Here are 100 books that Before They Were Authors fans have personally recommended if you like
Before They Were Authors.
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I am the author of many acclaimed books for children. Connection, compassion, and family are common themes in my work. My books include Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: One Girl Can Make a Difference, Flying High: The Story of Gymnastics Champion Simone Biles, and Brave Ballerina: The Story of Janet Collins. I also contributed research and writing to Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy by Misty Copeland. I studied journalism and literature at Syracuse University.
This book offers delightful details about Judy Blume, from her time growing up in New Jersey to the purchase of her first electric typewriter.
With the publication of Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret in 1970, Judy made history with a unique book about a 12-year-old girl exploring religion and friendship.
I appreciate how Kathleen Krull takes us on the rollercoaster of Judy’s life, showing us her heartbreak when facing rejection letters, her steadfast determination to keep writing, and her joy when she finally achieved her goals. Judy Blume never gave up!
"Well-behaved women seldom make history." -Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Many awe-inspiring women have changed the course of history. From fighting for social justice and women's rights to discovering and shaping our amazing country, women have left an indelible mark on our past, present, and future. But it's not easy to affect change, and these women didn't always play by the rules to make a difference! Kathleen Krull blends history and humor in this accessible young biography series.
Judy Blume wrote her way through controversy and censorship to become a pioneer who helped make it okay for kids and teens to discuss…
Did you know you can survive being swallowed by a whale? Or that octopus wrestling used to be an actual sport? Or, that once a town in Oregon didn't know what to do with a whale carcass that washed up on their beaches, so they...BLEW IT UP?
I am the author of many acclaimed books for children. Connection, compassion, and family are common themes in my work. My books include Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: One Girl Can Make a Difference, Flying High: The Story of Gymnastics Champion Simone Biles, and Brave Ballerina: The Story of Janet Collins. I also contributed research and writing to Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy by Misty Copeland. I studied journalism and literature at Syracuse University.
Capturing the spirit of Maya Angelou’s work, Renee Watson expertly chronicles Maya’s life with evocative poems. This book is a rhythmic tribute to the first Black person and the first woman to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration. Bryan Collier’s collage art perfectly complements each poem.
I especially love the poem called “Brother Jimmy, Brother Martin,” which highlights Maya’s deep love for James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr.
My favorite lines: “Jimmy was light in the darkest of rooms. Martin was water in a parched desert.”
From bestselling, award-winning creators Renee Watson and Bryan Collier comes a stunningly crafted picture book chronicling the life of poet and activist Maya Angelou.
This unforgettable picture book introduces young readers to the life and work of Maya Angelou, whose words have uplifted and inspired generations of readers. The author of the celebrated autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya was the first Black person and first woman to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration, and her influence echoes through culture and history. She was also the first Black woman to appear on the United States quarter.
I am the author of many acclaimed books for children. Connection, compassion, and family are common themes in my work. My books include Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: One Girl Can Make a Difference, Flying High: The Story of Gymnastics Champion Simone Biles, and Brave Ballerina: The Story of Janet Collins. I also contributed research and writing to Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy by Misty Copeland. I studied journalism and literature at Syracuse University.
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…”
A lyrical biography of E. B. White, beloved author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, written by Barbara Herkert and illustrated by Caldecott honoree Lauren Castillo.
When young Elwyn White lay in bed as a sickly child, a bold house mouse befriended him. When the time came for kindergarten, an anxious Elwyn longed for the farm, where animal friends awaited him at the end of each day. Propelled by his fascination with the outside world, he began to jot down his reflections in a journal. Writing filled him with joy, and words became his world.
An interdimensional mixer with angels and other beings brings unexpected trouble for Malachi and his friends in this smart and uniquely funny second book about the squad of teens from hell.
When an angel comes to his home to deliver a message, Malachi immediately knows what’s going on. The seraph…
I am the author of many acclaimed books for children. Connection, compassion, and family are common themes in my work. My books include Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: One Girl Can Make a Difference, Flying High: The Story of Gymnastics Champion Simone Biles, and Brave Ballerina: The Story of Janet Collins. I also contributed research and writing to Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy by Misty Copeland. I studied journalism and literature at Syracuse University.
I love how this book describes what Ida B. Wells was like as a young child, as well as her parents. Ida learned about standing up for what’s right from them. Dinah Johnson effectively weaves this theme throughout the whole book.
I think kids can learn so much from this story of courage. Page by page, kids will see how Ida wasn’t afraid to write newspaper articles about Black people being lynched so that she could bring attention to racism and injustice. Kids will also see how she wasn’t afraid to step forward in the Women’s March of 1913.
I was especially drawn to the back matter of this book, which includes rare pictures of Ida with her family from the 1900s and a comprehensive timeline of her life.
A stunning picture book biography about the early life of Ida B. Wells, her incredible work as a suffragist, and her critical role in the Women's March of 1913.
Ida B. Wells grew up during a time when women did not have the right to vote. But Ida aspired for equality; she had learned from her parents to forge a life through hope and bravery, so she worked tirelessly to fight for an America that was fair to everyone regardless of race and gender. Her courageous activism made her one of the most influential civil rights leaders in American history.…
"Two tickets to ride!" Most people get only one life.... and on only one coast. This book is an overview of an era 1948-2020 of cultural shifts and expectations for "girls". At seventeen I left my family and NYC for college, a commune, and then art school on the West coast.Visual artist, woman, mother, and descendant, Joan describes the lifetime challenges that she has met with creativity, humor, and resilience. Two NW cities, two marriages, and two sons born 23 years apart inspire many of her stories.
Rummer Godden’s autobiography A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep offers the stories, context, and sense of place for many of her novels. I so enjoyed her ability to write like a bright child thinks about the world, as well as how she is feeling. It is laugh-out-loud funny in spots, despite describing the dislocation of war.
I’ve been ensconced in horror since childhood—from the Monster Double Feature to Creepy and Tomb of Dracula. I’m part of the Monster Squad; I’m what goes bump in the night. I live for the scare. My love for all things spooky started young, growing up with Bradbury and Matheson, before graduating to King, Koontz, and Straub. I continued to absorb horror wherever I could: books, films, and comics, drinking it in as quickly as it came out. Eventually, I found that I’d absorbed so many stories, I had one or two of my own to contribute—so I began writing short stories and novels to terrorize the genre myself!
Danielewski is as much an artist as he is a storyteller. The Fifty Year Sword is a work of literal—and literary—art. The story is brief, haunting, and beautifully told. The book is a labor of love beyond words on the page. The art accents the story, propelling it forward and assisting the tension that grows as the unread pages dwindle. It is neither grotesque, nor leave-the-lights-on scary, but it is fantastically memorable and shocking, making it a wonderful introduction to the fun-filled intensity the genre offers. For all its simplicity, it’s an unforgettable read, worth picking up for repeat visits to admire the way story and art meld into this single binding. It’s an every-October treat for me that sets the mood for Spooky Season.
In this story set in East Texas, a local seamstress named Chintana finds herself responsible for five orphans who are not only captivated by a storyteller’s tale of vengeance but by the long black box he sets before them. As midnight approaches, the box is opened, a fateful dare is made, and the children as well as Chintana come face to face with the consequences of a malice retold and now foretold.
The blank pages in this book are a deliberate design element.
A spy school for girls amidst Jane Austen’s high society.
Daughters of the Beau Monde who don’t fit London society’s strict mold are banished to Stranje House, where the headmistress trains these unusually gifted girls to enter the dangerous world of spies in the Napoleonic wars. #1 NYT bestselling author…
I’ve probably been a naturalist since I was a child. I vividly recall having conversations with snow-capped mountains at the age of five. The most alive moments of my childhood were spent outside, and in that sense, not much has changed. I no longer live in the foothills of the Himalayas. Instead, I live in the high desert in New Mexico. But nature is as strongly present in my life now as it was then—what is new is the awareness of how swiftly nature is changing. While I read widely, books rooted in the natural world have a way of making their way to me—and it’s a joy to recommend them to passionate readers.
I sank into the book’s languid mood—Merwin’s early peripatetic and poetic life sometimes seems to have no beginning and no end. There is a lot of wandering in the book, but Merwin’s sensibility gets you through to the last page.
You come away with a strong sense of what it means to engage with poetry, mythology, and nature.
America today is a mobile society. Many of us travel abroad, and few of us live in the towns or cities where we were born. It wasn't always so. "Travel from America to Europe became a commonplace, an ordinary commodity, some time ago, but when I first went such departure was still surrounded with an atmosphere of adventure and improvisation, and my youth and inexperience and my all but complete lack of money heightened that vertiginous sensation," writes W. S. Merwin. Twenty–one, married and graduated from Princeton, the poet embarked on his first visit to Europe in 1948 when life…
Ying Chang Compestine is the multi-talented author of 25 books including fiction, picture books, and cookbooks. Frequently sought after by the media, Ying has been featured on numerous national television programs, is regularly profiled in prestigious news media outlets, and has been named one of the "50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading" by The Author's Show. Her keen interest in cuisine has led her to weave food into all of her writing–including cookbooks, novels, and picture books for young readers. Ying grew up in Wuhan, China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She uses these experiences, as well as her passion for food, in all her writing.
The Wall is incredibly heartfelt and beautifully written.
This intimate memoir reflects the fear of powerlessness under tyranny, especially through the eyes of childhood innocence. It also confronts that fear with creativity and imagination.
It tugs at my heartstrings as someone raised in a similar environment.
"I was born at the beginning of it all, on the Red side―the Communist side―of the Iron Curtain." Through annotated illustrations, journals, maps, and dreamscapes, Peter Sís shows what life was like for a child who loved to draw, proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer, stood guard at the giant statue of Stalin, and believed whatever he was told to believe. But adolescence brought questions. Cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain, and news from the West slowly filtered into the country. Sís learned about beat poetry, rock 'n' roll,…
We approached our book, theme, and recommendations as readers and lovers of Melville’s work who were inspired by following in his footsteps to places “whole oceans away,” as he describes the Pacific in Moby-Dick. Melville traveled widely and kept up his travels throughout a lifetime of further exploration, as well as voluminous writing. We want to share the exhilaration of traveling witha writer: that is, by reading of Melville’s travels, traveling to the places he visited, and also hearing from people who know those places too. We hope our book gives readers contact with the many dimensions of global travel, in whatever form they find for themselves.
Wilson Heflin’s indispensable but unfinished account of Melville’s life at sea from 1841-45, here lovingly edited by two experts on Melville and maritime life, unearths the full story and factual basis of Melville’s Pacific travels. Drawing from logbooks, consular records, newspaper accounts, and museum archives from around the world, Heflin reveals what Melville knew and fictionalized in his books. Highly readable for novices and scholars alike, this book provides an exciting entrée into early shipboard adventures and dangers and a chronicle of places and people around the globe—many long gone.
Based on more than a half-century of research, this work examines on of the most stimulating period's of Melville's life - the four years he spent aboard whaling vessels in the Pacific during the early 1940s.
4.5 billion years ago, Earth was forming - but nothing could have survived there…
From Cells to Ourselves is the incredible story of how life on earth started and how it gradually evolved from the first simple cells to the abundance of life around us today. Walk with dinosaurs, analyse…
When I drafted the pieces which eventually comprised Melancholic Parables, I had no plan. Only upon arranging them into a collection did I discover that, surprisingly, they shared emotional moods and thematic elements. In other words, I had stumbled into a linked collection. Writing a single big story is no small feat, as is writing small stories which each intrigue and delight in their own right—but to create and arrange multiple small stories so that they aggregate into a big story, one greater than the sum of its parts (in ways sometimes counterintuitive, sometimes virtuosic) is a special storytelling skill which I think these five authors’ work exemplifies.
Miriam Cohen gives us a series of stories loosely linked by recurring characters and contiguous themes.
In the world of these stories, childhood is bewildering and dreadful, while adults fail grotesquely to be adults—some never manage to stop being children, yet they never quite lose our sympathy.
If you love modern literary fiction, you will take as much delight in Cohen’s ruthless humour as you do in the exquisite prose and razor-keen insights which lurk on every page.
An “acute portrayal of failed relationships and struggles to transcend social norms,”―New York Times Book Review (editor's choice)
“Readers can detect deadpan realism influences of Lorrie Moore and the feminism of Angela Carter in these stories, but the work is distinctly and originally Cohen's voice. . . . [The] plots and these characters will stay for a while. Make room for them."―PopMatters
"These shockingly insightful stories, riddled with breathtaking observation, are also, frequently, laugh out loud funny. Wisdom and hilarity are such a gorgeous couple, and Miriam Cohen makes the absolute most of this pairing. Evocative of Lorrie Moore at…
