Here are 100 books that The Circus Ship fans have personally recommended if you like
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I love reading, partly because I believe in the power of books to feed curiosity, promoting understanding, inclusivity, and belonging. While growing up, my favorite books didn’t have anyone that looked like me. Through reading diverse books to my kids, I realized I’d missed out on this meaningful experience as a child. Even more, I wanted my son, who has bilateral cochlear implants, to be able to read a picture book with a main character with cochlear implants. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as, in unique ways, they all celebrate curiosity about our differences.
This book is about different abilities and being inclusive, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor herself, partially based on her own lived experience of being diagnosed with diabetes as a child.
I love the thread of respect that infuses the book – a gentle push that we can stay curious and ask about things that we don’t quite understand when others seem different from us. As a bonus for the nerd in me, there is a baked-in deliberate practice component because many pages incorporate questions that each reader can answer for themselves.
Feeling different, especially as a kid, can be tough. But in the same way that different types of plants and flowers make a garden more beautiful and enjoyable, different types of people make our world more vibrant and wonderful.
In Just Ask, United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor celebrates the different abilities kids (and people of all ages) have. Using her own experience as a child who was diagnosed with diabetes, Justice Sotomayor writes about children with all sorts of challenges - and looks at the special powers those kids have as well. As the kids work together to…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s 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. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
I love reading, partly because I believe in the power of books to feed curiosity, promoting understanding, inclusivity, and belonging. While growing up, my favorite books didn’t have anyone that looked like me. Through reading diverse books to my kids, I realized I’d missed out on this meaningful experience as a child. Even more, I wanted my son, who has bilateral cochlear implants, to be able to read a picture book with a main character with cochlear implants. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as, in unique ways, they all celebrate curiosity about our differences.
Food can be a signal of our differences and bring us together. Chef Roy Choi is ethnically Korean (like me!) and believes food can represent love and culture.
It’s a treat to see his story illustrated by renowned graffiti artist Man One and read about how Chef Choi merges different cultures to create street food that is unique and appealing. As a bonus, the book has interspersed Korean words with their definitions!
AWARD WINNING PICTURE BOOK BIOGRAPHY OF THE CHEF WHO KICKSTARTED THE FOOD TRUCK MOVEMENT. Chef Roy Choi calls himself a “street cook.” He wants outsiders, low-riders, kids, teens, shufflers and skateboarders, to have food cooked with care, with love, with sohn maash.
"Sohn maash" is the flavors in our fingertips. It is the love and cooking talent that Korean mothers and grandmothers mix into their handmade foods. For Chef Roy Choi, food means love. It also means culture, not only of Korea where he was born, but the many cultures that make up the streets of Los Angeles, where he…
I love reading, partly because I believe in the power of books to feed curiosity, promoting understanding, inclusivity, and belonging. While growing up, my favorite books didn’t have anyone that looked like me. Through reading diverse books to my kids, I realized I’d missed out on this meaningful experience as a child. Even more, I wanted my son, who has bilateral cochlear implants, to be able to read a picture book with a main character with cochlear implants. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as, in unique ways, they all celebrate curiosity about our differences.
My son and I love this book about a boy (named Owen! Like my son!), his special blanket (most kids and parents can relate to having a special lovie), and how the parents creatively respect the child’s needs while navigating societal standards. Read this to see how everyone gets what they want!
1
author picked
Owen
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
“Fuzzy goes where I go.”
Owen’s fuzzy yellow blanket is his favorite possession. Everywhere Owen goes, his blanket goes with him. Upstairs, downstairs, in-between. Inside, outside, upside down. Everywhere! Owen’s parents are in despair—soon Owen will begin school, and he can’t take Fuzzy with him then. Whatever can be done?
This Caldecott Honor Book will provide reassurance and laughs whether shared at home or during circle time. Every child uses some sort of security object, whether it’s a toy, a thumb, or a binky. For those not yet ready to let go and for those who have moved on, here’s…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s 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. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
I love reading, partly because I believe in the power of books to feed curiosity, promoting understanding, inclusivity, and belonging. While growing up, my favorite books didn’t have anyone that looked like me. Through reading diverse books to my kids, I realized I’d missed out on this meaningful experience as a child. Even more, I wanted my son, who has bilateral cochlear implants, to be able to read a picture book with a main character with cochlear implants. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as, in unique ways, they all celebrate curiosity about our differences.
I read this book to my son when he was in second grade because his classroom was paired with a seventh-grade classroom in his school buddy system.
One of the seventh graders was transgender, and the school recommended this book. In simple prose, the book introduces the concept of being transgender in a way that both my son and I could understand, and we both appreciated that it is based on the author’s real-life experience.
Two favorite lines: “Be who you are.” And, “Different is special!”
From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl's brain in a boy's body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn't feel like herself in boy's clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Jazz's story is based on her real-life experience and she tells it in a simple, clear way that will be appreciated by picture book readers, their parents, and teachers.
My day job has always involved working with nonprofits, and my favorites are activist organizations. The grassroots organizers I’ve worked with are some of the most impressive people I know. Despite what science fiction stories often tell us, change doesn’t come from blowing up the Death Star, but from hard work and relentless optimism. At a time when corporations are growing ever more powerful, ChatGPT wants to take our jobs, and politics can be dismally depressing, I hope these books remind you that power is never absolute, and the future is what we make of it.
The son of the head of an all-powerful corporation and a radical activist disguised as his bodyguard have to work together to stop corporate wrongs that are worse than either of them suspect.
It’s a perfect enemies-to-lovers setup, and I adore the chemistry between these two, who both want to save the galaxy but have conflicting ideas about how.
Along with delving into the complexities of some unique and fascinating corporate-controlled technology—like body-replacement tech that can help a transgender person be themselves, or trap a dissident in limbo forever—O’Keefe shows the darkest sides of corporate power abuse, and debate over what it takes to challenge such power in this thriller/horror/adventure. I couldn’t put it down.
Stranded on a dead planet with her mortal enemy, a spy must survive and uncover a conspiracy in the first book of an epic space opera trilogy by an award‑winning author.
She's a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they're found and Naira Sharp thinks she knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity's expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the…
I’ve loved stories with a horror/thriller focus ever since I can remember. Yes, I was that creepy kid who read all of Goosebumps, as well as checked out a copy of Draculafrom the library at the tender age of eleven, much to the chagrin of the elderly librarian. My own books are multi-genre, but tend to include a thriller or horror element—it’s such fun to write a page-turner that ends with a bang. I truly hope you enjoy these picks as much as I did. They are some of my very favorites!
In Wilder Girls, a bizarre, unprecedented plague called the Tox has infested an island home to an all-girls boarding school. The Tox causes those it infects to mutate in gruesome ways—growing gills, claws, an extra spine, et cetera. The schoolgirls and remaining sparse crew of staff members have developed a system of survival, but when one girl goes missing and her friend determines to find her, everything is thrown into chaos.
This book will grip you hard from the first sentence, sink its teeth into you, shake you around, then have you gasping for air on the floor by the time you hit the last page. Seriously, this is an insane, intense ride, perfect for any fan of weird fiction and body horror. (That’s me.)
"The perfect kind of story for our current era."—Hypable
Featured in Vulture’s "11 Books to Read If You Already Miss Yellowjackets"!
From the author of Burn Our Bodies Down, a feminist Lord of the Flies about three best friends living in quarantine at their island boarding school, and the lengths they go to uncover the truth of their confinement when one disappears. This fresh debut is a mind-bending novel unlike anything you've read before.
It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled…
A few years ago, while researching my novel Incarnate, I sought out Arctic, Alaskan, and winter horror novels. These books explored the dangers of such places—brutal nature, isolation, depression, fear, and suicidal tendencies. Combined with the supernatural, Lovecraftian, and unexplainable, they created gripping stories.
I also read non-fiction essays, books, articles, and watched YouTube videos about these harsh environments. The authors captured the reality of isolation and danger perfectly. If you're curious about what it’s like to venture into these perilous, frozen landscapes—without risking frostbite—these novels are a thrilling way to experience it.
When I think about the arctic, and horror, I immediately think of Dan Simmons and The Terror.
It’s an expansive, tense, visceral book that feels historical. The authority and details make this feel like fact when we know this is fiction. It’s also quite lyrical and haunting—the setting as a backdrop, the weather, and senses brutalized by this expedition, and the events that slowly unfold. Madness, mutiny, and cannibalism? Yes, please. There are so many ways you can die out here in the cold—starvation, hypothermia, scurvy, exposure, etc.
Whether you came to his work via this book, Carrion Comfort, or (like I did) with Song of Kali, this may be his best work to date. And the television series is worth a gander as well. Immersive, unsettling, gripping, and bleak this is one of my favorite Arctic horror novels to date.
The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is…
In order to read, I need fast-paced action, adventure, compelling characters with depthful backstories and motives, and a way of challenging and commentating on the most controversial morals of the present day. To write, I need the exact same thing. Every world I create is filled with action in every chapter, characters with invincible will-strength, and situations that bend the very borders of moral thinking.
The Culling, The Sowing, and The Raising by Steven Dos Santos provides one of the most compelling stories of conflicting choices I have ever encountered. My strongest love for this story is the main protagonist, Lucky, and his stoicism through the hardships that he is forced to endure. This story taught me to always search for the best option in life, and that there is always a choice, even when it seems that there isn’t. From this story, I will always take with me the ability to love fiercely and do what I must for that love.
Recruitment Day is here...if you fail, a loved one will die For Lucian “Lucky” Spark, Recruitment Day means the Establishment, a totalitarian government, will force him to become one of five Recruits competing to join the ruthless Imposer task force. Each Recruit participates in increasingly difficult and violent military training for a chance to advance to the next level. Those who fail must choose an “Incentive”—a family member—to be brutally killed. If Lucky fails, he’ll have to choose death for his only living relative: Cole, his four-year-old brother. Lucky will do everything he can to keep his brother alive, even…
I’ve always been fascinated by the strangeness of human character when tested to the limit by overwhelming catastrophe. I’ve always wanted to write a story that brings into stark relief the courage, fear, ambition, tragedy, absurdity, and the ecstatic. In other words, a disaster. And if character is destiny, then an apocalypse maybe the best way to show us who we really are and where we’re going. My debut novel, Delirium focuses on these extremes of character. And after writing it I reached one indelible conclusion: that the human being is the most disturbed creature, but also the most hopeful.
I’ve always preferred those stories of great global catastrophes that remain in a single small location.
In the case of Alas, Babylon the small town of Fort Repose survives the nuclear holocaust because it’s small. Written at the height of the cold war when there were several and very real moments of brinkmanship between the Soviets and Americans.
It’s a great read for another reason: this is a well-informed writer. For instance, here we find that salt is as vital for survival as water? And what good is a doctor if he has no medicine? These are things this little community has to face, but the author is hopeful.
This is one of those books that is a lens into a period in time but is at the same time easily readable and to the point. How Fort Repose deals with nuclear Armageddon is the same story of how all…
“An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive.” —The New Yorker
“Alas, Babylon.” Those fateful words heralded the end. When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.
But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors—men and…
I’m passionate about this topic because my own great-grandmother escaped a war, the Mexican Revolution of 1913, at the age of nine years old. Family stories described her journey of marching across the desert, almost dying, determined to reach the United States. I am also an immigrant myself and I enjoy relating to stories that depict the immigrant experience.
My favorite part of this book is that it is three stories that are narrated and each one is very unique. However, the dreams, hopes and fears parallel one another making the reader understand that these journeys are universal.
You also learn that history repeats itself because each story is set in a different era.
This action-packed novel tackles topics both timely and timeless: courage, survival, and the quest for home.
JOSEF is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world . . .
ISABEL is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America . . .
MAHMOUD is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he…
