100 Books Like Mi Ciudad Sings

Two cheerful deer take us on a tour of their city of Mazatlán, Mexico. I love the tone of this book—wide-eyed enthusiasm for this fascinating city.

The book is bilingual in English and Spanish and is full of humor and the incredible sights and sounds of Mexico. It makes you want to hop on a plane and explore. The story is in verse and is great for reading in my class, particularly kindergarten. The art adds a lot, and the Spanish translation is very well done.

Grandma comes home from her visit to Mexico with a suitcase full of surprises. Inside was a wonderful little drum and a clay bird whistle. After playing music, Sabrina learns more about Mexico, from Mayan Princesses to cities of gold and chocolate, of course. Cacao seeds were used as money in the times of the Mayans! They also like to have melted chocolate poured over bowls of snow, just like a chocolate snow cone. After an afternoon of making traditional Mexican hot chocolate, Sabrina starts to understand that chocolate is an important part of her ancestor’s history.

I loved all the history and the illustrations in this bilingual book, and of course, I love chocolate!

The Rynnie Roo books are always such fun, and this one is no different. This book takes the reader on an adventure as they explore the animals that live in the Yucatan jungles of Mexico. It includes some words from the Mayan language and even talks about the many, many dinosaur bones that have been found in the region as well as the types of dinosaurs that were common there.

I love the characters Jean Johnson has created for this series and the fact that she actually grew up in the Yucatan jungle. It’s always great fun to read this one to my students here in Mazatlán, Mexico. They love learning about the other side of their country.

Two cousins, Charlie and Carlito, write to each other about their lives. Charlie is in the United States and talks about riding the subway to school in the big city and playing basketball with friends. Carlito is in the country in Mexico and walks to school each day past the “burro” (donkey) and the “nopales” (cactus), and plays football with his friends. Some things seem different but in many ways their lives are alike.

The art is a simple style but really charming and colorful and has won an honor award for the illustrations. There are Spanish words peppered through the book and what I really like is that it shows the strong connection between the two countries. In many ways, the United States and Mexico are also cousins.

This book showcases the extraordinary writing of the novelist and journalist Elena Poniatowska. She weaves together the voices of multiple journalists, her own reflections, and above all the testimonies of dozens of survivors of the two earthquakes that battered Mexico City and surrounding areas on September 19 and 20, 1985. It is both a moving report of people's suffering as well as a stirring portrait of how common people stepped in and created search and rescue teams and offered relief when government efforts failed. Poniatowska masterfully captures what many historians consider a key before and after moment in modern Mexican history.

Ian Frazier’s exploration of his own family’s history takes the reader on a fascinating deep (and broad) dive into American history.

What begins as a chance discovery of letters written between his parents as a young couple leads him inexorably back into the far-reaching branches of his family tree, and a unique perspective on American life from the eighteenth century to the twentieth.

David McCullough called this book a ”remarkable history of an unremarkable family.” The author’s keen curiosity, masterful storytelling, and elegant prose kept me spellbound. I read this book when it first came out, and it was one of those books that for a while I couldn’t stop telling everyone to read.

I’ve never forgotten it, and now I think I’m about to read it again.

This is a masterful work covering the period from the Norman conquest to the Black Death. Sarah Rees Jones is one of my go-to scholars for medieval York, as well as an engaging writer. I particularly appreciate her looking beyond the importance of the royal government in the city’s development to include the strong influence of the Minster and other ecclesiastical institutions in the city as well as the significance of the people of York—merchants and craftspeople.

Check here first if you want a feel for how the city grew, who were the makers and shakers, how the neighborhoods developed, where the influential people lived. Every time I dip into this book I learn something new. With 18 useful maps and an extensive bibliography.

Charles de Lint is one of my favorite authors, and this book of short stories is set in Newford, his fictional city. It’s a fully-formed universe where there's always more to discover. You can read any of his books at any time; there’s no order they must be read in. I guarantee that the more you learn of his worlds—and especially Newford—the more you’ll want. I read Pixel Pixies (my favorite short story of all time) to my mom and dad when my mom was dying of cancer. I could barely read the last paragraph for wanting to cry; not because the story is sad, but because it's so beautiful, so hopeful, so abso-freaking-lutely wonderful. I still get teary-eyed thinking about that evening of reading that story to my mom and dad.

That’s what de Lint does. He transports you not only to a world, but indelibly marks the feelings… show more.

“I want a long, calm book about people with large incomes – a book like a flat green meadow and the sheep feeding in it… I read most of the time and I am happy.” First published in1939, this novel is a portrait of a woman who struggles in Paris. She is on her own and has no job or money.

I recommend this book because, to me, it is unique–I’ve never read a book like it. It’s an interesting plot, end-of-the-world stuff, with some very unlikeable, low-life characters. It’s set in a very dark version of London that I know and love, in a pub environment similar to the one that I grew up in.

There is murder on the cards throughout the story, but the author still manages to squeeze in some humor. It’s just a different style of writing that I think people should give a try.