Here are 100 books that I Am Purpose fans have personally recommended if you like
I Am Purpose.
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I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, but inherited ātravelling DNAā from my sailor father which has led to a life of work and travel around the globe. In addition to being an audiologist and teacher, I am also the author (and sometimes illustrator) of 15 childrenās picture books. Many of my books have been inspired by the special children I have had the privilege to work with as both an audiologist and teacher. My books are on a variety of topics including childhood hearing loss, dysgraphia and writing challenges, bullying and forgiveness, learning English as an additional language, and positive self-image. Some of my books are written to evoke giggles and belly laughs.
A wonderful book that celebrates the beauty of diversity.Ā Our world is full of people (and animals!) who do not look the same whether it be the colour of their skin, the shape of their eyes, or the length of their limbs. These people bring with them a vast range of talents, abilities, and creativity.Ā How boring our world would be if everyone looked the same and could do all the same things!Ā TheĀ illustrator did a fantastic job bringing this story to life and the author did a fabulous job with the rhyming text. A lovely book that is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who ventures to open the pages.
Zebra's desperate to blend in like a chameleon. Penguin yearns for a cheetah's speed. When the chance to swap their key traits and characteristicsĀ arises will these zoo animals learn they're perfect just as they are?
When tiger announces the swap shop has arrived the animals rush to have their wishes granted. However, they soon find out that what they desire comes with unexpected consequences. Will zebra ever get his stripes back? And can warthog convince the animals that not every wish needs to come true?
Sometimes we should be careful what we wish for and learn to love ourselves.ā¦
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 runā¦
I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, but inherited ātravelling DNAā from my sailor father which has led to a life of work and travel around the globe. In addition to being an audiologist and teacher, I am also the author (and sometimes illustrator) of 15 childrenās picture books. Many of my books have been inspired by the special children I have had the privilege to work with as both an audiologist and teacher. My books are on a variety of topics including childhood hearing loss, dysgraphia and writing challenges, bullying and forgiveness, learning English as an additional language, and positive self-image. Some of my books are written to evoke giggles and belly laughs.
A delightful rhyming book that starts off with a dog, Kenny, asking his master, āEddie, if you could be any animal, what would you be?ā Children will thoroughly enjoy following along as Eddie acquires the features of different animals and morphs into a very magnificent, but strange creature.Ā The author has deliberately changed the colour of the font and text to highlight the features that have been adopted from different animals as well as some of the actions that go along with them.Ā An interesting touch that is effective as it will draw a childās attention to the words! The illustrations are vibrant and really help bring each animal and the ānewā creature to life.Ā Ā Ā
Award Winning Picture Book.In his quest to become the world's greatest creature, can Eddie learn to be himself? A charming picture book with an important message, full of fun rhymes and delightful illustrations. You'll be following Eddie swooping and looping, stumbling and tumbling, and splashing and dashing as he attempts to become the world's greatest creature. Can Eddie be the greatest? Who does he choose to be in the end?
I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, but inherited ātravelling DNAā from my sailor father which has led to a life of work and travel around the globe. In addition to being an audiologist and teacher, I am also the author (and sometimes illustrator) of 15 childrenās picture books. Many of my books have been inspired by the special children I have had the privilege to work with as both an audiologist and teacher. My books are on a variety of topics including childhood hearing loss, dysgraphia and writing challenges, bullying and forgiveness, learning English as an additional language, and positive self-image. Some of my books are written to evoke giggles and belly laughs.
An oldie but a goodie. This is a lovely book about every child being unique and interesting. It builds in that each child is special and only that child can live the life they are given ā nobody else. It involves school, names, playing, food, as well as self-image. A great book for younger children with a fantastic message.
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someoneās lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier selfāand soā¦
I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, but inherited ātravelling DNAā from my sailor father which has led to a life of work and travel around the globe. In addition to being an audiologist and teacher, I am also the author (and sometimes illustrator) of 15 childrenās picture books. Many of my books have been inspired by the special children I have had the privilege to work with as both an audiologist and teacher. My books are on a variety of topics including childhood hearing loss, dysgraphia and writing challenges, bullying and forgiveness, learning English as an additional language, and positive self-image. Some of my books are written to evoke giggles and belly laughs.
Beautiful story. I loved the ārealā letters from children around the world to little Julia. Children with any kind of ādifferent abilityā need these kinds of stories to inspire and encourage them.Ā A positive self-image goes a long way toward loving oneself. Children who are self-conscious because of how they look or because of a visible physical disability/challenge need to be reassured that there are things they can do and challenges they can overcome.Ā Ā
We are pleased to announce that the NEW upgraded version of our 5-book series is now available.Ā
On this adventure Bentley and his friends meet children that have special needs. Listening to them talk about their own struggles, Bentley and the others reveal that they too have challenges. The children are all surprised. Looking out through a hospital room window is Julia, a sad little girl having treatment and wishing she could be outside with her friends. Bentley spots her and comes up with a plan to cheer her up
A heart-warming story of resilience, friendship, strength, and love
I am an independent author, photographer, wildlife advocate, paranormal enthusiast, and cat mom living in Dallas, Texas. In 2012, I earned my Master's Degree in Art and Performance from the University of Texas at Dallas and have been pursuing my writing career ever since. I published my first book, Cemetery Tours, in 2013 and it will forever be the book that changed my life.
Itās easy to find books about vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and witchesā¦ but very rarely do you stumble across a young adult book about sirens. Not the mermaid kind (weāve already covered mermaids), but still sinister, manipulative, and dangerous. Despite this threatening presence, this book is absolutely hilarious and a fantastic adventure. Itās also an LGBT story written by an LGBT author who has always said that this was a book he wrote for his younger self. To let him, and kids like him, know that heās not alone. And I just love that.Ā
Came out of the closet by accident? Check.Sent off to a pray-away-the-gay school? Miserable check.Shenanigans ensued? Mega-quadruple check.
Blaize Tralesās world falls apart when heās dragged to Sanctuary Preparatory Academy, a boarding school that claims to fix gay teens. The place sucks so much they even serve food like āCleansing Corn.ā Blaizeās misguided parents eat it up and hand him over for brainwashing.
But things at Sanctuary arenāt what they appear. Blaize soon discovers the schoolās antics are all a lie. Theyāre also at war with an ancient enemy. Between surviving bullies, rescuing students from mysterious attacks, and passing algebra,ā¦
I started writing sweet romance during the COVID pandemic. At the time, it was the perfect antidote to all of the heaviness, grief, and sadness that everyone was experiencing around the world. When I began publishing my stories, and eventually moved into the sweet romcom genre, I was beyond happy to learn that my books were bringing smiles to peoplesā faces during these challenging times. Iāve always loved romcom movies, and discovering romcom booksānot to mention beginning to write these stories myselfāopened an entirely new world of possibilities. I pretty much only read romcoms now, and I hope you enjoy the books Iāve recommended here as much as I have!
Iām always excited when a new Kortney Keisel book comes out.
Compared is the first in her closed-door romcom series, and itās a brilliant debut. This book follows Meg and Tyler in a single dad, teacher/parent romance that is completely swoon-worthy and hilarious.
Kortney does a fantastic job dealing with some harder subjects while keeping the material light-hearted and fun. I always turn back to this book if I want to read something deep and meaningful, but woven with funny scenes and banter.
I also love this book for the close connection between Megās siblings and dad. Theyāre exactly what a family should be.
Donāt mess with the hotheadāor he might just mess with you. Slater IbƔƱez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side ofā¦
When I was a queer teen in the early 2000s, I didnāt have sapphic books or media available to me aside from anime, and even then, the dubbed versions on TV were scrubbed of queerness (Iām looking at you, Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura). I did have Revolutionary Girl Utena, and it was everything to me: fantasy, ballgowns, and girls dancing together. I wrote my book for that me who craved to see herself in beautiful, fantastical stories, and itās why I love the fact that we have so many more out there right now that I can recommend to all of you!
Fairy-tale retellings are my favorite subgenre, and this book hit every right note for me. I loved the incorporation of stories, known and unknown to me, with art so beautiful there are days I pick this book up just to marvel at it.
The last one brought tears to my eyes, a feat that doesnāt happen often, superseded only by the end of the novel. I cannot recommend it enough.Ā Ā Ā
Tiįŗæn loves his family and his friendsā¦but Tiįŗæn has a secret he's been keeping from them, and it might change everything. An amazing YA graphic novel that deals with the complexity of family and how stories can bring us together.
Real life isn't a fairytale.
But Tiįŗæn still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It's hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tiįŗæn, he doesn't even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese wordā¦
As a kid, I didnāt identify with the gender I was assigned at birth. Even without the language to describe who I really was, I was always on the lookout for stories about other people who felt like I didāfor stories, in other words, like the ones on this list. But I never found them. As the books below beautifully illustrate, the spectrum of transgender experience, and our childhoods in particular, are so rich and diverse. My hope is for these and other books like Cactus Country to encourage more trans and queer people to tell their stories so that kids like us can find characters that represent them.Ā
Maia Kobabeās book is the book I wish I couldāve read growing up. I was struck so many times by the similarities Kobabeās story shared with mine, as a kid with many of the same questions and feelings about my gender that e did.
With immersive and evocative illustrations that I couldnāt help but linger over, Kobabeās graphic memoir took me on a refreshingly frank gender journey that was never afraid to delve into the uncomfortable.
It is also the most challenged and banned book in the country at the moment, which I think speaks volumes about the storyās capacity to change lives.
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns,
thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical
comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable
with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely
cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the
mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come
out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and
facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to
explain to eir familyā¦
My memoir Performance Anxiety, about my adolescence, is a true story. But I realize that writing it, I created a character. He has my name and attributes, but is at least partly invented. That's inevitable because the source material, memory, is fluid. And he is nuanced by what I chose to emphasize about my past and those times.Ā
These five memoirs depictāand, at least partly, inventāboyhoods wildly different from mine. I've never met the writers, but I know these guys. Our challenges and fears, and hopefully triumphs, are common to queer kids. Are they shared by all kids, regardless of orientation? I'll keep reading memoirs to find out.
I never heard a more harrowing story of the closet and coming out.
There was no bullying, rape or damnation to hell in Andrew Tobias' childhood. He was a high-achieving, good-looking son of an affluent family in cosmopolitan New York who came to adulthood in the anything-goes sixties. He realized he was homosexual at age 11āthen never allowed himself to tell a soul, or have sex (even with himself) until 23.Ā When he finally, tentatively, began to own being gay, he remained twisted up by stereotypes of masculinity and queerness.
Paradoxically, because he was afraid of it, his saga gives a colorful rendering of gay culture around 1970. (And I happen to know that he eventually found self-acceptance, love, and a prominent, honored role in gay politics.)
The classic account of growing up gay in America. "The best little boy in the world never had wet dreams or masturbated; he always topped his class, honored mom and dad, deferred to elders and excelled in sports . . . . The best little boy in the world was . . . the model IBM exec . . . The best little boy in the world was a closet case who 'never read anything about homosexuality.' . . . John Reid comes out slowly, hilariously, brilliantly. One reads this utterly honest account with the shock of recognition." The Newā¦
āEveryoneās got something,ā my mom used to say about my cerebral palsy. I knew kids who wore glasses or had mouthfuls of metal, but those somethings seemed normal compared to my leg brace, my limp, and my inability to run. When Judy Blumeās Deenie came out on my eleventh birthday, it was the very gift I needed: the story of a girl, a diagnosis, a brace. Reading it, I felt seen and understood, which led me to believe I might have a story to tell. Now, Iām thrilled to share these books by disabled authors about disabled kids leading authentic, relatable lives. I had Deenie. Todayās lucky young readers have these.
The candor and vulnerability of seventh-grader Al Schneider grabbed me from the start. Her best and only friend is drifting away, she hasnāt told anyone she likes girls, and a constant urgent need to poop has taken over her life. When Al learns she has Crohnās disease, she is terrified at first, but then the unexpected happens.
Her diagnosis brings a new group of friends into her life. They call themselves the Bathroom Club, and theyāre warm, funny, understanding, and, above all, welcoming. What a gift to a kid who, until now, has found it āmortifying just to be alive and have a body.ā What a gift to readers who have yet to discover that, if you let it, disability can offer entry into a rich, vibrant, and accepting community.
Twelve-year-old Al Schneider is too scared to talk about the two biggest things in her life:
1. Her stomach hurts all the time and she has no idea why. 2. She's almost definitely 100% sure she likes girls.
So she holds it in... until she can't. After nearly having an accident of the lavatorial variety in gym class, Al finds herself getting a colonoscopy and an answer - she has Crohn's disease.
But rather than solving all her problems, Al's diagnosis just makes everything worse. It's scary and embarrassing. And worst of all, everyone wants her to talk about itā¦
