Here are 100 books that I Want to Go Home fans have personally recommended if you like
I Want to Go Home.
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I have loved reading since I was a child. Books can take you places you will never go otherwise. That’s why it’s so important to have good, clean books that take you places you want to go and books that don’t strand you somewhere you don’t want to be. As a YA author myself, I am passionate about providing literature for teens that is adventurous and relatable, without the spice that often flavors today’s books. I hope you love diving into this list of clean recommendations!
As a country gal myself, I love books where a big-city chic is forced into a backwater town. Meet Penny—a girl I fell in love with and cheered for through every stage of the book. I love Penny’s creativity, strength, and character growth.
This book definitely cycles through my re-read list, and for good reason. It deals with common teen problems like bullying, divorce, and homesickness in relatable ways, with just the right touch of humor. If there’s ever a bus headed to Hog’s Hollow, I just might be on it!
A confection of a novel, combining big city sophistication with small town charm.
When her mother moves them from the city to a small town to open up a cupcake bakery, Penny?s life isn?t what she expected. Her father has stayed behind, and Mom isn?t talking about what the future holds for their family. And then there?s Charity, the girl who plays mean pranks almost daily. There are also bright spots in Hog?s Hollow?like Tally, an expert in Rock Paper Scissors, and Marcus, the boy who is always running on the beach. But just when it looks as though Penny…
Olivia Thrift, a.k.a. the superheroine Captain Fantastic, is excited to be meeting fellow Canadian superheroines for the first time. However, when their gathering is violently interrupted, it quickly becomes a savage fight against evil.
And, when Olivia suddenly loses her powers, will she be able to set things right when…
I have loved reading since I was a child. Books can take you places you will never go otherwise. That’s why it’s so important to have good, clean books that take you places you want to go and books that don’t strand you somewhere you don’t want to be. As a YA author myself, I am passionate about providing literature for teens that is adventurous and relatable, without the spice that often flavors today’s books. I hope you love diving into this list of clean recommendations!
When Thea comes with her dad to the Double R Guest Ranch to help Tully open the place back up, she doesn’t expect to find a decades-old mystery hidden among the old records. She also doesn’t expect to reconnect with horses, the beautiful animals her mother used to train.
This novel is a fantastic coming-of-age story, with grief, loss, and reconciliation sprinkled throughout. An engaging mystery flavors it further, making this book hard for me to put down.
Thea and her dad are always on the move, from one small Cariboo town to another, trying to leave behind the pain of Thea's mom's death.
They never stay long enough in one place for Thea to make friends, but when her dad gets work renovating a guest ranch on Gumboot Lake, she dares to hope that their wandering days are over. At the ranch she makes friends with Van, a local boy, and works hard to build the trust of an abused horse named Renegade. When Thea unearths the decades-old story of a four-year-old girl who disappeared from the…
I have loved reading since I was a child. Books can take you places you will never go otherwise. That’s why it’s so important to have good, clean books that take you places you want to go and books that don’t strand you somewhere you don’t want to be. As a YA author myself, I am passionate about providing literature for teens that is adventurous and relatable, without the spice that often flavors today’s books. I hope you love diving into this list of clean recommendations!
If I met Eric Walters, I would ask him how he, as a middle-aged male writer, got so effectively inside a teen girl’s head. I enjoyed following Alexandria’s journey from a rich suburb to a small non-profit in Kenya.
The dusty plains of Kenya are a far cry from her walk-in closets and piles of expensive clothes, but they hold valuable lessons for one used to being coddled by society. I loved the character development, the experiences, and the true friendship Alexandria discovered over the course of the story.
For Alexandria Hyatt having a fabulous life is easy: she knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. Being glamorous and rich is simply what she was born to be. When Alexandria is arrested for shoplifting, having to drag herself into court to face a judge just seems like a major inconvenience. But Alexandria has been in trouble before–and this time she can’t find a way to scheme out of the consequences. Before she knows it, she’s on a plane headed to Kenya where she has been ordered to work for an international charity.
I’m pretty sure I’m about to die in space. And I just turned twelve and a half.
Blast off with the four winners of the StellarKid Project on a trip to the International Space Station and then to the Gateway outpost orbiting the Moon! It’s a dream come true until…
I have loved reading since I was a child. Books can take you places you will never go otherwise. That’s why it’s so important to have good, clean books that take you places you want to go and books that don’t strand you somewhere you don’t want to be. As a YA author myself, I am passionate about providing literature for teens that is adventurous and relatable, without the spice that often flavors today’s books. I hope you love diving into this list of clean recommendations!
I love it when the main character is determined, and Dani is exactly that—she’s going to hike the Appalachian trail alone from Georgia to Maine.
I loved following Dani’s journey as she worked through grief, hard questions, and the divorce of her parents. She’s gutsy yet sensitive, afraid yet strong. The descriptions and emotions were great, and, in a way, I felt like I got to ‘hike’ the trail along with her!
Twelve-year-old Dani is running away from home, or what’s left of home anyway. Her older brother, who had muscular dystrophy, died a few months ago. Then her father left and her parents got divorced. Now home is just Dani and her sad, silent mother, and Dani’s got to get away. She plans to do something amazing, and go where her parents will never find her: she’s going to hike the whole Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine. The trail is a legend in her family, the place where her parents met, fell in love, and got married 14 years before.…
I have always loved literature, especially for its daring use of language. That’s how I became interested in the weird and strange styles of the nineteenth century. For many scholars, the Victorian novel is the most realistic form of writing ever produced and the closest that the novel comes to cinema—so if you notice an author’s style, then something’s gone wrong because it disrupts the illusion of reality. But it doesn’t take much to realise that even the most realistic novels have styles that are highly distinct and that the Victorian period is full of other writers whose styles are bizarre, extreme, or fascinatingly eccentric.
This book has become so familiar to us through cartoons and movies that we often forget how very weird it is as a piece of writing. The book begins when Alice, bored of her sister’s company, notices a white rabbit muttering to itself “Oh dear! Oh dear!”, and starts to become curious—not, mind you, because talking rabbits are impossible, but only because they are so very intriguing.
The rest of the book shares this bemused tone: Alice will be subjected to all sorts of indignities, including a near-beheading, but as a “good” Victorian girl, she will generally accept the bizarre reality that is presented to her. Carroll’s mastery of language is key to this effect. Nearly every character sounds sensible, turning well-formed logical sentences, but they never make much actual sense, and their speeches are riddled with so many puns, double meanings, and other linguistic tricks that one can never…
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel by English author Lewis Carroll (the pseudonym of Charles Dodgson). It tells of a young girl named Alice, who falls through a rabbit hole into a subterranean fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children.
One of the best-known and most popular works of English-language fiction, its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have been enormously…
As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
The legendary 18th-century chess champion Andre Danican Philidor called pawns “the soul of chess”. The Dutch master Hans Kmoch was the first to catalog all the nimble and fascinating tricks the humble pawn can do, and how the lowliest chess piece can work together with its neighbors to build a “structure” around which chess positions develop. Unlike computers, we humans need concepts to help us learn, and the ideas around pawn play I learned from this book have stuck with me for decades, helping me understand the correct strategy and tactics for different chess positions.
"One of the few books…which, at a glance, one can recognize as an immortal." — Chess. The proper use of pawns — of paramount importance in chess strategy — sometimes even puzzles experienced players. This profoundly original and stimulating book by an International Master and prolific chess writer offers superb instruction in pawn play by isolating its elements and elaborating on various aspects. After a lucid exposition of the fundamentals and the basic formations of one or two pawns that virtually constitute the keys to winning chess strategy, the reader is shown a multitude of examples demonstrating the paramount significance…
I first saw a chessboard at the age of 7 and became a professional chess player at 16, achieving the grandmaster title after just 3 years. Many years later – and no longer a professional – that childhood love for a beautiful game still burns brightly. My particular passions are chess engines – which offer a glimpse into the chess of the future – and the lives and games of historical chess players. I’ve reviewed hundreds of books for New in Chess magazine and I particularly love books that challenge my understanding of chess and show me new facets to old knowledge. I hope you love these books too!
As a child fascinated by chess, I devoured chess books about the old masters – colourful, eccentric geniuses who drew me into a world that I’ve never since wanted to leave!
Chess in those days was not just about who was the strongest, but also on a philosophical level about who was playing the “chess of the future”.
Hendriks examines the long rivalry between the first World Champion Steinitz and his challenger Zukertort through their writings – often conducted via fierce polemics in their respective newspaper columns – and their 1886 World Championship match.
It’s a moving human story which highlights that the winner’s narrative (“Steinitz won, and defeated an old-fashioned player with modern chess”) is not always the correct one!
The rivalry between William Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort, the world's strongest chess players in the late nineteenth century, became so fierce that it was eventually named The Ink War. They fought their battle on the chessboard and in various chess magazines and columns. It was not only about who was the strongest player but also about who had the best ideas on how to play the game.In 1872, Johannes Zukertort moved from Berlin to London to continue his chess career. Ten years earlier, William Steinitz had moved from Vienna to London for the same purpose; meanwhile, he had become the…
I first saw a chessboard at the age of 7 and became a professional chess player at 16, achieving the grandmaster title after just 3 years. Many years later – and no longer a professional – that childhood love for a beautiful game still burns brightly. My particular passions are chess engines – which offer a glimpse into the chess of the future – and the lives and games of historical chess players. I’ve reviewed hundreds of books for New in Chess magazine and I particularly love books that challenge my understanding of chess and show me new facets to old knowledge. I hope you love these books too!
Between 1920 and 1945, the strength of Soviet chess exploded, propelling Soviet players to the top of the chess world – a status held in a vice-like grip for many years after.
There was no more prestigious yearly event than the Soviet Championship, and its winner was of huge political importance: this player should demonstrate the superiority of the Soviet way of life to the decadent West.
Inevitably, the championships produced both amazing chess and great personal drama, and both aspects are beautifully documented by historian Sergey Voronkov in 3 volumes covering the period from 1920 to 1953, replete with photos, cartoons, and poems from the tournament reports of the era.
*****English Chess Federation Book of the Year 2021*****
In his three-volume treatise, leading Russian chess historian Sergey Voronkov vividly brings to life the long-forgotten history of the Soviet championships held in 1920-1953. Volume I covers the first 10 championships from 1920-1937, as well as the title match between Botvinnik and Levenfish. The key contestants also include world champion Alekhine and challenger Bogoljubov, lesser-known Soviet champions Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, Verlinsky, and Rabinovich, and names that today will be unfamiliar yet were big stars at the time: Riumin, Alatortsev, Makogonov, Rauzer, Ragozin, Chekhover, and many others. This book can be read on many…
As a youngster, my single mom’s bedtime stories did not come out of children’s books. They came out of real history—Hannibal and his elephants, the marauding Huns, or Captain Cook. It seemed preordained that I’d have a life-long love of history, that I’ve written three published historical novels, and am on the review team of the Historical Novel Society. My immersion in history and historical novels provides constant learning and pleasure.
On March 24, 1946, then-current world chess champion, Alexandre Alekhine, is supposed to be getting ready to defend his title against a Russian challenger. But, at age 53, Alekhine lies dead in his seaside hotel room in Estoril, Portugal. Alekhine appears to have been eating dinner alone in his room. A local doctor soon certifies he choked on a piece of meat.
Born in Moscow, handsome, married four times, master of multiple languages, widely travelled, Alekhine was caught behind enemy lines during World War II. To stay alive, he played for both Stalin and high-level Nazis. He drank to excess, smoked heavily, suffered from angina. Did he die of a heart attack, a stroke, choking on food, murder by the KGB, or partisans for his apparent sidling up to Nazis? Sceptics and chess fans have wondered. Maurensig recounts the chess master’s last days and summarizes the many aspects of a…
On the morning of March 24,1946, the world chess champion Alexander Alekhine - "sadist of the chess world," renowned for his eccentric behaviour as well as the ruthlessness of his playing style was found dead in his hotel room in Estoril, Portugal. He was fully dressed and wearing an overcoat, slumped back in a chair, in front of a meal, a chessboard just out of reach. The doctor overseeing the autopsy certified that Alekhine died of asphyxiation due to a piece of meat stuck in his larynx and assured the world that there was absolutely no evidence of suicide or…
We stumble onto games very early on in life and yet one game alone stood apart for me and hundreds of millions of other people over the centuries: chess. Across 1500 years of the games existence, chess has attracted players numbering in the billions regardless of language, culture, or creed, they were all unified in a passion for the irresistible allure of this remarkable game. In 2016, I was hired by Simon and Schuster to cover the world chess championship featuring arguably the greatest player ever to wield chess pieces, Magnus Carlsen. Fully immersing myself into the game during the researching and writing of the book, I collided with powerful themes.
The brilliance of Shenk’s book is that even someone who didn’t know the basic rules of chess would be enthralled by the backdrops of the game he introduces to the reader. Chess is played around the world by hundreds of millions of people and Shenk delves into the reasons why the game has such perversely addictive appeal.
A fresh, engaging look at how 32 carved pieces on a Chess board forever changed our understanding of war, art, science, and the human brain.
Chess is the most enduring and universal game in history. Here, bestselling author David Shenk chronicles its intriguing saga, from ancient Persia to medieval Europe to the dens of Benjamin Franklin and Norman Schwarzkopf. Along the way, he examines a single legendary game that took place in London in 1851 between two masters of the time, and relays his own attempts to become as skilled as his Polish ancestor Samuel Rosenthal, a nineteenth-century champion. With…
