46 Books Like Red Alert! Endangered Animals Around the World

The story is narrated by Joey, a beautiful bay horse brought up on a farm, who is ‘called up’ during World War I to carry supplies, guns, and pull ambulances among the trenches of the Western Front. Joey witnesses the horror and futility of war with great compassion and a simplicity that still affects me today when I think of the 20 million people who died and the eight million horses, mules, and donkeys killed by their injuries, disease, and exhaustion. The book further resonates because I live in the town where Joey and 10 million soldiers and nurses, including my grandfather, left for France. The officers’ stables still stand at Shorncliffe Barracks and charity, the Shorncliffe Trust, is trying to get listed status to stop them being knocked down.

Some books stay with you for a lifetime. Such is the case with Black Beauty for me.

This historical fiction novel (although it wasn’t “Historical” when it was written!”) is considered a classic because of its staying power and message. Anna Sewell’s work inspired the creation of the ASPCA because of the depictions of animal cruelty in the book.

Now, half a century later, it has inspired me to not only write historical fiction horse stories but I also chose to write in first person from the horse’s point of view the way Black Beauty is written.

Born Free was my favourite book growing up. Not only did it make me fall in love with reading and wildlife but made me realise human adults and society are full of contradictions. Elsa the lioness is hand raised by Joy, the wife of George, a game warden who shoots Elsa’s mother when she charges at him because she’s protecting her cubs. Though I understand there may be detractors on how the Adamsons viewed other animals, which are endangered today, it’s widely agreed that the book helped the public become aware of wildlife conservation. Elsa’s release back into the wild pioneered ‘rewilding’, reintroducing captive animals back into their own environments. At its heart, there is a beautifully observed relationship between Joy and Elsa as she grows up and is released.

This book does exactly what it says, although the chapter entitled "Eat Your Neighbours" did make me wonder if I was reading a different genre. Without being preachy, it gives kids 50 great ideas to help them make a difference to the environment including coming up against climate deniers, rewilding your garden (obviously without the bison, wolves, and wildcats), and buying less stuff including gadgets, clothes, and fast fashion (though I still have some way to go with a certain teenager). If you feel frustrated about how huge a problem climate change is and don’t know where to start, then the book will help you understand what fuels it and gives children some agency over how they choose to live their lives and make a difference.

While researching my most recent book I wanted to explore the various ways people have interacted with wildlife throughout history. Mooellam’s book proved exactly what I was looking for. Fun and readable, it was a pleasant counterbalance to some of the hefty tomes I consulted, and yet it left me with much to think about.

EO Wilson died just a few weeks ago, at the age of 92. It was a sad day for me, as he has always been one of my great heroes. “E.O.” was a fantastic scientist, a world authority on ants, and sometimes known as the “father of biodiversity”. In this book, he argues that we have no right to drive millions of species extinct and that our own future depends upon setting aside half the Earth for nature.    

Geoff is an eminent Historian having scripted many classics such as the Civil War TV series and, Diane, is a former Newsweek journalist who has reported on environmental issues. Both are tiger-keen aficionados’ who are—for some unfathomable reason—also morbidly fascinated by generations of gritty, grimy, and aggravatingly stubborn conservationists in India, who have fought to save India’s wild tigers through the colonial and post-colonial eras. They also write in an engaging, witty style focusing on tiger-obsessed humans rather than the magnificent cat. As one of their ‘subjects’ I believe this book provides the appropriate social and historical contexts for my own book.  

This book was another library find I had to immediately purchase as soon as I finished reading it.

Rundell’s descriptions of the creatures she chooses to feature are each an enchantment of their own. I confess a particular attachment to the Golden Mole, a bioluminescent mammal who lives completely underground in Africa, and whom I had no idea existed prior to her introduction. 

This book, like many of the others, teeters on a precipice between despair and horror but tightropes its way across, fueled by a beautiful hope. I expected a book about spectacular animals on the brink of extinction to be a grim read, but I found the opposite to be true. 

Brimming with the fierce sort of optimism that moves mountains, this book charmed, delighted, enchanted, and inspired me. I wish I’d had it to read to my children when they were younger and still at my mercy.

This is one of my favourite books. It is a palimpsest—a serious document about humanity’s effects on the natural world overlaid with Adams’s hilariously absurdist worldview. This book is different from most other popular science books in that it sort of isn’t one; it’s more of a travel book, with Adams acting as the uninformed everyman repeatedly confronted with the realities of an unfolding ecological tragedy and interpreting them as only he could.

Extinction is not an inherently amusing subject, and this book is a sobering account of how much biological diversity we have already lost, yet at the same time, it is painfully funny. For me, Adams’s recounting of his conversation with an Australian snake venom expert is worth the price of admission on its own.

The author Nate Blakeslee comes to this story about the famous Yellowstone wolf O-Six as a journalist and tells this true story with a keen eye for the myriad perspectives on modern wolf conservation. Whether or not you are familiar with the political debate of restoring wolves to the American West or the notions of Old West versus New West, you will find this story intriguing and informative.