The most recommended books about snakes

Do you love animals and seeing them within stories but sometimes just want something shorter than a full-length novel?

Then check out Animal Kingdom, a Havok anthology that includes 48 pieces of flash fiction (1000 words or less). Every piece features an animal and celebrates animal and human connections. Several pieces are fantasy, but (bonus) the collection also includes stories for fans of science fiction, thriller, mystery, and humor.

Pick up this book if you want a lot of different clean stories, fantasy and beyond, which feature many different types of animal companions (ranging from photogenic snakes, light-carrying moths, and more)! 

When I was fifteen, I worked as a busboy in a restaurant. One of the waitresses there left a serious impression on me because she treated me with such care and kindness.

I really felt like she was my surrogate mother. If she had been taken, like what happens in this book, I would have scoured the earth to find her and save her. She had that much of an impact on my life. I was thinking of her when I re-read this book recently. 

I’m absolutely obsessed with this book.

It earned a spot on the 2014 Gittle List, a contest I hosted for 5 years for self-published children’s book authors. I’ve purchased several copies for both children and adults. Somewhere, there’s a video of my grandson reading it to me (well, a couple of pages).

It’s unique in character, words, and pace. Seeing the two characters becoming friends, being the closest of friends, having a fallout that separates them, and finding their way back to each other moved me to tears because that is what my son and I were doing, at the time. Finding our way back to each other.

The lessons of forgiveness and humility flow naturally without ever saying those words explicitly. 

Although this is book 4, I recommend starting with the first book of the series. I chose this book because it ended the American Street Kings with a bang and it’s my favorite out of all the books in the series, even though it’s super dark (readers should note the trigger warnings). Throughout the book, there were so many twists and turns that I wasn’t sure how, or even if, Ink and Neon would get their happy ever after (HEA).

With charming illustrations, this picture book biography tells the story of E.B. White with exquisite language.

I love how Barbara Herkert provides details about his interest in animals from a young age, such as how he collected pigeons, snakes, polliwogs, caterpillars, chameleons, and more.

In a fitting ending, the book shows how E.B. White gets the idea for one of my favorite books, Charlotte’s Web. I love these lines from A Boy, a Mouse, and a Spider: “One cold October evening, Andy watched a spider spin. He climbed a ladder for a closer look. He’d found the hero of his story…” 

This simple, sweet, picture book, like others in the Elephant and Piggy series, deals with different animals who are trying to solve a problem together. I liked the book because it portrays how differences don’t matter when you care about another. To show how differences can be overcome and not be reasons to divide is wonderful, especially when the concept is shown to the very young reader.

One of my daughter’s perennial favourites, I read this so often I had it memorized, and found it great to tell even without the hilarious pictures. In this story, Kate is facing her first day of school. So miserable is she at the very idea, she gets out on the wrong side of the bed. So of course, everything goes wrong! Her school is a dungeon, her teacher is a gorilla, and the dinner lady serves spiders, snails, and snakes for lunch. Brave Kate fights back, runs home, and saves her own day when she gets up all over again, on the right side of the bed. This is, underneath, a story about attitude, and reassures kids about the reality of school by comically exaggerating one child’s fears. But it’s also great fun to tell, with silly voices, unexpected developments, and a fine arc of tension till Kate decides to… show more.

This wonderful Asian fantasy (the first of a duology) is about a young woman who has the rare ability to control flying wolf-like creatures. This ability plunges her into the middle of political intrigue as forces push her to weaponize this ability and use the beasts as battle mounts. The most unique thing about the book is how it questions the ethics of humans using animals for their purposes. Most fantasies unquestioningly use animal mounts as weapons/vehicles or at most use an animal’s death to trigger a cheap emotional response. This book puts the ethics of using magnificent creatures for human concerns at its very heart. It demonstrates a respect for the natural world that seems consistent with Shinto teaching and that I find too rare in fantasy.

Homeopath Sadhana Thakkar helps to dispel the negative image of snakes by revealing how profoundly snake remedies can help humans heal and awaken.

The author offers an introduction to the physiology, temperament, lifestyle, and survival strategies of many snakes, and reveals how homeopaths match these patterns to effective venom-based remedies.

Homeopathy itself is a fascinating study, and Thakkar does an excellent job of deepening our understanding of how and why it works through her many stories of humans successfully treated with snake remedies. I found this book super informative and fascinating to read!  

When I read this book with children, we are all drawn into the secure loving relationship between the granddaughter and her grandfather. Because the text is action-based, we feel like we are on each of their adventures with them.

Through the beautifully illustrated pages we walk alongside them discovering life as we witness each of them changing and growing older – until the day the granddaughter walks alone. She is sad, but Grandpa has walked with her in life. He has taught her in a very naturally occurring, organic way so that now she knows what to do. This book evokes a wide range of feelings – including empowerment from within.