Here are 100 books that The Night Is Yours fans have personally recommended if you like
The Night Is Yours.
Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
As a children's book writer, I want my books to be infused with S.T.E.A.M (science, technology, engineering, art, and science), imaginative adventure, and empowering words. These 3 elements are important for cultivating their minds. Great inventions and discoveries have come from people who were curious. I believe that it's our responsibility as parents to expose them to new interests and speak empowering words to their developing minds. Parents play a key role in how their children see themselves. I hope that my books encourage unity, spark the imagination, build strong parent-child relationships, initiate dialogue, and promote learning.
"I like my eyes, my ears, my nose. I like my fingers and my toes. I like me wild. Ilike me tame. I like me different and the same."
Saying "I like" something about myself is self-affirmation. This book is special to me because this is the first book I read to my daughter during my pregnancy. I remember receiving this book from a dear friend at my baby shower. I always knew that words are powerful, especially words from parents or guardians. Our words promote cognitive functioning. I used this book as the foundation to start incorporating positive reinforcement into my daughter through self-esteem, self-acceptance, and self-love. Besides the message, I love the wild and colorful illustrations.
High on energy and imagination, this ode to self-esteem encourages kids to appreciate everything about themselves—inside and out. Messy hair? Beaver breath? So what! Here's a little girl who knows what really matters. At once silly and serious, Karen Beaumont's joyous rhyming text and David Catrow's wild illustrations unite in a book that is sassy, soulful . . . and straight from the heart. The sturdy board book is just right for little hands.
A satisfying story of rediscovering friendship after time spent apart.
For many years, Hazel and Mabel were inseparable. The two friends made up stories, spent the night together, and shared their snacks. Then, Mabel moved away. As time passes, Hazel and Mabel think of each other often, but they also…
As a mom and children’s author, I’ve seen how much children need reminders that they are already loved, already important, and already enough. I’ve written over 30 picture books that explore kindness, confidence, and emotional resilience, but my heart always comes back to one mission: helping kids see their worth.
I created this list because I believe books are powerful mirrors—they show children not only who they are but who they can grow to be. These stories encourage kids to embrace their differences, trust their voice, and carry the confidence that being themselves is the most beautiful thing of all.
A #1 New York Times bestseller and Goodreads Choice Awards picture book winner! This is the perfect gift for mothers and daughters, baby showers, and graduation.
This gorgeous, lyrical ode to loving who you are, respecting others, and being kind to one another comes from Empire actor and activist Grace Byers and talented newcomer artist Keturah A. Bobo.
We are all here for a purpose. We are more than enough. We just need to believe it.
Plus don't miss I Believe I Can-the next beautiful picture celebrating self-esteem from Grace Byers and Keturah A. Bobo!
As a mom and children’s author, I’ve seen how much children need reminders that they are already loved, already important, and already enough. I’ve written over 30 picture books that explore kindness, confidence, and emotional resilience, but my heart always comes back to one mission: helping kids see their worth.
I created this list because I believe books are powerful mirrors—they show children not only who they are but who they can grow to be. These stories encourage kids to embrace their differences, trust their voice, and carry the confidence that being themselves is the most beautiful thing of all.
This book is powerful because it talks openly about self-acceptance and learning to love yourself.
It shows the struggle of wanting to change who you are, only to discover that your beauty has been there all along. Paired with cute illustrations, it's a story that can help children see themselves with love.
5
authors picked
Sulwe
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?
From Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o comes a powerful, moving picture book about colourism, self-esteem and learning that true beauty comes from within.
Sulwe's skin is the colour of midnight. She's darker than everyone in her family, and everyone at school.
All she wants is to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister.
Then a magical journey through the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything.
In this stunning debut picture book, Lupita Nyong'o creates a whimsical and heartwarming story to inspire children to see their own unique beauty.
Floretta- the story of an old woman who discovers life beautifully anew thru the helping hands of a child. The chakra colors of dawn and twilight are woven through the pages as the cycle of life is magically composed. The subject of “heaven,” has the potential to open discussions with…
As a children's book writer, I want my books to be infused with S.T.E.A.M (science, technology, engineering, art, and science), imaginative adventure, and empowering words. These 3 elements are important for cultivating their minds. Great inventions and discoveries have come from people who were curious. I believe that it's our responsibility as parents to expose them to new interests and speak empowering words to their developing minds. Parents play a key role in how their children see themselves. I hope that my books encourage unity, spark the imagination, build strong parent-child relationships, initiate dialogue, and promote learning.
"Long before you took your place in this world, you were dreamed of, like a knapsack full of wishes, carried on the backs of your ancestors as they created empires, pyramids, legacies."
The lyrical reading gives appreciation and celebrates the importance of being acknowledged. Despite the challenges a child may face, they need to know that they matter. As a parent, we are our child's #1 fan and cheerleader. How do you let your child know that they matter? This book embodies this message and delivers it with grace. Plant these powerful words in the mind of your child.
A lyrical, heart-lifting love letter to black and brown children everywhere. Discover this poignant, timely and emotionally stirring picture book, an ode to black and brown children everywhere that is full of hope, assurance and love.
Tami Charles pens a poetic, lyrical text that is part love letter, part anthem, assuring readers that they always have, and always will, matter.
Accompanied by illustrations by renowned artist Bryan Collier, All Because You Matter empowers readers with pride, joy and comfort, reminding them of their roots and strengthening them for the days to come.
I write and illustrate picture books. Before I was a father I just thought of the picture book as my chosen art form. When I became a dad, I saw first-hand how important picture books are in the lives of young children and the people who read to them. They become family friends. For the youngest kids, bedtime and nap-time are rituals performed many times a day, which means those books get read over and over. In doing so, I found some favorites that I still enjoy reading today, even if I am reading to myself!
A good goodnight book slows things down, quiets down the room and the people in it. This book does just that. When nap-time and bedtime were frequent and important in our home we really loved this book. You go for a walk and when you are back home you are ready for bed. Decrescendo.
Acclaimed author-illustrator Elisha Cooper paints the quiet magic of a good-night walk as the neighborhood settles into itself at the end of the day.
As a child and parent walk down the block to the bay and turn to walk back home, evening falls upon the neighborhood. As the walk begins, the squirrels are in the yards, the boys are mowing lawns, a neighbor is baking a pie, and someone is mailing a letter. When the child and parent turn to walk back home, the apple pie is down from the windowsill, the leaves are raked up, and the postman…
I am a comparative urban specialist who came to Japanese urban history through my aspiration to place Russian urban studies within a comparative context. Several Japanese and Western Japan specialists encouraged me to advance this exploration by examining capitalist industrial urbanization in Japan. Historians and political scientists -- particularly at Kyoto National University -- provided a platform for me to expand my engagement with Japanese urbanization; relations which have continued for some three decades. More recently, I included Kabuki in The Muse of Urban Delirium, a collection of essays that seeks answers to the challenges of urban diversity, conflict, and creativity using various performing arts – opera, dance, theater, music – as windows onto urban life.
Theodore Bestor carries the neighborhood theme forward into the boom years of the 1980s. Based on ethnographic fieldwork between 1979 and 1981, Bestor pulls apart the deep web of social, economic, and political relationships which hold neighborhoods and communities together despite being submerged in the enormity of Tokyo. He uncovers actors, institutions, and customs which facilitated modernization while sustaining a veneer of tradition. At it core, Bestor’s neighborhood revealed a social and cultural inventiveness that enabled its communities to engage with and benefit from unprecedented social change.
In the vastness of Tokyo these are tiny social units, and by the standards that most Americans would apply, they are perhaps far too small, geographically and demographically, to be considered "neighborhoods." Still, to residents of Tokyo and particularly to the residents of any given subsection of the city, they are socially significant and geographically distinguishable divisions of the urban landscape. In neighborhoods such as these, overlapping and intertwining associations and institutions provide an elaborate and enduring framework for local social life, within which residents are linked to one another not only through their participation in local organizations, but also…
An engaging picture book for children that celebrates what it means to be American!
What does it mean to be American? Does it mean you like apple pie or fireworks? Not exactly. This patriotic picture book is perfect for Memorial Day, Independence Day, Election Day, or any day you want…
I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a neighborhood that was stable, safe, and stimulating. After my freshman year in college, I signed up for an “urban experience” in Detroit. It turned out to be the summer of the Detroit riots. I woke up to U.S. Army vehicles rumbling into the park across from my apartment. Over the next month, I witnessed the looting and burning of whole neighborhoods. I remember thinking: what a waste! Why are we throwing away neighborhoods like Kleenex? I have been trying to answer that question ever since.
Benjamin Looker shows how an idealized image of neighborhoods animated cultural and political identities from World War II to the Reagan era.
I was particularly fascinated by his treatment of the 1970s when “power to the neighborhoods” was a rallying cry for both the left and the right. Jimmy Carter used neighborhood rhetoric to mobilize urban ethnics in 1976, while Ronald Reagan outdid him in 1980, using the gauzy rhetoric of neighborhood empowerment to mask his lack of support for federal policies to help neighborhoods.
This incredibly well-researched scholarly book is wonderfully written and sparkling with insights.
Despite the pundits who have written its epitaph and the latter-day refugees who have fled its confines for the half-acre suburban estate, the city neighborhood has endured as an idea central to American culture. In A Nation of Neighborhoods, Benjamin Looker presents us with the city neighborhood as both an endless problem and a possibility. Looker investigates the cultural, social, and political complexities of the idea of "neighborhood" in postwar America and how Americans grappled with vast changes in their urban spaces from World War II to the Reagan era. In the face of urban decline, competing visions of the…
I'm a historian of modern China who specializes in the history of science. My professional life revolves around teaching history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and writing academic books and articles—but my not-so-secret dream has always been to write for children. For the past decade, I've been a regular visitor to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Encouraged by a chance meeting with a publisher’s representative attending an event at the Carle, I decided to distill my academic book, Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China, into a children’s story. I’m proud that my fans now include elementary-school students…and at least one professional historian has admitted he read the kids’ version first!
This utterly charming collection of short stories by acclaimed cartoonist Nie Jun offers an insider’s glimpse into the alleys (hutong) of a Beijing neighborhood. Originally written for a Chinese audience, the book portrays a community that is quintessentially “old Beijing” and will be sweetly recognizable to anyone fortunate enough to have lived there in decades past: we see not only famous landmarks peeping out from behind the curved tile roofs of the classic courtyard-house (siheyuan) architecture, but also the green pillar mailboxes, low wooden courtyard chairs, bicycle repair stands, outdoor water spigots and washbasins, colorfully dressed old ladies dancing in the public square, and other authentic details that a book written for an international audience might not think to include.
The stories revolve around a young girl with an almost mystical connection to her quirky grandfather and are full of the kind of “everyday wonder” that…
Yu'er and her grandpa live in a small neighborhood in Beijing―and it's full of big personalities. There's a story around every corner, and each day has a hint of magic.
In one tale, Yu'er wants to swim in the Special Olympics, a sports competition for people with disabilities. But she and her grandpa don't have a pool! Their trick to help Yu'er practice wows the whole neighborhood. In another story, a friend takes Yu'er to a wild place full of musical insects. Later, Yu'er hears a special story about her grandparents. And in…
When I finally accepted that I’m analytical, it was surprisingly liberating. I think that’s why I enjoy trying to figure out a story and its characters and what will happen next. Because of this, it’s delightful when a story genuinely surprises me. I especially appreciate magical elements that defy reality. I’m also a motivational speaker and filmmaker, two powerful story-telling mediums, so I love books that inspire me in some way, challenge my perspectives, and leave me thinking about them for days. When a book is so well written that I can turn off my brain and lose myself in the story, it’s a fabulous escape for me.
I love an intriguing premise and an unexpected twist. This book promised both, and it really delivered!
I think we are all curious about what goes on behind the closed doors of our neighbors, though the truth is usually incredibly mundane…especially when compared to this story! From the first page to the last, I couldn’t put down this psychological thriller.
Because I love a tale of great suspense, I find myself growing impatient whenever a story starts to peter out without any satisfying resolution. That was not the case with this book. It delivered great, well-developed characters and an unexpected ending. Bravo!
‘OMG!!! SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!!!… The most heart-racing book I’ve read in a long time, if not ever!!! It had me hook, line and sinker from the first page and I could not put it down!!!… Clear your day because it is truly unputdownable… What an absolute twist!!!… If you read one book in your life, make sure it is this!!!!’ Bookworm86, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sometimes, the most perfect families are hiding the most terrible secrets. How well do you know the people next door…?
Everybody wants to live on Hogarth Street, the pretty, tree-lined avenue with its white houses. The new…
A fresh, fun, inspiring illustrated poetry collection you can put in the hands of any reader.
Curated by the award-winning duo Irene Latham and Charles Waters, this collection contains 30 poems that all begin with the same word: "if." Subject matter moves from the practical "if you have a pencil"…
I’m a native New Yorker whose recent move to the UK gives me both unique insight into a city I lived the hell out of for decades and space and time to look back and wonder what it was all about, like with a lover you still adore but are relieved you’re no longer with. I’ve partied in squats and walked red carpets. I can sniff out a fake-take on this city so many people feel they know long before ever visiting it, and that always offends/bores/turns me off. These books got it right, and I’m thrilled to point more people in their direction.
If you ask me or anyone else in the punk scene in 80s/90s New York, St. Mark’s Place—which was the epicenter of cool in our day—is a sad parody of itself now, touristy and dull. Until I read this book, I assumed its heyday began and ended with us, with Trash and Vaudeville and Manic Panic, with drinking 40-ounce beers on stoops.
Well, it turns out every generation that’s ever had a heyday on this famous, radical, anarchic block—whether as a gangster or dancing at Andy Warhol’s notorious Electric Circus parties—thought theirs was the only era that mattered. Calhoun chronicles hundreds of years of this exact attitude, which is fascinating and gives me some perspective.