional Titanic novel. That’s how my Titanic obsession began.
Written in diary format, presented as something for kids and teens, this was another novel my mum would be for me as a birthday present. Written by Ellen Emerson White, thirteen-year-old Margaret Ann Brady’s innocence immediately captures your heart. When she and her brother are orphaned at a young age, her older brother leaves her on an orphanage’s doorstep while he finds work. Eventually, he makes it to America, where he saves for his sister’s passage. Margaret, in a turn of fate, is offered passage on the Titanic when Mrs. Carstairs requires a companion to travel with her to America. The novel is peppered with real-life facts, with Margaret interacting with JJ Astor and Thomas Andrews (fun fact: when I read this novel as a child, I loved that JJ Astor’s dog was named “Kitty.” I thought it was the perfect name for a dog, and as a result, I…
Margaret Anne dreams of leaving the orphanage behind, and she can hardly believe her luck when she is chosen to accompany wealth Mrs Carstairs aboard the great Titanic. But when the passengers are woken on a freezing night in April 1912, she finds herself caught up in an unimaginable nightmare...
I’ve been running for a quarter of a century now, ever since I got the irresistible urge in high school to quit the soccer team and make my way over to cross-country practice junior year. In that time, running has been a source of mental clarity and physical expression for me, a source of joy and even of meaning. Naturally, it has become one of the focuses of my writing life, too. I’ve written three books about running and now write the On the Run column forSport Literate. It is gratifying to write about a sport that has such a rich literature.
Drawing from a year of entries in his running journal and writing beautiful, compressed prose, Gardner explores the relationship between the inner and the outer world of a runner. A veteran of the sport—he’s been at it for decades—and something like a disciple of its spiritual esoterica, he captures those running moments that so many of us struggle to articulate: “One of the reasons you slog through the summer is to be in shape when a day like this appears. A day when you step away from your body and take the body in, this gliding presence no longer yours, though once, you think, it might have been.” Poverty Creek Journal is a meditation on the profundities of a body in motion.
"That rush in between when it all comes undone. Knowing its edge like your own pulse and breathing. As I knew them this morning, racing a 10K in late-spring heat, the taste of panic in the last two miles as everything slipped away, losing time and barely finishing. A tingling in my limbs as if I were driving on ice, the road beneath me suddenly gone, the feeling of that in my hands. Deeper than words, being lost for a moment and then being done. Left with a pounding, stiff-legged stagger."
Spiritual improvisations, radiant acts of attention: echoing Thoreau's Walden,…
As an independent traveller, and throughout a career supporting international nature conservation, I’ve been fortunate to see many far-flung places of the world. Over the years, technology (eg. smartphones, internet, social media) has radically changed the way we travel, and indeed our expectations. Nowadays we want instant access, instant answers, instant results; we hate waiting for anything. However, long-haul travel still demands us to wait... in airport lounges, at train stations, bus stops, and onboard our transport while we endure long hours before reaching our destination. While some aspects have changed, patience, humour, and a good book still remain the best companions for any long journey.
The Bridget Jones series is amongst my all-time favourite reads. Bridget’s character has so many aspects that I can identify with, and so many of us experience insecurities about our looks, our talents and our love lives. The whole series is extremely entertaining, but there’s a specific part of The Edge of Reason that resonates with me: the fear I’ve always had when travelling, of ending up in police detention abroad through no fault of my own. It’s fabulously entertaining, but also thought-provoking.
9st 2, cigarettes smoked in front of Mark 0 (v.g.), cigarettes smoked in secret 7, cigarettes not smoked 47 (v.g.).
Bridget's second diary ushers in a reformed woman. She is no longer a smoker (well, not much), the wilderness years are over, and she is at last united with man-of-her-dreams Mark Darcy. But things aren't perfect: there's an eight-foot hole in the wall of her flat, she's increasingly worried about a certain boyfriend-stealing beauty, and her friends' mad advice is getting her nowhere - something has to change. And so Bridget decides to…
In second grade my teacher told me I should be a writer—I haven’t wavered in my path since. I was a voracious reader as a child and regularly snatched books off my mom’s night table. My love for flawed characters grew with each book I devoured. I felt a connection with these characters, which fueled my dream to become a writer. When I was twenty-one years old and studying writing, I wrote in my journal, “I want to write books that make people cry.” I love to explore the gray areas in life, and I’m honored that readers have told me my books do make them cry (and laugh).
I love this book because I love imperfect, flawed heroines…and as a fifty-something woman, Nan spoke to me.
How many times do we think of running away—even if just for a bit—but responsibilities and maybe even fear keep us from acting? Not Nan—she takes off, simply leaving an abrupt note for her husband, Martin (which takes place before the book opens). The narrative alternates between letters to Martin and journal entries (Nan spills her thoughts into a turquoise leather tooled journal with a black string fastener and a silver button—I love that detail).
The lyrical descriptions of each place Nan visits are so vivid I felt like I was riding shotgun. And I loved taking that journey with Nan and living in her head, because honestly…being in her head felt a lot like being in my own head, flaws and all.
“This is not a novel about a woman leaving home but rather about a human being finding her way back.”—Chicago Tribune
In the middle of her life, Nan decides to leave her husband at home and begin an impromptu trek across the country, carrying with her a turquoise leather journal she intends to fill. The Pull of the Moon is a novel about a woman coming to terms with issues of importance to all women. In her journal, Nan addresses the thorniness—and the allure—of marriage, the sweet ties to children, and the gifts and lessons that come from random encounters…
I’m a retired teacher. I’m fascinated with stories of scary creatures, especially vampires. As a child, I stayed up late watching Draculamovies. As I got older, my love for vampire movies continued. Some were scary. Some were comical. I enjoyed them all, well, at least most of them. I love stories about traditional vampires as well as those about vampires who are different from the typical stereotype. Vampire hunter stories also intrigue me. When I wrote The Voinico’s Daughter, I wanted to put my own unique twist on the vampire legends as it had been a dream of mine for a long time to write my own vampire story!
Being a Dracula fan, I was intrigued when I heard that Bloodlinewas its unofficial sequel. Bloodlineis written in the form of journal entries and letters. While that isn’t my preferred writing style, it worked for this one. The story begins during World War I. The main character, John, sees some disturbing things concerning his regiment commander, Quincey. He doesn’t know why Quincey is so cruel but will understand in time. The mood was similar to the mood in Dracula. The vampire was the typical, evil vampire while the main character had to figure out what was going on and try to save the day. While not everything was resolved the way I wanted it to, I definitely enjoyed this novel and read the sequel also. I recommend it to people who like Dracula.
Thirty-five years have passed since the death of the Master. But now a new evil walks among the living. . . .
When nineteen-year-old John Shaw returns from the trenches of World War I, he is haunted by nightmares—not only of the battlefield, but of the strange, cruel and impossible feats of his regiment's commander, Quincey Harker. Harker's ferocity knows no limits, and his strength is superhuman.
At first John blames his bloody nightmares on trench fever. But when Harker appears in England and begins wooing John's sister, John must confront the truth—and stop Harker from continuing Dracula's bloodline.
Steve Patschke is a retired elementary school library media teacher of over thirty years, now living in Woodstock, N.Y. In November of 2022, his essay appeared in The New York Times' “Tiny Love Stories.” In February of 2023, his essay appeared in Chicken Soup For The Soul: Cat Lovers Edition. He has published six children’s picture books. His most recent is Don’t Look At It, Don’t Touch It. Steve’s rendition of the classic Nutcracker and the Mouse King will be published as a pop-up book through Templar books in the fall of 2023.
I choose my fifth recommendation, Dairy of a Worm for its creative parody of both diary writing and insect life.
The main character of a worm, describing his parents, home life, and school life from a ground-level perspective is hilarious and cute.
The illustrations by Harry Bliss masterfully show the world through the tiny perspective of insects. Giant girls playing jump rope are a terror. And Worm's best friend Spider, is wonderful as an off-shoot side-kick.
In my library I would often follow up the story with a discussion on how life can be viewed from many different perspectives. And I can think of no better spring-board for just such discussion, than Diary of a Worm.
Amazon Editors recommend this book for children reading with help and building independent reading skills.
#1 New York Times Bestseller!
This hilarious picture book from the bestselling, acclaimed author-illustrator team of Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss tells the adventures of a worm through his daily diary entries.
This is the diary of a worm. This worm lives with his parents, plays with his friends, and even goes to school. But unlike you or me, he never has to take a bath, he gets to eat his homework, and because he doesn't have legs, he just can't do the hokey pokey—no…
