Here are 97 books that Plotting the Stars 1 fans have personally recommended if you like
Plotting the Stars 1.
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When I worked as a middle school teacher, I surveyed more than 200 students how they felt about books that included sadness and grief. The overwhelming answer from the students was that while adults too often minimize their feelings and dismiss the validity of their heartache, books do not. Many young readers want books that are honest and raw enough not to shield them from the world, but to pay enough attention to its pain to light a path, knowing that they can keep moving forward in the dark when they feel less alone and less afraid.
I adored every single character in this book. Dan Gemeinhart is a master at pulling readers in by creating characters you want to spend time with and miss when you turn to its final page.
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise is a joyful journey of grief. Coyote and her dad have been traveling the American countryside in a refurbished school bus far from the tragedy of a car accident that killed Coyote's mother and two sisters. Expect to learn about resilience, bravery, and the necessity of facing hard emotions we’d rather outrun.
Five years. That's how long twelve-year-old Coyote and her dad, River, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation. It's also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters.
Coyote hasn't been home since, but when she learns that the park in her old neighbourhood is being demolished - the very same park where she, her mum, and her sisters buried a memory box - she devises a plan to get her dad to drive 3,600 miles back to Washington state.
On the way, they'll pick up an eclectic group of folks. Lester…
Mal's older brother has disappeared into thin air. Laura's parents went away for the weekend and when she gives them a call, they have no idea who she is. In pursuit of answers, the teens become entangled with two others similarly targeted by a force they don't understand and now,…
I went through major surgery when I was in eighth grade. The physical pain was bad, but what hurt more was the emotional side. When I returned to school, the friend groups had shifted, shutting me out because of my extended absence. I had to face that time in life alone. Perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to works about kids who have to face challenges on their own. When we go through hard times, our true selves come out. They have to; we have no one else. We can’t pretend. We can only try to make it. The books I like show characters that shine through their hardships.
This book is amazing. It’s about a kid named Jackson whose parents are having trouble making ends meet. It looks like they’re going to be homeless... again. But that’s when Crenshaw, Jackson’s old imaginary friend shows up. I love how Katherine Applegate shows Jackson’s fears and hopes. I grew up pretty poor, and so I know that she does a great job with this tough situation. Yet, despite the hardships, Applegate fills this book with fun, like when Crenshaw, a giant imaginary cat, takes a bubble bath.
The heart-warming new story about family and friendships from Newbery Medal-winner Katherine Applegate.
Life is tough for ten-year-old Jackson. The landlord is often at the door, there's not much food in the fridge and he's worried that any day now the family will have to move out of their home. Again.
Crenshaw is a cat. He's large, he's outspoken and he's imaginary. He's come back into Jackson's life to help him but is an imaginary friend enough to save this family from losing everything?
A heart-warming story about family and friendships from Newbery medal winner Katherine Applegate.
I went through major surgery when I was in eighth grade. The physical pain was bad, but what hurt more was the emotional side. When I returned to school, the friend groups had shifted, shutting me out because of my extended absence. I had to face that time in life alone. Perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to works about kids who have to face challenges on their own. When we go through hard times, our true selves come out. They have to; we have no one else. We can’t pretend. We can only try to make it. The books I like show characters that shine through their hardships.
This book features a girl named Suzi, who is convinced her friend drowned because of a jellyfish sting. She’s so affected by her friend’s death that she stops talking. I loved seeing Suzi research jellyfish through this book.
I love learning and studying and how she went about it was cool. She was determined and strong. I also appreciated how the plot moves from the present to the past and showed the truth about Suzi’s friendship in the end.
It's peculiar how no-words can be better than words. How silence can say more than noise, or a person's absence can occupy even more space than their presence did.
Suzy is twelve when her best friend, Franny, drowns one summer at the beach. It takes two days for the news to reach Suzy, and it's not something that she can accept: Franny has always been a strong swimmer, from the day they met in swim class when they were just five. How can someone all of a sudden, just no longer be there?
The summer holidays have finally arrived and Scout can’t wait for her adventure in the big rig with Dad. They’re on a mission to deliver donations of dog food to animal rescue shelters right across the state. There’ll be dad-jokes, rock-collecting, and a brilliant plan that will make sure everyone’s…
I went through major surgery when I was in eighth grade. The physical pain was bad, but what hurt more was the emotional side. When I returned to school, the friend groups had shifted, shutting me out because of my extended absence. I had to face that time in life alone. Perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to works about kids who have to face challenges on their own. When we go through hard times, our true selves come out. They have to; we have no one else. We can’t pretend. We can only try to make it. The books I like show characters that shine through their hardships.
I never thought I’d love a book written in verse; poetry just isn’t my thing. Yet, Chris Baron’s work took my breath away. I was mesmerized and couldn’t put it down.
It’s about Ari, an overweight kid, who struggles with his self-worth because of his size. I’ve struggled with my weight too–all my life. So I understood what he was going through. It broke my heart when Ari harmed himself, but I appreciated seeing him make it through this tough time. He showed determination and grit.
"Beautifully written, brilliant, and necessary," (Matt de la Pena, Newbery Medalist), here is a body-positive book about how a boy deals with fat-shaming.
Ari has body-image issues. After a move across the country, his parents work selling and promoting his mother's paintings and sculptures. Ari's bohemian mother needs space to create, and his father is gone for long stretches of time on "sales" trips.
Meanwhile, Ari makes new friends: Pick, the gamer; the artsy Jorge, and the troubled Lisa. He is also relentlessly bullied because he's overweight, but he can't tell his parents―they're simply not around enough to listen.
I am an author and illustrator of children's picturebooks, having completed my MA at the Cambridge School of Art. I am endlessly fascinated with the picture book as a rich medium for children to safely and slowly approach topics that might be challenging for them. Picture books can be such a versatile, interesting place for curiosity and confidence to thrive, while also creating a lovely time for closeness between parent/carer and child. As we grapple with the long-term effects of the pandemic, I feel that children will need stories more than ever, to help them make sense of their experiences.
Lob is a gentle, magical, and affirming chapter book. The story centres around Lucy, her relationship with her Grandad, and their belief in the mythical garden helper Lob. In Lucy's devotion to her grandad, and her love of nature, we come to see how grief can be slowly approached and lived with. The illustrations are beautifully observed by Smy, who is a master of showing emotion through posture and environment. I love this story for the way that it weaves grief, love, and magic together in an accessible and respectful way for children and grown-up readers.
He's older than anyone can tell. Older than the trees. Older than anybody. For as long as she can remember, Lucy has wanted to catch a glimpse of the mysterious green man who lives in Grandpa Will's garden: Lob. You have to be very special to see him; that's what Grandpa says. Lucy's parents think Lob's just imaginary, but Lucy knows he exists. And she can't believe it when she finally spots Lob in the gooseberry bushes. But Lucy's world is about to be shattered by a terrible event. What will happen to Lob now - and will she ever…
As a child, I spent summers looking for adders on the Common and winters walking through snowstorms pretending to be a Hobbit in Tolkien's Middle Earth. My travels and studies taught me the importance of respecting different cultures and our planet. Glasgow Libraries gave me my first storytelling work in 1992, and I have a Master's degree in Scottish Folklore. I live in Scotland, sharing stories through writing and storytelling. Having collected hundreds of traditional folktales about our ancestors' wisdom and folly, I co-authored my first book, Dancing With Trees, Eco-Tales from the British Isles, to reflect our need to understand nature's wisdom and help us live sustainably on Earth.
This is more than a collection of garden folktales.
Donald Smith takes us on a storytelling odyssey through each month of the year. Reflecting on his garden in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the global pandemic 2020, he presents stories that speak of seasonal rhythms and nature connection.
Smith peppers his unfurling garden journey with snippets of history and musings on nature and storytellers past and present. He includes his unique retelling of classic folktales like Jack and The Magic Beans and fascinating and humorous autobiographical stories.
This book's confident narrative and beautiful artwork connect us to the botanical paradise and wildlife havens that are our glorious gardens.
The garden is an oasis, a pocket of nature in our busy modern lives, full of plants, animals, insects - and a fair bit of magic.
Folk Tales from the Garden follows the seasons through a year of stories, garden lore and legends. Explore the changing face of nature just outside your front door, from the tale of the Creator painting her birds and the merits of kissing an old toad, to pixies sleeping in the tulips, and an unusually large turnip.
Eleven-year-old Sierra just wants a normal life. After her military mother returns from the war overseas, the two hop from home to homelessness while Sierra tries to help her mom through the throes of PTSD.
My father was a curator and archaeologist at the British Museum, so I had to have my own collection in our attic. It was somewhat more modest but included both cultural and natural artifacts and guided me to both a career in geology and an interest in the links between culture and science. I wrote a book with my father on the geology of Greece for archeologists, which eventually led to my latest book on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. I write from the perspective that ancient cultures were constrained and shaped by natural resources and events, as they are still today. By understanding that link, we can perhaps better comprehend our world.
Like every gardener I know the effects of a short period of neglect, so it is not surprising that nothing remains of the 2,500-year-old Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
So, I am very impressed by what Stefanie Dalley managed to tease out from the scant literary and archeological evidence.
It seems that many of the most ruthless Mesopotamian despots had gardens attached to their palaces. My favorite image is a panel showing the King of Nineveh dining with his wife in a beautiful garden, under the severed head of his enemy suspended from a tree like a Christmas decoration.
The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon is an exciting story of detection involving legends, expert decipherment of ancient texts, and a vivid description of a little-known civilization. Recognized in ancient times as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the legendary Hanging Garden of Babylon and its location have long been steeped in mystery and puzzling myths.
In this remarkable volume Stephanie Dalley, a world expert on ancient Babylonian language, exposes new evidence and clarifies all the known material about this enigmatic World Wonder. Placing the Garden within a tradition of royal patronage, Dalley describes how the…
Writing for children presents an exciting challenge: how can you deliver big ideas, innovative storytelling, and dazzling language using just a few simple words that even the youngest readers can understand? I’m especially drawn to nonfiction because it offers a chance to explore and explain our world. I find it rewarding to help unlock the mystery and wonder of science, nature, history, and other topics—all with the power of words. The books on this list are some of my favorites for telling real-life stories with writing that’s beautiful, spare, and inspiring.
A young boy spends his mornings with his beloved grandmother. Although her English is limited, they share a quiet closeness as she makes him oatmeal, picks vegetables, and gathers earthworms for her garden. This tender ritual changes when she must leave her home.
There have been some wonderful picture book memoirs published over the last few years, and this is one of my favorites. The story is simple, and the language is beautiful. I love how it builds a heartfelt, lived-in world, evoking themes of poverty and loss using just a few words. The book’s dreamy illustrations and the reader’s imagination fill in the rest.
The special relationship between a child and his grandmother is depicted in this sumptuous book by an award-winning team. Inspired by memories of his childhood, Jordan Scott's My Baba's Garden explores the sights, sounds and smells experienced by a child spending time with their beloved grandmother (Baba). He visits her every day and finds her hidden in the steam of boiling potatoes, a hand holding a beetroot, a leg opening a cupboard, an elbow closing the fridge, humming like a night full of bugs when she cooks. This is a stunning ode to the special relationship between grandmother and grandchild,…
By Isa Hendry Eaton and Jennifer Blaise KramerAuthor
Why are we passionate about this?
We are garden designer Isa Hendry Eaton and lifestyle writer Jennifer Blaise Kramer, co-authors of Small Garden Style. We love getting and sharing inspiration on good garden design to pull our lives more outdoors. In our book, we show you how to use good design to create a joyful, elegant, and exciting yet compact outdoor living space for entertaining or relaxing. Our stylishly photographed guide is a fun way to create lush, layered, dramatic little gardens no matter the size of your available space, be it an urban patio, a tiny backyard, or even just a pot by your door.
We love a garden book that works hard as a guide, and this book does just that!
It’s a handbook that feels like a trusted magazine with real-life garden tours and lifestyle tips such as “Steal This Look” (our fave!) for everything from stone and ironwork to plants and water features. We couldn’t appreciate more the way an author can break down a garden’s style and feel and help us replicate that look we love at home.
Gardenista is a go-to when we want a design refresh!
Our homes' outdoor spaces can and should be as welcoming and carefully considered as our living rooms; when treated as extensions of our homes, these spaces enrich our lives immeasurably. That was the guiding principle when, under the direction of editor in chief Michelle Slatalla (whose New York Times style columns were weekly must-reads for a decade), the team behind Remodelista.com launched sister site Gardenista.com. Like Remodelista, Gardenista caters to an older, more established audience (75 percent of readers are over the age of 35) and is known for its sophisticated, well-edited aesthetic. The book contains lushly photographed tours of…
Zeni lives in the Flint Hills of Southeast Kansas. This tale begins with her dream of befriending a miniature zebu calf coming true and follows Zeni as she works to befriend Zara. Enjoy full-color illustrations and a story filled with whimsy and plenty of opportunity for discussions around the perspectives…
By Isa Hendry Eaton and Jennifer Blaise KramerAuthor
Why are we passionate about this?
We are garden designer Isa Hendry Eaton and lifestyle writer Jennifer Blaise Kramer, co-authors of Small Garden Style. We love getting and sharing inspiration on good garden design to pull our lives more outdoors. In our book, we show you how to use good design to create a joyful, elegant, and exciting yet compact outdoor living space for entertaining or relaxing. Our stylishly photographed guide is a fun way to create lush, layered, dramatic little gardens no matter the size of your available space, be it an urban patio, a tiny backyard, or even just a pot by your door.
As longtime lovers of Lotusland, one of the country’s most stunning gardens that happens to be located in our own backyard, we love seeing its corners brought to life in this gorgeous book. Most of all, we love the stunning photography here by the talented Lisa Romerein, who magically captured this enchanted place we call Eden.
While we always look for written guides and tips when it comes to garden inspiration, this book pulls you in for its beauty, and it is impossible not to get transported in the pages.
Variously labelled Eden, one of the 100 gardens you must visit before your die, and among the 10 best botanical gardens in the world, Madame Ganna Walska s Lotusland is magic mixed with paradise in the hills of Montecito, California. Walska, a well-known Polish opera singer and socialite, purchased the estate in 1941 and spent 43 years creating Lotusland. The collections of exotic plants on the 37-acre property are an expression of her penchant for the dramatic, the unexpected, and the whimsical. Home to more than 3,400 types of plants, including at least 35,000 specimens, it is recognized not just…
