Here are 100 books that Dog Driven fans have personally recommended if you like
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Sled dog racing? I knew nothing about it most of my life. I became interested after writing a nonfiction book on the history of sled dog racing. So interested, I wrote a novel on it—Cookie Cutters & Sled Runners. I attended local sprint races and even traveled to Alaska to see the start of the Iditarod. I learned so much watching the mushers prepare and the excitement of the dogs. I still enjoy watching the Iditarod, the Yukon Quest, and local sprint races. I’m excited to share a list of great sled-dog books. What I like about my list is that all the books are so different!
This is my new favorite book. It takes place in a remote town in Alaska where residents must travel by dog sled. Each page has a poem written in a diamond shape that contains a hidden message. Not many books have such a unique format. But what really made the book exciting were the many twists and turns in the plot. (I also learned about diamond willow, but I won’t spoil it for you!)
Twelve-year-old Willow would rather blend in than stick out. But she still wants to be seen for who she is. She wants her parents to notice that she is growing up. She wants her best friend to like her better than she likes a certain boy. She wants, more than anything, to mush the dogs out to her grandparents' house, by herself, with Roxy in the lead. But sometimes when it's just you, one mistake can have frightening consequences . . . And when Willow stumbles, it takes a surprising group of…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Sled dog racing? I knew nothing about it most of my life. I became interested after writing a nonfiction book on the history of sled dog racing. So interested, I wrote a novel on it—Cookie Cutters & Sled Runners. I attended local sprint races and even traveled to Alaska to see the start of the Iditarod. I learned so much watching the mushers prepare and the excitement of the dogs. I still enjoy watching the Iditarod, the Yukon Quest, and local sprint races. I’m excited to share a list of great sled-dog books. What I like about my list is that all the books are so different!
Dashing Through the Snow tells readers what it’s like to compete in the Jr. Iditarod. This nonfiction book was a great resource when I was doing research for my book. Not only was the text great, but there were photos showing various aspects of the race, including what it’s like to sleep on the side of a sled-dog trail. Anyone who’s interested in the sport and hasn’t heard of a “gangline” or a “dropped dog” will find the definitions in the glossary useful.
2005 Mondo Book Shop Level R -- Dashing through the Snow: The Story of the Jr. Iditarod (Paperback)(10"x8.5"x0.15") Written & Photographed by Sherry Shahan ***ISBN-13: 9781593367145 ***32 Pages
Sled dog racing? I knew nothing about it most of my life. I became interested after writing a nonfiction book on the history of sled dog racing. So interested, I wrote a novel on it—Cookie Cutters & Sled Runners. I attended local sprint races and even traveled to Alaska to see the start of the Iditarod. I learned so much watching the mushers prepare and the excitement of the dogs. I still enjoy watching the Iditarod, the Yukon Quest, and local sprint races. I’m excited to share a list of great sled-dog books. What I like about my list is that all the books are so different!
Yes, I chose a second book by Terry Lynn Johnson. The two books I chose are quite different in both subject matter and tone though. This book is a light-hearted story about eleven-year-old Matt who starts his own business for his school project. He chooses sled-dog training. I’ve always loved books about kid-run businesses, and this one has a great cast of characters.
Eleven-year-old Matt is struggling in school and he has to set up his own business to save his failing math grade. But what is he even good at? The only thing he truly loves is his team of dogs, and so Matt's Sled Dog School is born. Teaching dogsledding should be easy, right? But people, just like dogs, can be unpredictable. And sometimes the bravest thing a person can do is admit they need help. Like Terry Lynn Johnson's popular Ice Dogs, Sled Dog School is about overcoming adversity, finding your strengths, and your friends, and following your passions. AGES:…
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
Sled dog racing? I knew nothing about it most of my life. I became interested after writing a nonfiction book on the history of sled dog racing. So interested, I wrote a novel on it—Cookie Cutters & Sled Runners. I attended local sprint races and even traveled to Alaska to see the start of the Iditarod. I learned so much watching the mushers prepare and the excitement of the dogs. I still enjoy watching the Iditarod, the Yukon Quest, and local sprint races. I’m excited to share a list of great sled-dog books. What I like about my list is that all the books are so different!
This sled dog book is both fantasy and historical fiction—a truly unique genre mix. Jack and Annie travel back to Nome in 1925 during the diphtheria epidemic to help with the sled dog relay to deliver the serum. The Author’s Note at the end tells a bit more about the history of the serum race. This book is part of the Magic Tree House’s Merlin Mission series, which is for readers who want a bit more of a challenge.
The #1 bestselling chapter book series of all time celebrates 25 years with new covers and a new, easy-to-use numbering system!
The magic tree house has returned and it’s taking Jack and Annie back in time to Alaska, 1925. There they meet Balto, a jet-black Siberian husky destined to save victims of the diphtheria epidemic. But the trail isn’t easy, and Balto is going to need Jack and Annie’s help!
Formerly numbered as Magic Tree House #54, the title of this book is now Magic Tree House Merlin Mission #26: Balto of the Blue Dawn.
I’ve spent most of my life fascinated by what happens when women stop editing themselves. As a former television reporter, health educator, and memoirist, I’ve lived on both sides of the polished story and the private reckoning in my search for truth. Writing my own memoir forced me to confront how often women are encouraged to soften conflict, spiritualize pain, or tidy up the truth to make it more palatable. I’m drawn to books that refuse that impulse—stories where healing isn’t performative, and transformation isn’t neat.
I love this book because it refuses to sanitize childhood chaos.
I know Cea personally, and knowing what it took for her to tell this story makes the book even more powerful. Her upbringing was wildly unconventional—often unsafe—and she doesn’t soften that truth to make it more inspirational or digestible.
What stayed with me wasn’t just the extremity of her early life, but the clarity with which she tells it: no victimhood, no theatrics, no moral clean-up. This book reminded me that resilience doesn’t come from pretending things weren’t messy—it comes from looking directly at what was, and choosing consciousness anyway.
Sex, drugs, and . . . bug stew? In the vein of The Glass Castle and Wild, Cea Sunrise Person’s compelling memoir of a childhood spent with her dysfunctional counter-culture family in the Canadian wilderness—a searing story of physical, emotional, and psychological survival.
In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea’s family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in the Canadian wilderness. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren’t trying to build a new society—they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea’s grandfather Dick, they lived…
I grew up in a large extended family in a rural district in Trinidad. Frequently, as a young boy, I sought escape in the forested area at the back of the house. There, I would craft childish stories and fantasize about becoming a writer. This wish was granted after I moved to Canada in the 1990s. As an immigrant writer here, most of my books are about movement, dispossession, and finding a home. So, in a sense, I have always been running away from, while at the same time, searching for a home. This tension has given birth to most of my books.
This travelogue is so exquisitely written it is possible to admire it simply for its lyricism. But it’s much more than a travelogue. Embedded in the book are familial narratives, personal accounts, musings about other writers – Coetzee, Naipaul, Walcott, Galeano, for instance – all with the intent to chart the black diasporic experience. It’s a deeply personal book, yet studded with brilliant observations on belonging. “Black experience in any modern city or town in the Americas is a haunting. One enters a room and history follows; one enters a room and history precedes. History is already seated in the chair in the empty room when one arrives.” This book is best read slowly, savouring its insight.
A Map to the Door of No Return is a timely book that explores the relevance and nature of identity and belonging in a culturally diverse and rapidly changing world. It is an insightful, sensitive and poetic book of discovery.
Drawing on cartography, travels, narratives of childhood in the Caribbean, journeys across the Canadian landscape, African ancestry, histories, politics, philosophies and literature, Dionne Brand sketches the shifting borders of home and nation, the connection to place in Canada and the world beyond.
The title, A Map to the Door of No Return, refers to both a place in imagination and…
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
As a longtime outdoors editor of a Mississippi newspaper, I actually got paid to paddle local rivers. Over the decades, I expanded my territory to adjacent states, the South, the continent, and other countries. I parlayed my experiences into several books on rivers. As a paddler and writer, I naturally love to read about adventures on the water–not only classics like Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi River and Paul Theroux's Happy Isles of Oceania but also the many less-known but highly praiseworthy books like those listed here.
Bill Mason was a legend in the world of paddling. He was old-school: red and black plaid wool shirt, wood-and-canvas canoe, canvas lean-to-style tent. His sojourns in the North Woods inspired me in my own explorations of the Deep South. When he paddled Lake Superior, I thought of Louisiana's Atchafalaya Swamp. When he canoed the Hood River, I thought of Mississippi's Pascagoula.
This book combines in-depth advice on wilderness travel with accounts of some of Bill's own journeys. He was also an artist and filmmaker. His documentary, Waterwalker, is a must-see classic for anyone who loves adventure on the water.
More than a how-to camping and paddling guide, Song of the Paddle is a philosophical guide to outdoor living. Written by the acclaimed paddler and outdoorsman, Bill Mason, the book leads readers on a journey of exploration and discovery.
Mason writes from an intensely subjective viewpoint and the advice is practical and sound. He emphasizes the difference in perception between camping (rough) and outdoor living (comfort). Each page is packed with hard-won tips and tricks for enjoying the great outdoors. No detail is ignored -- from keeping campfire smoke out of your eyes…
I’ve been fascinated by borders since I was a child. I would run my finger along lines on maps in the worn pages of a world atlas, wondering what strange stories the people in those places would tell. As a writer, I look for compelling stories and odd characters at borders. The latest is Bob Boulé, the larger-than-life figure that Greg Boos and I describe in Smuggler. The books on this list were important for me to learn about the reality of the US-Canada border, and I hope you—and Donald Trump—enjoy them as much as I did.
I think a lot of people just assume that the majority of irregular migration at the US-Canada border consists of people entering the United States. That’s wrong historically and today.
British Loyalists during the US Revolution, people fleeing slavery on the Underground Railroad, and conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War have all sought protection north of the border. The same holds true today with thousands of people leaving the United States every year in search of asylum in Canada.
However, as Clark-Kazar’s book shows, they do not always receive a generous welcome, and Canada has tightened rules and put in place new restrictions for decades. I loved this book because it paints a complete picture of Canada’s partial and uneven embrace of refugees from around the world.
Forced migration shaped the creation of Canada as a settler state and is a defining feature of our contemporary national and global contexts. Many people in Canada have direct or indirect experiences of refugee resettlement and protection, trafficking, and environmental displacement.
Offering a comprehensive resource in the growing field of migration studies, Forced Migration in/to Canada is a critical primer from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Researchers, practitioners, and knowledge keepers draw on documentary evidence and analysis to foreground lived experiences of displacement and migration policies at the municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal levels. From the earliest instances of Indigenous displacement and…
As a woman, I am passionate about valuing the voices of women equally with those of men. When we listen to each other, we will be able to come into a better balance that will help us restore ourselves and our Earth. We need the visions of women to help guide us through these challenging times! I’m also passionate about the wild beauty of nature, especially trees, and spend lots of time hiking and meditating in the ancient redwood forests near my home. This has helped me heal and expanded my perception. In a way, being in the forest has brought me home to myself.
To Speak for the Trees is one of my favorite books ever, partly because I love trees, and partly because of my own Celtic heritage from my maternal line. Diana Beresord-Kroeger, a scientist in biochemistry and botany, begins with her childhood in Ireland. After losing her parents at a young age, she is raised in the ancient Celtic nature wisdom and Druid beliefs by an entire community, and literally taught the language of trees: Ogham. Blending scientific discoveries about trees and the importance of forests to our species' survival, this book is a fast and delightful read that I won’t forget. I feel enriched from having been blessed to spend time with such a brilliant woman through the pages of her book.
Diana Beresford-Kroeger - a world-recognised botanist and medical biochemist - has revolutionised our understanding of the natural world with her startling insights into the hidden life of trees. In this riveting memoir, she uncovers the roots of her discoveries in her extraordinary childhood in Ireland. Soon after, her brilliant mind bloomed into an illustrious scientific career that melds the intricacies of the natural world with the truths of traditional Celtic wisdom. To Speak for the Trees uniquely blends the story of Beresford-Kroeger's incredible life and her outstanding achievement as a scientist. It elegantly shows us how forests can not only…
At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…
My novel Venice Beach—like the five books I recommend here—has been classified as a “coming-of-age” novel, a classification that I have no quarrels with as long as it’s understood that coming-of-age is not regarded simply as a synonym for “adolescence” or “being a teenager.” The coming-of-age years—generally defined as between ages 12 and 18—are so much more than a period of life wedged between childhood and adulthood. Coming of age is a process, not a block of time; it is a hot emotional forge in which we experience so many “firsts” and are hammered, usually painfully, into the shapes that will last a lifetime.
You’re fifteen years old, living unhappily with your feckless parents and unstable older sister in a small town in Montana. And then your family implodes: your parents are arrested for bank robbery and your sister flees to parts unknown. As troubling as the premise is, Canada becomes even darker and more ominous as young Dell Parsons travels alone to Saskatchewan to live with erstwhile family friends, but in fact enters a whole new world of intrigue and violence. Dell is a stoic character, and you desperately want to see his life take a turn for the better. What you get instead is a case study in resiliency and survival. Ford’s prose is powerful; every word counts, every sentence pulls you deeper into the story.
First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then the murders, which happened later.
In 1956, Dell Parsons' family came to a stop in Great Falls, Montana, the way many military families did following the war. His father, Bev, was a talkative, plank-shouldered man, an airman from Alabama with an optimistic and easy-scheming nature. Dell and his twin sister, Berner, could easily see why their mother might have been attracted to him. But their mother Neeva - from an educated, immigrant, Jewish family - was shy, artistic and alienated from their father's small-town world of money scrapes and living…
