Books like Cecil the Pet Glacier — picked by fans

So maybe you want a dog, but have you considered other pets? The main character visits an animal shelter in search of a dog, but a persistent shelter manager urges her to consider other options. Join her in this humorous search for the perfect pet. What will it be? It may open reader's eyes to endless unexpected pet possibilities.

You REALLY want a puppy, right? So does the pigeon! He doesn’t just want a puppy, he wants one right now. The pigeon tries convincing the reader he will take care of his new puppy. Until... the puppy appears. Maybe this is the perfect book for parents to help a puppy wanting child see what it is like to have a puppy… in a sneaky way.

Cats, dogs, hamsters, fish, but what about a less expected pet? Maybe sourdough starter as a pet is the perfect start to caring for pet!?! The main character, Cora, promises her uncle that she will keep the pet alive. She does not anticipate how fast her pet will grow. How will she come up with a solution? And fast? This charming unexpected pet book also includes recipes. 

Lucy, the bear, is practicing her twirls in the forest when she notices she is being watched, by a boy who squeaks! Lucy thinks he is “the cutest thing in the world!” and begs her mother to let her keep him. Her mother tells her that “children make terrible pets!” but eventually relents. Lucy and Squeak do everything together but the boy is practically impossible to potty-train, ruins the furniture, makes terrible messes, and then…he disappears! When Lucy finally finds him, she realizes that some creatures make terrible pets. Then again, perhaps a…? 

Peter Brown’s colour drawings are cute and funny; this book definitely made me laugh out loud. What an interesting change of perspective about humans and pets! 

I liked the surprise ending too.

This book is for slightly younger readers, but I think it has genuine multi-generational appeal. I read it aloud to my eight-year-old, who laughed aloud and loved it – in fact, it was the first read-aloud chapter book that he stuck with. And his grandmother is also reading and loving it! Astrid has the feel of a classic, with its humor and its gentle wisdom. Though it’s a story about a feisty girl who loves sledding, it’s also a story about how someone you love can keep a hurtful secret. How does one forgive such a thing? Astrid figures it out. 

Ruth Maier was a Jew born in Germany. Kristallnacht, an infamous Nazi pogrom, took place in 1938. Ruth was able to flee to Norway shortly thereafter.

She soon became fluent in Norwegian, finished high school, and began her university studies. However, the Germans occupied Norway in 1940. She, therefore, lived in constant fear of being arrested and kept a very detailed diary of how she lived through these two dangerous years. She was then arrested in 1942 at age 22 and deported to Auschwitz, where she was immediately put to death. 

Weary of people asking him what his plans for the future are, eighteen-year-old Dutch teen Tycho decides to travel from his Holland home to America to work at a camp for international kids. Along the way, he meets Oliver, who’s from Norway, and is also going to work at the camp. The two quickly become fast friends and then something more. When their love relationship is discovered, they’re expelled from the camp, and the two fly back to Norway where Tycho will stay with Oliver while the boy’s mother is gone. No, there are no wild parties, just a lovely examination of an emerging relationship that is challenged by Oliver’s keeping a closely guarded secret. If this sounds dull, trust me, it isn’t! Find out why I’m so crazy about this book by reading it. Tell them Michael sent you...

As a lover of folk-tale, legend, and myth—and having an especial love for Norse Myth—I soon sought out the folk-tales of Norway.

Asbjorsen and Moe are the Norwegian answer to the Brothers Grimm. Their collection is superb. There’s the Ash-Lad, who is rather like Jack of Beanstalk fame, and many trolls. There are twelve princes searching for twelve lost princesses, helpful griffins, abandoned babies, and ancient Norse gods pitching up in thin disguise.

And, of course, as the people who told these tales lived between mountains, sky, and sea, there are many tales of animals and birds.

I love cold, northern places and dogs, and, if you haven’t already noticed, warts-and-all stories about women finding strength they didn’t know they had in the wilderness. Blair Braverman’s memoir checks all these boxes. As a teenager, she goes to a folk school in the Norwegian Arctic and learns to work with sled dogs, something she later continues as a guide in Alaska. (Braverman is now a professional musher and has run the Iditarod.) The book’s subtitle is Chasing Fear and Finding Home In the Great White North, and Braverman is unsparing in her exploration of fear rooted in both the human and natural world. I read this book on a series of airplanes in one long travel day, and I’m still reminded of it every time I see Braverman’s delightful Twitter stories about her dogs.

Knut Hamsun is one the greatest writers of all time, in my opinion.

And yes, I am separating the work from the person and the political views. Hamsun was a strange guy and he wrote mainly about strange guys.

Lieutenant Thomas Glahn is one of them, the protagonist of Pan. Glahn is an ex-soldier, living in a hunting hut near a small harbour town in Norway. Technically, Pan is a love story. But it is not a typical love story. It is so co-dependent and twisted that it literally hurts.

Glahn is at best an idiot, at worst some kind of a sociopath. He thinks he is in love but his “love” is not innocent and pure but ugly and even dirty. It is easy to feel sorry for Glahn, easier to simply hate him.

But the book is so well written and the story so fascinating that the… show more.