Here are 100 books that Pod fans have personally recommended if you like
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I've been fascinated by the ocean and all of its inhabitants for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I discovered my dad’s SCUBA license and it blew my mind that I was related to someone who was allowed to explore the underwater world! Later, when I got to college, I took advantage of two exciting opportunities. First, I got my own scuba license. Second, I studied abroad in Belize, where I conducted manatee research by tagging, tracking, and rescuing manatees. I enjoyed the time I spent with the animals, but not the lab work. Now I express my passion for sea creatures in the books I write.
Another blobfish book? Indeed! Although this book is also full of facts about other interesting animals, all of whom are pink! There are some land-dwelling animals in this book, but there are also lots of water-dwelling animals including pygmy seahorses, Amazon river dolphins, Hopkins’ rose nudibranchs, pink sea stars, and hairy squat lobsters. What I especially love about this book is that it presents the animal facts in a very clear and simple way without making the reader feel overwhelmed by too much text.
It's Pinkalicious meets Fear Factor in this nonfiction picture book introducing the weirdest, wildest, pinkest critters in the animal kingdom!
Some people think pink is a pretty color. A fluffy, sparkly, princess-y color. But it's so much more. Sure, pink is the color of princesses and bubblegum, but it's also the color of monster slugs and poisonous insects. Not to mention ultra-intelligent dolphins, naked mole rats and bizarre, bloated blobfish.
Isn't it about time to rethink pink?
Slip on your rose-colored glasses and take a walk on the wild side with zoologist Jess Keating, whose other books in the World…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
As a birth, foster, adoptive, and pseudo mom to many children, I know firsthand how hard it is to find quality literature that reflects their experience and gives them skills for their own life journey. As a therapist, certified in trauma and resilience, having spent many years in social services, I also see the lack of resources available to caregivers, teachers, and counselors. It's my passion to help remove shame, build resilience, and reclaim hope in the lives of each member of these families. I’ve done this through a TEDx talk on the power of story on the brain, authored multiple books, speak regularly, offer trainings, and private parent coaching.
Josh Shipp, a former at-risk foster kid turned youth advocate and TEDx speaker brings us this beautiful mostly autobiographical story of a squirrel who needs a family, but also kinda doesn’t want one. But also does. The quality of fost/adopt books for children has been lacking in the past, but Shipp takes fost/adopt literature to a whole new level with engaging, gorgeous illustrations and the perfect balance of humor and depth. I love that he’s a former foster youth with a mission to help kids find their one caring adult (and for adults to be one!) This is a must-have for any foster or adoptive family’s shelf (and anyone who knows, works with, teaches, counsels, or interacts with children in this situation).
Josh was a squirrel without a squirrel family, so other families tried to take him in. Between the pelicans, the leopards, the otters, the snakes, and many more, no one seemed to want a squirrel like him. Josh didn't want a family, either.
He did everything he could to scare those families away first, but the elephants weren't like other families. The elephants were very large and very patient, and they wanted Josh to be part of their family today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. When Josh takes his plans a little too far and gets into a sticky…
I live in a small town in rural Maine. My land has a farm pond, big pine trees, fields, and a crabapple orchard that blooms every spring. The air smells wonderful, and the night sky is big and mysterious. It is also less than five miles from the biggest commercial landfill in Maine, owned by the largest waste management company in the world. This landfill takes garbage not only from Maine but from many other states. In 1989, it was the site of a catastrophic landfill collapse. This has made me appreciate books that address the complexities of environmental activism and that remind me how we are all living on this same fragile planet.
What's not to love about a book with a plastic-eating animal named Marvin Gardens and the boy who finds him? Or a girl named Annie who collects rocks?
The interspersed chapters that tell about "One Hundred Years Ago" are so evocative, taking me back in time to show what happened to Obe's family's land.
The first middle-grade novel from YA superstar Amy Sarig (A. S.) King is a boy-meets-animal story like no other.
The first middle-grade novel from Printz Honor-winning author Amy Sarig (A. S.) King!Washington Post Best Book of the YearA New York Public Library Best Book for KidsA Texas Bluebonnet Master List selectionObe Devlin has problems. His family's farmland has been taken over by developers. His best friend Tommy has abandoned him. And he keeps getting nosebleeds, because of that thing he doesn't like to talk about. So Obe hangs out at the nearby creek, in the last wild patch left, picking…
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
My biggest aim as a writer is for my reader to feel something. It could be on a page where they are fighting back the tears or at the end of a chapter where they are gasping at an unexpected plot twist. I think we can sometimes forget how powerful children’s books can be – yes, they can make you cry, laugh, gasp and feel scared! Here are some of my favorites that will make you have all the feelings.
October lives in the woods with her father where their lives are surrounded by peace and nature. October’s life sees a drastic change after her father has an accident and needs to go to the hospital. Suddenly, October finds herself living with her mum in the city. Katya Balen is the most beautiful writer and this book is a literary feast for the soul.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL Katya Balen's October, October is a very special new addition to the shelf and deserves classic status - Times Children's Book of the Week A classic in the making for anyone who ever longed to be WILD. October and her dad live in the woods. They know the trees and the rocks and the lake and stars like best friends. They live in the woods and they are wild. And that's the way it is. Until the year October turns eleven. That's the year October rescues a baby owl. It's the year Dad…
As an animal advocate and part-time pet sitter, I wanted to instill the love of animals to babies with a fun board book. I’ve always enjoyed the surprise factor of lift-the-flaps so I was thrilled when Squeak-a-boo! was published. These types of books make for wonderful interactive bonding moments between reader and baby. I hope you enjoy the books on this list, not only for their fun concepts and text, but also for their colorful illustrations.
This book helps young ones learn what daddy, mommy, and baby animals are called.
The guessing game part is after the text that asks what a baby is called. The child lifts the flap and finds out. At the end, kids find out what groups of the animals mentioned are called. Did you know that a group of hares is called a drove? Parents will learn things too!
The title Snow is a bit deceptive but the interiors deliver.
Find out the different names for mother and father animals that live in snowy climates—then lift the flap to find the babies and learn what they are called. This striking, satisfying introduction to animal families features screen-printed artwork and bold neon ink to capture the attention and imagination of babies and toddlers.
I have always loved being around children, first as a primary school teacher, then as a parent and now as a grandma. The love, laughter, humour, and fun that I share with my grandkids keep me young in mind, body, and soul. My story is about the wonderful adventures we have. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing the world through the eyes of a child and I am enjoying every minute of it.
Claire Freedom uses animal characters to tell this story about the wonderful, loving relationships that exist between grandparents and a grandchild. I love the fact that it is never quite made clear whether the grandchild is a boy or a girl and as a result, the story applies to both. Children will quickly see themselves as the little zebra having fun and being spoiled rotten by two loving grandparents. The rhyming adds to the flow of the book.
I'm off to Gran and Grandpa's, There's a BIG smile on my face, I always feel wrapped up in love, When I stay at their place! Affectionate, funny, and joyful, this is the perfect book for little ones and their grandparents to share. My Grandparents Love Me brings together two huge stars of the picture book world, internationally successful illustrator Judi Abbot and award-winning author Claire Freedman.
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
I grew up in a wilderness cabin in Alaska, surrounded by more wild animals than humans. For many years, I worked in the heavily male-dominated Alaskan fishing industry. I still work as a scientist in rural Alaska. I care passionately about the place, and the truthful stories written about it by people with deep roots and diverse backgrounds here.
As a kid growing up in Alaska, I daydreamed of venturing into the wilderness alone. I was hooked on the promise of adventure.
This book follows that dream as the author and her partner set off on an astonishing quest to traverse Alaska in homemade boats. Thoughtful, funny, and magical, it’s a tale of true love as well as near-death escapes.
During graduate school, as she conducted experiments on the peculiarly misshapen beaks of chickadees, ornithologist Caroline Van Hemert began to feel stifled in the isolated, sterile environment of the lab. Worried that she was losing her passion for the scientific research she once loved, she was compelled to experience wildness again, to be guided by the sounds of birds and to follow the trails of animals.
In March of 2012 she and her husband set off on a 4,000-mile wilderness journey from the Pacific rainforest to the Alaskan Arctic. Travelling by rowboat, ski, foot, raft and canoe, they explored northern…
I believe stories to be our species’ instinctual tool for discovering our best selves. Sometimes those stories are about real people in the past, sometimes they’re completely imagined people in the future — sometimes we even swap out the humans for animals or aliens, or sassy anthropomorphized objects. Whatever the case, for a story to work its wonders, its details must be believable, or we reject its premise. These books help make a story believable, and, if you get the alchemy just right, those details can even help tell the story themselves.
If you’re gonna draw any creatures, humans included, it’s important to understand all the factors that influence their size and their shape. The temperature of their environment, the altitude, the precipitation— even the gravity of the planet itself. The book gives gives an in-depth understanding as to why animals look they way they do, and why some weird structures are not only practical, but crucial for a species to survive.
Why are all the big land animals on Earth mammals? Why are reptiles so small today when they were so huge in the Age of Dinosaurs? Why are rivers, lakes and swamps dominated by large cold-blooded reptiles and not by mammals? Why are there so many birds on Earth and why are they all so small? In this beautifully written and utterly compelling book Lavers scours the fields of biology, physiology, ecology and palaeontology to find answers to these global-scale questions. In the process he reveals a fundamentally new view of life on Earth, one that offers no room for…
Ever since my parents gave me a copy of Dorothy Aldis’ The Secret Place and Other Poems, I have enjoyed a lifelong love of poetry. Now, as a traditionally-published children’s author, I have had numerous books and poems published over the years, including books that began as poems, like Flashlight Night (Astra Young Readers, 2017) and Once Upon Another Time (Beaming Books, 2021). My poems can be found in various anthologies including The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry (N.G. Children’s Books, 2015) and Construction People (Wordsong, 2020) as well as Highlights for Children magazine.
This book proves that poetry is thoughtful, succinct, and beautiful to read – and most importantly, accessible to all. From elephants and cheetahs to American bison and polar bears, David distills the essence of each animal into short poems that are brimming with insight and wit. While all of David’s books in this series are wonderful, In the Wild was one of the first and remains one of the best.
“A stunning combination of poems and illustrations celebrating some of Earth’s wildest and most beautiful creatures.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The stellar team who brought us On the Farm presents a companion book evoking creatures of the wild in simple, clever poems and vibrant woodcuts. From the lion standing alone on the African savannah to the panda in a bamboo forest, from the rhinoceros with its boot-like face to the Arctic polar bear disappearing in the snow, David Elliott’s pithy verse and Holly Meade’s stunning woodcut and watercolor illustrations reveal a world of remarkable beauty and wonder.
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
by
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
Growing up near the outskirts of a lush Honduran cloud forest, I remember searching for magic in the woods, a fairy behind the waterfall, and an emerald quetzal bird in the canopy. I have always been a lover of nature, ecology, and wildlife, and I appreciate how each of these five books speaks to the passion that I have for ecology in a unique way. From fantastical rabbits to hidden systems we all rely on, to turtles and whales and the entire animal kingdom, these books will resonate with those of us who believe that we each have a place in our interconnected planet.
I was that kid who liked grabbing the encyclopedia and reading it for fun. My husband did the same thing.
This gorgeous “encyclopedia-like” anthology is filled with beautiful illustrations and funny writing. I love grabbing it and reading a page here and there to learn a new fact or to simply appreciate a creature I might never have read anything about!
Did you know that some parrotfish make a sleeping bag out of slime to spend the night in? Or that sloths are surprisingly good swimmers who cross fast-moving rivers doing the doggy paddle? Ben Hoare’s writing is simple, informative, and fun! I appreciate the graphic design and colorful images that “pop” off the page.
Reveal the stories behind your favourite creatures with this awe-inspiring animal book for curious kids aged 6-8.
The animal kingdom is so much bigger than young minds can fathom and there is always more to learn. An Anthology of Intriguing Animals is a stunning animal encyclopedia for young readers to explore, with reference pages packed with fascinating information, little learners will be captivated as they discover the facts, stories and myths behind their favourite animals. Whether it's where the slow-motion sloth lives, how the plodding pangolin protects itself from predators, or which animal the Ancient Egyptians thought rolled the Sun…
