Here are 100 books that Homesick fans have personally recommended if you like
Homesick.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Success isn’t about money. It’s about character and personal experiences. I accept Viktor Frankl’s conclusion that fulfillment comes from having a purpose, caring for others, and living life with love. From my earliest movie heroes like Lash LaRue, Tom Mix, and Roy Rogers, to John Wayne, Cary Grant, and George Clooney, my favorite heroes have been modest and kind. Book heroes like Donna Leon’s Inspector Guido Brunetti, Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache, and John Le Carre’s George Smiley are modest and kind. This returns us to Lou Gehrig, my authentic, real-life hero. His early influence is clear in my heroic Duff Malone character.
He was the dad everyone wished they had. He was also a lot like my old high school football coach. There is authentic love and warmth when he and Scout are together. And there is honesty and spine when Atticus is in the courtroom, defending those who have been wrongly accused.
This beloved book has inspired generations of readers around the world. It is a morality tale about a rough and imperfect country, written in a way that has inspired idealists to stay the course in our fight for justice. We may be flawed, but we can still be strong.
'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Most of my published titles are about animals or involve them in some fashion. My Cats in the Mirror alien rescue cat series has been winning awards for a decade, and the two dog companion books have won the hearts of middle-grade readers, with a third companion book due out in 2026. Even my science fiction books for adults are about half-tiger/half-human creatures. Cats are definitely my favorite, but give me a book about a cute animal, and I’m happy.
I mean, not sure how much I need to say about the delight this book has brought to children since 1952. After being asked to read it to a group of first graders recently, I dissolved into tears having to read the scene where Charlotte dies, alone. The students that day thought I was silly. Yeah, as a kid, that didn’t bother me much. As an adult, well.
There’s something in this tale of love, friendship, and courage for all ages. Excellent for read-aloud if you are willing to commit to using different voices and really hamming it up.
Puffin Classics: the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child.
On foggy mornings, Charlotte's web was truly a thing of beauty . Even Lurvy, who wasn't particularly interested in beauty, noticed the web when he came with the pig's breakfast. And then he took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down. There, in the centre of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message. It said: SOME PIG!
This is the story of a little girl named Fern, who loves a little pig named Wilbur - and of Wilbur's dear friend,…
I am drawn to stories about “the olden days,” non-fiction, fiction, or first-hand storytelling by homesteaders who came from away to settle on the prairies. Perhaps it is a way to recall my own farm childhood, a way to recall both joyful and unhappy times. When my brother taught me to climb (and get down from) the apple tree. The realization the pet steer who followed me around all summer and occasionally let me ride on his back while he grazed would be met by the mobile butcher truck in the fall. Hardships and simple joys, the life lessons, the banal work done for the family and farm to survive.
A work of historical fiction that begins in 1949 is a story that examines the complexities of characters who are fully fleshed out and believable.
Life rarely turns out the way we hopefully anticipate—there are failures, successes, deaths, illness, joys. There are so many occasions that all of us can look back at the small decisions, the small forks in the road that when taken and made affect the course of ours lives in ways we would have never thought possible. The characters in this book grab us and take us with them on the journey of those lives.
A runaway #1 bestseller in Canada, this richly layered first novel tells the story of the intricacies and rituals that shape a family's life over three generations
A Good House begins in 1949 in Stonebrook, Ontario, home to the Chambers family. The postwar boom and hope for the future colors every facet of life: possibilities seem limitless for Bill, his wife, Sylvia, and their three children.
In the fifty years that follow, the possibilities narrow into lives, etched by character, fate, and circumstance. Sylvia's untimely death marks her family indelibly but in ways only time will reveal. Paul's perfect marriage…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I am drawn to stories about “the olden days,” non-fiction, fiction, or first-hand storytelling by homesteaders who came from away to settle on the prairies. Perhaps it is a way to recall my own farm childhood, a way to recall both joyful and unhappy times. When my brother taught me to climb (and get down from) the apple tree. The realization the pet steer who followed me around all summer and occasionally let me ride on his back while he grazed would be met by the mobile butcher truck in the fall. Hardships and simple joys, the life lessons, the banal work done for the family and farm to survive.
It follows German immigrant Fidelis Waldvogel and his family, and other characters in a small rural town in North Dakota in the years of and in between the First and Second World Wars.
The way the earthy and believable characters confront complex human issues intertwined with family, betrayal, death, are deftly told by a master storyteller. This one sits on my bookshelf for re-reads. I am in awe of Erdrich’s storytelling ability; you know these characters, you can smell the inside of the butcher shop, you feel a boy’s exhilaration as he watches a plane fly overhead.
A powerful novel from one of the most celebrated American writers of her generation, and the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction 2012
In the quiet aftermath of WWI, Fidelis Waldvogel leaves behind his quiet German village, and sets out for America with his new wife Eva - the widow of his best friend, killed in action.
Finally settling in North Dakota, Fidelis works hard to build a business, a home for his family - and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. But his adventure into the New World truly begins when he encounters…
My administrative career covered a mix of legal and hospital work which provided a wealth of real-life scenarios to fuel my own convoluted story ideas. Thrilled to take early retirement and pursue a writing career, I have since published five romantic suspense novels. I strive to produce quality stories on par with the countless amazing romantic suspense authors I have enjoyed since my teen years. Storyline prompts surround us. A dark bunkie, screaming neighbor, or even an oddly shaped bag of garbage can trigger my suspicion. My favorite spot to walk is the peaceful shores of Lake Huron, where my twisted imagination soars, and my best stories come to life.
Diverse characters who feel like friends; a picturesque town that will have you checking Google maps for your next road trip; a murder; an unexpected love story; what is not to love about this book?
This is my favorite read of the year. I still envision the characters months after reading, as if I visited “Beautiful” on a wild adventure to solve a mystery and met an eclectic bunch of new travel mates along the way. The ending will surprise you in more ways than one. An easy, solid 5+ stars for this one.
International chef Jake Hardy has it all. Celebrity, thriving career, plenty of friends, a happy family and faithful dog. Until one day when a tragic accident tears it all apart. Struggling to recover, Hardy finds himself in a strange new world—a snow-swept prairie town that time forgot—a place where nothing makes sense. Cold is beautiful. Simple is complex. And doubts begin to surface about whether Jake’s tragedy was truly an accident after all. As the sun sets in the Land of Living Skies, Hardy and his glamourous, seventy-eight-year-old transgender neighbour find themselves ensnared in multiple murders separated by decades. In…
I was born and raised on the rugged island of Newfoundland and am enthralled by the ocean, its rhythm, its power. The setting of The Kerrigan Chronicles is the setting for my early life: same area, different era. As a child, I was unaware of the sacrifices and struggles of my ancestors. During cross-country telephone conversations with my aging father, I heard stories of poverty, illness, and war. When Dad described the earthquake and tsunami of 1929, I was hooked. I have written other novels, modern-day suspense that could quite frankly have been written by other people butThe Kerrigan Chronicles are mine and mine alone.
Set on a Canadian prairie plain in the 1930s, Who Has Seen the Wind tells the coming-of-age story of a young Saskatchewan boy, Brian O’Connal, as he seeks meaning in life, death, and God. I love this book for its lyrical use of the wind which constantly sweeps across the prairie and through every aspect of the story. This book influenced me as a writer because I hoped to personify the sea the way W.O Mitchell did the wind.
Hailed as “one of the finest Canadian novels ever written” by The Globe and Mail, W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind is a beloved mainstay of Canadian literature. This new, abridged audio edition is read by the author himself.
Mitchell’s novel follows Brian O’Connal, a young boy growing up in Depression-era Saskatchewan. Curious and eager to explore the impossibly vast Canadian prairie, Brian guides the listener through the inner workings of his small, rural town and its quirky characters. As Brian grows up, navigating faith, loss, and his relationships with his grandmother and his friends, we see him evolve…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
The short answer is, a retired university professor (Fred) and the coordinator of Natural Areas for the University of Illinois (James). That answer, however, doesn’t give a clue as to how we came to write our book. Fred and his wife established a small three-acre prairie on their land in 2003. They then enlisted James and Grand Prairie Friends, the local conservation organization he headed at the time, to help manage the prairie. Eventually, Fred, who had photographically documented the growth of the prairie and the beauty to be found therein, proposed that he and James describe the prairie with photos so that others could also learn to enjoy it. The rest, as they say, is history.
The most scholarly and detailed book of our five choices, this book by Candice Savage, now in a revised edition, considers in depth not just the tallgrass prairie, but the entire sweep of North American grasslands. Savage recounts details that most people will never have thought of – such as how the bison were an integral part of the prairie ecosystem by creating buffalo wallows that persisted for years and provided shallow and temporary wetlands in what, to the west, was an otherwise dry environment. Start your exploration of prairie with this book or finish with it, but do not skip it. Its overview of the entire region puts the information in the other books into context.
Candace Savage's acclaimed and beautifully written guide to the ecology of the prairies, now revised and updated.
Praise for the previous edition of Prairie: "Impelled with its sense of the miraculous in nature."-Globe and Mail
This revised edition of Prairie features a new preface along with updated research on the effects of climate change on an increasingly vulnerable landscape.
It also offers new information on: * conservation of threatened species, including the black-tailed prairie dog and farmland birds; * grassland loss and conservation; * the health of rivers and the water table; * the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on prairie…
I’m a former high-school and middle-school English teacher and a current instructor in the Writing Program at Rutgers University. I live in hilly New Jersey, but I’ve always been fascinated by the flat, treeless American prairie and the people who have lived there, from the Native American tribes of the Great Plains to the early homesteaders. I believe that to understand where we are, you need to understand where we’ve been, which is why I love to read and write historical fiction.
Apparently I’m not the only kidlit author who loves both the American prairie and all things British. When her Pa is accused of thieving, young Louisa is taken in by his accusers, the appropriately named Smirch family. Sour, mean-spirited Mrs. Smirch looks forward to seeing Pa hang. Louisa solves the mystery of the stolen items when she meets a gruff but sensitive... well, I won’t say, but he’s one of the Wee Folk from the Auld Country, far from home on the Colorado plains. A cute and lively read with a satisfying conclusion.
I grew up on the set of Little House on the Prairie. Yes, it was a fictional world created by Hollywood, but the foundation and lessons I learned about love, family, and faith have stayed with me. I now travel with the cast of Little House all over the country to engage and share with fans about how my experiences have shaped me. I can’t say enough about these memoirs or the cast members who wrote them. I know every Little House fan will love them too!
Jennifer’s memoir affected me in ways I didn’t expect. We were both twins on the set of Little House on the Prairie, but to read how she lost her sister had me in tears. I loved her honesty and vulnerability to share such a difficult part of her life. Indeed, there is so much more to Jennifer’s life than just the prairie. She tells it beautifully.
From the sets of the prairie to the real world of today, my journey has been one of resilience and transformation. As a baby, I started my life on the set of a prairie, surrounded by the loving family of the show. Years after the cameras stopped rolling, I faced the harsh reality of losing my twin, Sarah. She had been by my side since before our birth and was right there beside me on the sets of Little House on the Prairie, as we together portrayed Baby Rose Wilder. Losing her was my first encounter with the fragility of…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’ve always enjoyed both gardening and children. As a former Virginia Master Gardener and Homeschool mom, and a current Lancaster National Wildlife Federation Habitat Steward, I now find myself encouraging others to look at gardening in a new light – not only as a way to decorate their yards, but also as a means to provide habitat for our diminishing wildlife population. I try to show how you can have both beauty and function at the same time and how much fun it is to engage children in this essential activity. I love books that show what a difference one person – even a young child – can make in the world.
As I garden and explore our yard with my grandchildren, together, we have fun continually learning which plants provide for our various wildlife visitors. This beautifully illustrated story shows how each of us, in planting certain native plants can draw the animal friends that rely upon the various flora that used to cover our prairies. I can very much relate to wanting to add more and more plants to my garden so that I attract more and more species of wildlife. The only drawback to this story…it does not help to keep my ‘plant lust’ in check!
Author Phyllis Root and illustrator Betsy Bowen last explored the vast, boggy peatlands of northern Minnesota in their book Big Belching Bog. Now, in Plant a Pocket of Prairie, Root and Bowen take young readers on a trip to another of Minnesota's important ecosystems: the prairie.
Once covering almost 40 percent of the United States, native prairie is today one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. Plant a Pocket of Prairie teaches children how changes in one part of the system affect every other part: when prairie plants are destroyed, the animals who eat those plants and live…
