Here are 100 books that A New Home fans have personally recommended if you like
A New Home.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I’m an author and illustrator from Buenos Aires, Argentina. As a Latin American, I think it's important to have books with stories about our realities and culture that feature Latino people as the protagonists. I hope you enjoy my recommendations!
This is a powerful picture book about a brother and sister crossing the border on their own that is written from a child's point of view. The journey the characters have to take is set up as a game in which they have to escape and hide from the monsters in order to get to the other side.
The theme of migration and refugees is treated with sensitivity, and it is clear that it is an important topic for the author-illustrator, who had contact with families and children who had to live through this. I think it is a very important and relevant topic for today.
Author-illustrator Erika Meza delivers a stunning and emotionally rich book from the viewpoint of those most impacted by border walls: young refugee children. This powerfully told tale highlights the spirit and strength of those embarking on a dangerous trek, and what awaits them on the other side.
My sister tells me the rules of the game are simple.
Avoid the monsters. Don’t get caught. And keep moving.
If the monsters catch you, you’re out.
A young boy and his older sister have left home to play a game. To win, they must travel across endless lands together and make it…
A gay retelling of the classic fairy tale--a scrumptious love story featuring ungrateful stepsiblings, a bake-off, and a fairy godfather.
Cinderelliot is stuck at home taking care of his ungrateful stepsister and stepbrother. When Prince Samuel announces a kingdom-wide competition to join the royal staff as his baker, the stepsiblings…
Hello! My name is Flavia Z. Drago and I'm a Mexican picturebook maker currently living with my partner and my cat in the UK. As a child, most of the books that I read came from foreign countries, particularly Europe and the US, and these have had a huge influence on my work as an author and illustrator. However, now that I'm in charge of making the books that I would have liked as a child, I enjoy adding details of my Mexican culture whenever possible. To some extent, the books that I've shared with you collect some of the stories, experiences, and emotions that as a Mexican have impacted my life.
Death by tortoise shell, a lifeless head, excess of dance, or playing a concert? Based on true stories, in this impossible to catalogue book, you can find out the tragic, sometimes funny, but always incredible deaths of famous, and ordinary, people alike.
What I love about this book is Cecilia’s sensitivity and witty sense of humor to deal with the illustrations. While some of the deaths depicted are brutal in nature, the images are never violent or morbid, but they are rather whimsical, poetic, and rather intriguing.
The Book of Extraordinary Deaths introduces readers to the bizarre demises of thinkers, writers, monarchs, artists, and notable nobodies throughout history. Beginning in the fifth century BC with the morbidly unusual death of Aeschylus and journeying chronologically to identical twins - who died on the same day - in the present day, readers will learn of people they may or may not have ever heard of, but will forever remember for their memorable final moments. With Ruiz's witty descriptions and beautiful illustrations, her characters come to life on the page even as they reach their demises.
Hello! My name is Flavia Z. Drago and I'm a Mexican picturebook maker currently living with my partner and my cat in the UK. As a child, most of the books that I read came from foreign countries, particularly Europe and the US, and these have had a huge influence on my work as an author and illustrator. However, now that I'm in charge of making the books that I would have liked as a child, I enjoy adding details of my Mexican culture whenever possible. To some extent, the books that I've shared with you collect some of the stories, experiences, and emotions that as a Mexican have impacted my life.
In 2017, Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricane Maria, and later on in September, an earthquake struck Mexico City, inspiring Estelí to write a story about a rabbit called Conejo, who loses his house after a storm strikes his neighborhood, but, with the help of others, he is able to rebuild what he had lost.
I think that it is very important to acknowledge and accept that sometimes in life, bad things will happen, plans will get ruined, and things will be lost, but that it is only with the help of others that we can stay strong, start again, and carry on. We need more books about kindness and a sense of community!
I love the textures, color, and sophisticated shapes of Estelí’s characters!
A powerful socio-emotional picture book about friendship and courage in the face of hardship.
When Conejo's house blows away in a storm, his friends and neighbors take turns helping him look for it. Though they do not find his house, they each send him on his way with good cheer and small gifts. Conejo is grateful for their support, but still finds himself sitting with sadness for some time. When the rain clears, Conejo finds the courage to rebuild. He fills his new home with the memories, love, and support he collected from his friends along the way.
Hello! My name is Flavia Z. Drago and I'm a Mexican picturebook maker currently living with my partner and my cat in the UK. As a child, most of the books that I read came from foreign countries, particularly Europe and the US, and these have had a huge influence on my work as an author and illustrator. However, now that I'm in charge of making the books that I would have liked as a child, I enjoy adding details of my Mexican culture whenever possible. To some extent, the books that I've shared with you collect some of the stories, experiences, and emotions that as a Mexican have impacted my life.
I would have loved to have had this book in my childhood! As a child, I grew up reading myths and folk tales that came mostly from Europe, however, this book gives a glimpse of myths in America long before the colonization. Thanks to this book I discovered many myths from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego—or the Sea-Ringed World, as the Aztecs called it—which sparked my curiosity in order to know more. Also, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that some of the stories were intertwined.
Even if this is not a picture book, I decided to include it because the stylish and sophisticated illustrations (of the multi-awarded) Mexican illustrator Amanda Mijangos, fill the spaces that the text is missing and add another level of reading to each one of the tales.
Fifteen thousand years before Europeans stepped foot in the Americas,
people had already spread from tip to tip and coast to coast. Like all
humans, these Native Americans sought to understand their place in the
universe, the nature of their relationship with the divine, and the
origin of the world into which their ancestors had emerged.
The answers lay in their sacred stories.
Author Maria Garcia Esperon, illustrator Amanda Mijangos, and
translator David Bowles have gifted us a treasure. Their talents have
woven this collection of stories from nations and cultures across our
two continents-the Sea-Ringed World, as the Aztecs…
I have loved reading since I was a child. Books can take you places you will never go otherwise. That’s why it’s so important to have good, clean books that take you places you want to go and books that don’t strand you somewhere you don’t want to be. As a YA author myself, I am passionate about providing literature for teens that is adventurous and relatable, without the spice that often flavors today’s books. I hope you love diving into this list of clean recommendations!
As a country gal myself, I love books where a big-city chic is forced into a backwater town. Meet Penny—a girl I fell in love with and cheered for through every stage of the book. I love Penny’s creativity, strength, and character growth.
This book definitely cycles through my re-read list, and for good reason. It deals with common teen problems like bullying, divorce, and homesickness in relatable ways, with just the right touch of humor. If there’s ever a bus headed to Hog’s Hollow, I just might be on it!
A confection of a novel, combining big city sophistication with small town charm.
When her mother moves them from the city to a small town to open up a cupcake bakery, Penny?s life isn?t what she expected. Her father has stayed behind, and Mom isn?t talking about what the future holds for their family. And then there?s Charity, the girl who plays mean pranks almost daily. There are also bright spots in Hog?s Hollow?like Tally, an expert in Rock Paper Scissors, and Marcus, the boy who is always running on the beach. But just when it looks as though Penny…
When each of our older boys were in the midst of the college admissions process, our husbands suffered life-threatening health crises. It was such a bizarre coincidence that we both experienced intense brushes with mortality during this time of high anxiety. The juxtaposition between health and college admissions gave us a unique perspective and led us to explore the impacts of college admissions anxiety on families, friendships, students, and school communities. We had entirely plottedGirls With Bright Futuresand were nearly through the first draft when the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal broke in March 2019. We felt like the headlines had been ripped from our manuscript!
We read several popular novels that explore competitive school environments. One of the best in this sub-genre is Small Admissions, by Amy Poeppel, which provides a fictional glimpse into the cut-throat world of Manhattan prep school admissions and ultra-competitive parents. Poeppel crafts a fun, wicked read with sharp dialogue. We could easily imagine what would happen when the children inSmall Admissionsapply to college…their parents would fit in well with the characters in our book.
"The Devil Wears Prada meets Primates of Park Avenue." -The New York Times
"Perfect for fans of Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep."-Booklist
Top 6 Books You Need to Read-BuzzFeed
Best Books to Give Every Book Lover on Your List-Town and Country
One admission can change your life...forever.
When ambitious grad student Kate Pearson's handsome French "almost fiance" ditches her, she definitely does not roll with the punches, despite the best efforts of family and friends. It seems that nothing will get Kate out of pajamas and back into the world.
Miraculously, one cringe-worthy job interview leads to…
Floretta- the story of an old woman who discovers life beautifully anew thru the helping hands of a child. The chakra colors of dawn and twilight are woven through the pages as the cycle of life is magically composed. The subject of “heaven,” has the potential to open discussions with…
I’d written modern true crime before—a book that helped solve a 40-year-old cold case—and wanted to try my hand at historical true crime. I live in Manhattan, home to the greatest crime stories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so I was able to see the actual locations where the grisliest murders, the biggest bank heists, and the crookedest con games took place. What really drew me in, though, were the many colorful, unforgettable characters, both good and bad, cops and robbers, who walked the bustling streets of Old New York during the fascinating era known as the Gilded Age.
If you read one biography/memoir of a Gilded Age criminal, make it this one. It tells the story (often in his own words) of the celebrated pickpocket George Appo, an odd little half-Chinese, half-Irish, one-eyed fellow who could make $800 in a few days when most working men made less than that in a year. Appo would rivet New Yorkers when he testified about his second career as a “green goods” con man, working to swindle gullible out-of-towners who came to buy purported counterfeit money at a discount, only to discover that there was nothing but sawdust inside the packages they carried away. Appo refused to name names, though, as he was a self-described “good fellow.”
In George Appo's world, child pickpockets swarmed the crowded streets, addicts drifted in furtive opium dens, and expert swindlers worked the lucrative green-goods game. On a good night Appo made as much as a skilled laborer made in a year. Bad nights left him with more than a dozen scars and over a decade in prisons from the Tombs and Sing Sing to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he reunited with another inmate, his father. The child of Irish and Chinese immigrants, Appo grew up in the notorious Five Points and Chinatown neighborhoods. He rose as…
I read (and write) biography as much for history as for an individual life story. It’s a way of getting a personalized look at an historical period. When the book is a family biography, the history is amplified by different family members' perspectives, almost like a kaleidoscope, and it stretches over generations, allowing the historical story to blossom over time. The genre also opens a window into the ethos that animated this unique group of individuals who are bound together by blood. Whether it's a desire for wealth or power, the zeal for a cause, or the need to survive adversity, I found it in these family stories.
Zabar's, New York's world-famous food emporium, is the achievement of another Jewish immigrant family.
Author Lori Zabar's grandparents, before they were a couple, fled pogroms in Russia (now Ukraine) and made their way to New York. Together they worked at a variety of small food stores before starting their own in 1934. From then on, Zabar's helped define the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The story here is one of hard work and eventual success in a family-run business, expanded to include dedicated non-family employees. The book also contains recipes, including two of my personal favorites - latkes and kugel.
The fascinating, mouthwatering story (with ten recipes!) of the immigrant family that created a New York gastronomic legend: “The most rambunctious and chaotic of all delicatessens, with one foot in the Old World and the other in the vanguard of every fast-breaking food move in the city" (Nora Ephron, best-selling author and award-winning screenwriter).
When Louis and Lilly Zabar rented a counter in a dairy store on 80th Street and Broadway in 1934 to sell smoked fish, they could not have imagined that their store would eventually occupy half a city block and become a beloved mecca for quality food…
I’ve worked in sports media since graduating college, first as a reporter at Sports Illustrated, then as an editor at ESPN The Magazine and eventually becoming editor-in-chief of the magazine as well as espn.com. I’ve also written several books, including The Odds, which was my immersion into the world of sports betting. Like the books on my list, the experience of writing The Odds scratched every itch: It was about sports, it featured intense and passionate characters and it revealed a secret world with massive influence. The Odds led to a career in betting media, including creating the sports betting beat at ESPN and, eventually, launching The Action Network, a sports betting media network.
I’ve read this book more than any book I’ve ever read. It’s what inspired me to not just want to be a writer but a sportswriter.
Telander does what all writers aspire to do: Turn a slice-of-life story—in this case, a group of Black kids from Brooklyn who love playground basketball—into a bigger lesson about human connection. He uses curiosity, an eye for details, and a sense of humor to make every character feel fully realized.
Heaven Is a Playground was the first book on the uniquely American phenomenon of urban basketball. Rick Telander, a photojournalist and former high school basketball player, spent part of the summer of 1973 and all of the summer of 1974 in Brooklyn living the playground life with his subjects at Foster Park in Flatbush. He slept on the floor of a park regular's apartment, observing, questioning, traveling, playing with, and eventually coaching a ragtag group of local teenagers whose hopes of better lives were often fanatically attached to the transcendent game itself. Telander introduces us to Fly…
In a time of alternative facts and the loss of a shared sense of reality, A Foot is Not a Fish playfully illustrates the difference between what is true and what is not through absurd fun comparisons that every child—and parent—will instantly understand.
I have written books on topics ranging from climate change, to migration, to labor unions, to pianos. I covered the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s as a journalist. But I am mostly known as a musician. I have released over 20 CDs and toured internationally for decades. I am the son of a closeted priest and have a daughter whose lesbian mother is a former lover of mine so I am drawn to well-written books about the lives of gay men that don’t fit an easy “coming out’ narrative, that are not “closeted” in dealing with sex, and that address political concerns that go beyond gay males.
My favorite gay autobiography. Humorous, explicit, and thought-provoking. Like my story, his is far from a neatly packaged “coming out” story of self-acceptance. He describes some way-out-of-bounds-for-most-people sexual adventures in detail but with no intention to shock or titillate. He is just telling stories he finds interesting, and he is a great storyteller. Not surprising, since he is a celebrated science fiction author.
Always surprising in a quirky way. Example: in the 1950s, he is at an outdoor gay cruising area at night when there is a police raid. It is only as the men flee that he grasps how many were there: hundreds. It is his first sense of being in a large gay male community, and it is empowering.
Winner of the Hugo Award for Non-fiction The unexpurgated edition of the award-winning autobiography
Born in New York City's black ghetto Harlem at the start of World War II, Samuel R. Delany married white poet Marilyn Hacker right out of high school. The interracial couple moved into the city's new bohemian quarter, the Lower East Side, in summer 1961. Through the decade's opening years, new art, new sexual practices, new music, and new political awareness burgeoned among the crowded streets and cheap railroad apartments. Beautifully, vividly, insightfully, Delany calls up this era of exploration and adventure as he details his…
