Books like Let's Kill Uncle — picked by fans

This is the story of Jack Crabbe. Jack was reared by both white and Cheyenne folks.

His story is a masterpiece and describes the destruction of Native Americans along with their way of life (including the bison they relied on). According to Jack, he even participated in the Battle of Little Big Horn and was the only white man who survived.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in American history and who wants to read about it in an entertaining way. There’s no way to disguise the hateful way European settlers wiped out native tribes and/or enslaved Natives and Blacks, but at least this is an engaging account thereof.

This book taught me to love reading when I was in the third grade. Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha are suffering the summertime-boredom blues when they find a grimy old coin.

By accident they discover the coin is magic; however, it’s so old it only works part-way. The adventures they have while trying to figure out what’s going on are charming and hysterical. I always laugh when the cat tries to halfway express itself because the children forgot to double the wish they wished.

Anyone with a sense of humor, adventure, and who misses (or missed) the delights of childhood should read this book. It was published in the 1950s, is set in the 1920s, and is still in print! That’s the hallmark of an excellent book.

When I was a kid, I read a Life Magazine article about elephants. Specifically, it shared how the elephants tried to keep an old, beloved family member alive and mourned his passing. It touched my heart.

Set in French Equatorial Africa, The Roots of Heaven is about Morrel, who attempts to stop the extinction of elephants. It’s an uphill fight for Morrel and those few who work with him and is basically a metaphor for humanity’s struggle to survive.

I loved this book for a number of reasons, not the least of which was how hopeless Morrel’s task seems, and how he keeps fighting anyway. I feel hopeless and helpless much of the time as I watch humans kill not merely each other but the earth itself. The Roots of Heaven shows that light can still shine in the murk of destruction.

Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill was once a beautiful residential area of Victorian homes of wealthy Angelenos.

In the early 1960s, most of the homes had fallen into disrepair and were being demolished (LA isn’t renowned for his love of history). Leo Politi, prolific artist and writer, documented the area in words and pictures so people could still see what it looked like.

I’m a native of the LA area (Pasadena, to be precise) and a historian at heart. I love this book and Leo Politi, whom I met several times when I worked in the Pasadena Public Library. The almost vertical funicular railroad, Angels Flight, connects Bunker Hill to downtown LA. It also features in some of my books.

The president of the Angels Flight Society said they relied heavily on Mr. Politi’s Bunker Hill when they were refurbishing the railroad. You can still ride on Angels Flight today! Pay… show more.

The best kind of books are books that are your friends, aren’t they? As a reader, I usually feel connected to characters and don’t think much about authors (and I feel this is how it should be. I think once they leave an author’s hands, books belong to the reader!) but in this case, I also feel like Lucy Maude and I are kindred spirits. We both had two imaginary friends growing up, after all. That’s enough to make us BFF’s, right? 😉 Anyway, I have visited with all my Anne book friends many times, but the one I always come back to is Anne of the Island. This is probably because I love a slow-burn romance, and this is the book where Anne and Gilbert finally get together. After three books of will-they-won’t-they banter the payoff is totally worth it! (And on a side note, would this book… show more.

When curating a list of whimsical book recommendations, one must surely start with the epitome of whimsy herself, Miss Anne Shirley!

With her big words, vast scope for imagination, and appreciation for nature's marvels, Anne with an E is one of my favorite fictional bosom friends. A true kindred spirit, I could visit daily without tiring of her poetical musings.

I love how Anne matures as a character while still maintaining her sense of wonder, and I love how her wonder—her whimsical ability to see a simple lake as an enchanting Lake of Shining Waters—inspires me to romance my own life and search for the wondrous cloaked in the familiar.  

I’m always a fan of graphic novels that capture the mood of the book, rather than trying to make everything perfectly accurate to the original. Mariah Marsden’s adaptation of Anne of Green Gables perfectly captures the magic and beauty of one of my favorite childhood books.

I mentioned how much I enjoyed this adaptation to a friend who’s also a fan of L.M. Montgomery. However, my friend hated this adaptation (especially how Anne’s nose is drawn!) which I actually found very liberating as I considered adapting The Great Gatsby. I’d been concerned about how people who loved Gatsby would view my adaptation, but this made me realize that some people would love my book and some people wouldn’t—and that was okay!

The author of nearly three dozen nonfiction books for young people, Catherine Reef reveals through her clear writing, first-hand accounts, and photographs what it was really like for a child to grow up in an orphanage in America from the mid-1850s to the early 20th century when nearly all of these congregate dependent childcare institutions closed.

Reef also includes a satisfying Afterword that lets us know “where life led some of the children” who appeared in her book. Although intended for a young reader, Alone in the World also proved a strong resource to me in writing my book and will interest anyone who wants a thoughtful and deeply-researched overview of this topic.

This was one of my favorite books as a kid. One of the things I loved about it was that it featured a regular girl with no special abilities embarking on a grand adventure.

I could easily relate to Rose Larkin and imagine myself in her shoes. I was captivated by the simple way Rose entered the new world—stepping into her aunt’s root cellar and traveling back in time to Civil War-era United States.

As a kid, I loved that Rose brought modern money with her and that just a little bit was enough to purchase quite a lot in the 1860s. I also appreciated the little historical details, like how everyone in the past assumed Rose was a boy just because she had short hair and wore jeans.

The Root Cellar thrilled my eleven-year-old heart and was such a fun way to explore another time and place.

I have always been more interested in vampires than werewolves. But when I saw this book, I knew I had to give it a chance. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. The story follows Kayla, a young girl who takes a summer job as a wilderness guide. Kayla has no way of knowing how this job will change her life forever. She meets Lucas, a young man who she is drawn to. Little does she know that Lucas is indeed a werewolf or that her destiny is linked to his.

As I read this book, I was anxious to see what would happen next. It was definitely a page-turner! While it’s a young adult novel, I highly recommend it to anyone who likes stories about werewolves.