Here are 100 books that The Book Rescuer fans have personally recommended if you like
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When I was a teenager, my mother sewed me a quilt, but when I moved to Wales and discovered Welsh antic quilts, my interest became a passion. These bold red and black flannel patchworks with intricate quilting seem contemporary but date back to the 19th century. I have been painting them and have learned a lot about their history and how they have provided income and artistic expression for women over the years. Itâs a pleasure to see that this passion is shared by so many people worldwide, and Iâm fascinated by all the stories these beautiful objects hold.
I love this childrenâs book about languages and how quilting can become a metaphor for our patchwork society, with differences and unity.
I particularly liked the Arabic words scattered here and there without an immediate translation (there is a glossary at the end), and it was fun to try to make sense of them by the context and empathize with the characters as they learn to live a bilingual life.
That night, Kanzi wraps herself in the beautiful Arabic quilt her teita (grandma) in Cairo gave her and writes a poem in Arabic about the quilt. Next day her teacher sees the poem and gets the entire class excited about creating a "quilt" (a paper collage) of student names in Arabic. In the end, Kanzi's most treasured reminder of her old home provides a pathway for acceptance in her new one.
This authentic story with beautiful illustrations includes a glossary of Arabic words and a presentation of Arabic letters with their phonetic English equivalents.
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist momâs unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellieâs gymnastics andâŠ
I am a childrenâs author best known for digging up fascinating, often funny stories about famous peopleâand forgotten people who deserve to be famous again. But only one of them inspired me to take up a whole new hobby: L. L. Zamenhof, creator of the international language Esperanto. Learning Esperanto turned out to be fun and easy. It helped me make friends all over the world, and got me interested in how language works.
If I had to recommend just one picture book about languages, Iâd choose this one, because it does so much. First, of course, it shares a long-secret episode in American historyâthe triumph of the Navajo âcode talkersâ in World War II. (Not the first time bilingual heroes came to our countryâs rescue: see my own picture book Gingerbread for Liberty! How a German Baker Helped Win the American Revolution.) But this book also addresses language justice in a way that kids will find easy to understand. Through Chester, we feel the pain and confusion of being told oneâs own language is âbadâ and worthless, and the pride of having it finally treated with respect. We also see how language isnât just a set of words, but carries culture, tradition, religion, a whole way of life.  Â
A Junior Library Guild Selection April 2018 2018 Cybils Award Finalist, Elementary Non-Fiction BRLA 2018 Southwest Book Award 2019 Southwest Books of the Year: Kid Pick 2020 Grand Canyon Award, Nonfiction Nominee 2020-2021 Arkansas Diamond Primary Book Award Master List
STARRED REVIEW! "A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages. A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages."âKirkus Reviews starred review
As a young Navajo boy, Chester Nez had to leave the reservation and attend boarding school, where he was taught that his native language and culture were useless. But Chester refusedâŠ
I am a childrenâs author best known for digging up fascinating, often funny stories about famous peopleâand forgotten people who deserve to be famous again. But only one of them inspired me to take up a whole new hobby: L. L. Zamenhof, creator of the international language Esperanto. Learning Esperanto turned out to be fun and easy. It helped me make friends all over the world, and got me interested in how language works.
Although I studied modern Hebrew as a child, and understood that it was different from the Hebrew in the Bible, I never realized that the everyday language spoken by millions of Israelis didnât just develop by itself.The Language of Angelstells the story of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who worked tirelessly to revive the Hebrew language, from the point of view of his son Ben-Zion. The fatherâs insistence that his son speak only Hebrew, a language then used solely in prayer, condemned him to a friendless childhood in multilingual late-nineteenth-century Jerusalem and lends a dark edge to the tale. But bright, cheerful illustrations help lighten the tone, and the book is full of lively details about Ben-Yehudaâs efforts, such as finding a word for âice cream.â
2018 Sydney Taylor Book Award 2017 National Jewish Book Award
In 1885, few Jews in Israel used the holy language of their ancestors, and Hebrew was in danger of being lostâuntil Ben Zion and his father got involved. Through the help of his father and a community of children, Ben modernized the ancient language, creating a lexicon of new, modern words to bring Hebrew back into common usage. Historically influenced dialogue, engaging characters, and colorful art offer a linguistic journey about how language develops and how one person's perseverance can make a real difference.
Influenced by illuminated manuscripts, Karla GudeonâsâŠ
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist momâs unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellieâs gymnastics andâŠ
I am a childrenâs author best known for digging up fascinating, often funny stories about famous peopleâand forgotten people who deserve to be famous again. But only one of them inspired me to take up a whole new hobby: L. L. Zamenhof, creator of the international language Esperanto. Learning Esperanto turned out to be fun and easy. It helped me make friends all over the world, and got me interested in how language works.
I havenât seen a lot of picture books about children using American Sign Language (ASL), and I enjoyed the details of a day in a public school for the deaf and hard of hearing, although the bookâs age (it came out in 2000) means the tech is somewhat out of date. While this book is not about Deaf culture, it doesâlike all the books on my listâgive kid-friendly examples of the language it is introducing. I appreciated that the children are shown signing in ASL and not just fingerspelling English words, and that the author made some attempt to convey that ASL is its own language and that anyone who is fluent in both ASL and English is bilingual. Other titles in the series include Moses Goes to a Concert, Moses Goes to the Circus, and Moses Sees a Play.Â
A day at a school for the deaf is like a day at any school
Moses goes to a special school, a public school for the deaf. He and all of his classmates are deaf or hard-of-hearing, but that doesn't mean they don't have a lot to say to each other! They communicate in American Sign Language (ASL), using visual signs and facial expressions. Isaac Millman follows Moses through a school day, telling the story in pictures and written English, and in ASL, introducing hearing children to the signs for some of the key words and ideas. At the endâŠ
Dan Fesperman has made a living by writing about dangerous and unseemly people and places since his days as a journalist, when he was a foreign correspondent for The Baltimore Sun. Now traveling on his own dime, his books draw upon his experiences in dozens of countries and three war zones. His novels have won two Dagger awards in the UK and the Dashiell Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers. His thirteenth novel, Winter Work, will be published in July by Knopf. He lives in Baltimore.
What's not to like when the main character is a self-styled "book detective" making his way through the hidden passages and darker alleys of the world of rare antiquarian books? Lucas Corso seeks to authenticate an old manuscript by Alexander Dumas, but his quest takes an eerie turn as the events and characters he encounters along the way begin to replicate those found in Dumas's fiction. This delightful 1993 novel was meta before meta was cool, and is deeply rewarding for any bibliophile.
#1 International Bestseller"A thriller of marvelous intricacy" (The New York Times Book Review), The Club Dumas is a provocative literary thriller that playfully pays tribute to classic tales of mystery and adventure.Lucas Corso is a book detective, a middle-aged mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found dead, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment. He is soon drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do among a cast of charactersâŠ
I've loved books and reading from an early age. My family and I go to the library nearly every week to check out books, do research, or attend library programs like storytime. My interest in libraries led me to read books about libraries and write one of my own. Iâm a childrenâs book author living in North Carolina with my husband and two book-devouring kids. I Want My Book Back is my second book, following my debut, Teach Your Giraffe to Ski. When Iâm not reading or writing, I like hanging out with my family, being outdoors, and going on everyday adventures.
As my kids are getting older, I keep my eyes open for longer, more complex picture books â and this book attracted my attention. Itâs a great non-fiction biography for kids who like learning about notable historical personalities. It took roughly 45 minutes to read this book with the kids, and we all learned so much about Schomburg and his quest to collect literature by and about people of African descent worldwide. One thing that really impressed the kids and me was how he managed to keep this humongous collection in his home. (The kids and I were wondering if the whole family was sleeping on books instead of beds)!
In luminous paintings and arresting poems, two of childrenâs literatureâs top African-American scholars track Arturo Schomburgâs quest to correct history.
Where is our historian to give us our side? Arturo asked.
Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an AfroâPuerto Rican named Arturo Schomburg. This law clerkâs lifeâs passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora and bring to light the achievements of people of African descent through the ages. When Schomburgâs collection became so big it began to overflow his house (and his wife threatened to mutiny),âŠ
Like everybody else, I discovered Columbus as a child; I fully accepted the heroic figure that was presented to me in the 1970s. But by the time I received a PhD in Latin American Historyâin the very same year as the Quincentennial of Columbusâs First VoyageâI had learned how much more complicated was his life and the evolution of his posthumous reputation. For decades, as I wrote books and taught college classes on various topics adjacent to that of Columbus, I sought to make sense of the complicated cluster of stories that comprise what I call âColumbiana.â I am still enjoying that journey!
Wilson-Leeâs brilliant book is not strictly about Columbus, but about his youngest son Hernando ColĂłn and the extraordinary library that he created in Seville.
However, it sheds much light on Columbus and his world. And (to paraphrase what I wrote when I listed this as one of my three âFavorite reads in 2023â), the book is not only a contribution to Columbus studies, but also an absolute pleasure to read.
It is erudite and scholarly, and Wilson-Lee shows a keen eye for fascinating digressions. Yet he also writes with wit and elegance, maintaining subtle narrative tension and effortlessly bringing the reader deep into the eccentric world of Hernando and his many books.
This impeccably researched and âadventure-packedâ (The Washington Post) account of the obsessive quest by Christopher Columbusâs son to create the greatest library in the world is âthe stuff of Hollywood blockbustersâ (NPR) and offers a vivid picture of Europe on the verge of becoming modern.
At the peak of the Age of Exploration, Hernando ColĂłn sailed with his father Christopher Columbus on his final voyage to the New World, a journey that ended in disaster, bloody mutiny, and shipwreck. After Columbusâs death in 1506, eighteen-year-old Hernando sought to continueâand surpassâhis fatherâs campaign to explore the boundaries of the known worldâŠ
I am a historian at the University of St Andrews, and an expert in the history of books, media, and communication. My working life has revolved around libraries: I stacked shelves at my local university library while I was an undergraduate, and have since worked as a researcher in some hundred reading rooms in twenty countries (and I am therefore the proud owner of many library cards, expired and current). I am also an avid book collector, and have a growing collection of seventeenth and eighteenth-century books, mostly printed in my native Netherlands. Writing a history of libraries was an enjoyable tribute to those fine institutions, historic and present.
What does true bibliomania look like? Read no further than Stephen Grantâs Collecting Shakespeare, the story of the couple who created the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. Henry Folger was a wealthy oil baron, but with the devoted help of his wife, poured all his money into buying up copies of Shakespeare editions, especially the famous First Folio of 1623 (he ultimately ended up with 82). The couple erected an enormous library building opposite the Library of Congress (flattening several blocks of housing in the process) to become the permanent home to the largest collection of books by and on Shakespeare in the world. Although Henry died before the library opened, this is a rare story of success in a long history of eccentric library curation that generally ends with the dispersal of the collection.Â
In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of Henry and Emily Folger of Brooklyn, a couple who were devoted to each other, in love with Shakespeare, and bitten by the collecting bug. Shortly after marrying in 1885, the Folgers started buying, cataloging, and storing all manner of items about Shakespeare and his era. Emily earned a master's degree in Shakespeare studies. The frugal couple worked passionately as a tight-knit team during the Gilded Age, financing their hobby with the fortune Henry earned as president of Standard Oil Company of New York, where he was a trustedâŠ
As a child, I held conflicting beliefs. I knew my Jewish grandfather had been murdered by Germans in occupied Yugoslavia, yet I somehow believed the Holocaust had never come to his hometown of Belgrade. The family anecdotes my father passed down, a blend of his early memories and what my grandmother told him, didnât match what I had heard about Germany, Poland, and Anne Frank in Holland during World War II. That started me on a lifelong journey to learn everything I can about the Holocaust, especially in parts of Europe that have received less attention, and to understand the long-reaching effects of genocide on the survivorâs children and grandchildren.
Wildmanâs obsession made me keep turning the pages long past when I should have been sleeping. She is a journalist, so when she discovers the mystery of a secret folder of letters from her grandfatherâs old girlfriend, she sets out to discover why they were separated and what happened to his first love.Â
One womanâs journey to find the lost love her grandfather left behind when he fled pre-World War II Europe, and an exploration into family identity, myth, and memory.
Years after her grandfatherâs death, journalist Sarah Wildman stumbled upon a cache of his letters in a file labeled âCorrespondence: Patients AâG.â What she found inside werenât dry medical histories; instead what was written opened a path into the destroyed world that was her familyâs prewar Vienna. One womanâs letters stood out: those from ValyâValerie Scheftelâher grandfatherâs lover, who had remained behind when he fled Europe six months after the Nazis annexedâŠ
Linda Collison's composite career has included critical care and emergency nursing, freelance writing and novelist, and teaching skydiving. She has sailed many bluewater miles with her husband, Bob Russell, aboard their sloop Topaz, based in Hawaii. Their three-week sailing experience aboard the HM Bark Endeavour, a replica of Captain Cook's three-masted 18th century ship, inspired Linda to write Star-Crossed, an historical novel published by Knopf in 2006, and a New York Public Library pick in 2007 for Books for the Teen Age. Star-Crossed has been republished as the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series from Fireship Press. Her sailing experiences also inspired the novel Water Ghosts, a Foreword Reviews finalist for Independent Book of the Year, 2015.
Studying the journals of the surviving crew, the historian of this real-life nineteenth-century tragedy pieces together the situation aboard the ship that set sail out of Massachusetts for the whaling grounds of the North Pacific. What happens aboard makes the literary Captain Ahab's monomaniacal actions seem heroic in comparison. Druett's true-crime-at-sea story provides a brutal counterpoint to the American epic, Moby Dick, and calls to mind The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex, a true account that is said to have inspired Melville. I pick Druett's account because of its historical true-crime approach, and because it is a lesser-known account.
After more than a century of silence, the true story of one of history's most notorious mutinies is revealed in Joan Druett's riveting "nautical murder mystery" (USA Today). On May 25, 1841, the Massachusetts whaleship Sharon set out for the whaling ground of the northwestern Pacific. A year later, while most of the crew was out hunting, Captain Howes Norris was brutally murdered. When the men in the whaleboats returned, they found four crew members on board, three of whom were covered in blood, the other screaming from atop the mast. Single-handedly, the third officer launched a surprise attack toâŠ
