100 Books Like The Three Golden Keys

As author John Scieszka himself says he’s sold “bazilions of books” so he sure doesn’t need my endorsement but this is such a funny book I couldn’t resist. Yes, it tells the familiar story of the three little pigs but it does so in a wildly unfamiliar way—from the wolf’s point of view. Alexander T. Wolf tells the reader what really happened and professes his innocence. Despite having a cold, he was baking a cake for his dear grandmother when he needed to borrow a cup of sugar from the neighboring pig. What happens next he declares was not his fault yet he’s gotten a bad rap ever since. This is an offbeat, fractured fairytale that completely reverses the message of the original tale to give a new one: there are always two sides to every story.

Sometimes the answers to our most profound questions can be found in children’s books.

I often find myself turning to this book, based on a story by Leo Tolstoy, when I’m feeling overwhelmed with the enormity of the world’s problems and my sense of inadequacy to do anything to help. The three timeless questions that are posed and answered in this book give me clarity and direction to keep moving forward, the best I can.

Often, the magic of three is not so obvious. In the newly-published picture book, Treasure Hunt by Stephanie Wildman, three children play a new game. Older brother Luis turns his two younger siblings away from video games by creating a scavenger hunt in which they must use riddles as clues to gather ordinary household objects. And yes, they get three clues and so three chances to gather all the objects, which then become the materials to create a puppet show using a discarded cardboard box the new stove came in as the stage. The use of three here, as in all stories, produces a feeling of a satisfying completion. This is a mystery story for children 3-8 with a surprise ending and guidance for kids on how to make simple puppets.

I’ve always loved the author/illustrator, Margot Zemach so when I met her, I just had to buy two of her prints. Here she takes a familiar story and tells it simply, letting her illustrations enhance character. It’s about a woodcutter who frees an imp and as thanks is given three wishes. When his wife learns this she imagines all the grand things they could have! But now the husband says, “I just wish for a pan of sausages.” Poof! The first wish is used up. In anger, the wife wishes the sausages grow on his nose and so they must use their final wish to have the sausages removed from his nose and back in the pan. As they eat the hot sausages, they express gratitude for all that they already have. Perfect. 

The book uses verse to create a modern-day fairy tale, mixing magic with contemporary Prague. This makes magic feel so close and tangible for us as readers.

Because of this, we believe our protagonist Ilana and sympathise with her as she makes friends with the ghost of a Jewish boy from decades ago, and fights the hold of the strange and charismatic Wasserman, who has the ability to make the memory of children disappear.

Despite its magical appearance, this story still tackles compelling real-world issues of racism, war, and diaspora in a compelling way.

The Night of Wenceslas was the first thriller I read. I was in my teens, and into reading poetry at the time. My parents knew the author—we had even spent Boxing Day together—so Lionel Davidson was the first real novelist I met in person and I remember being excited to read this book.

The protagonist, Nicholas Whistler is young, half English and half Czechoslovakian. He hates working in his father’s business and is in debt because of his dissolute lifestyle. As a way out of his problems, he is lured into carrying out a mission in Prague and finds he has been duped into becoming an unwitting spy.

This book did not stop me from reading poetry—but spurred me to read much more widely.

A laugh-out-loud funny book about an American scam artist looking for marks on the streets of Prague.

Posing as a successful Hollywood screenwriter, Nix swindles female tourists, but ends up stealing from the wrong woman as it attracts the attention of the woman’s fiancé, a local detective, whose soon sets his sight on Nix. When Nix spots a sultry young woman at the train station, he thinks he’s found his next victim, but she leads him on, then cleans him out. 

Thinking the two could be an unbeatable pair together, Nix tracks Monika down, but accidentally kills her pimp. The two team up, and Monika draws Nix deep into her web of lies. The book is filled with clever dialogue and two nihilistic characters, who will shock, fascinate, and entertain.

1980s Czechoslovakia and Australia—worlds apart—are the backdrops for two simultaneous stories I came to enjoy. Both stories incorporate young children being raised primarily by grandparents, the reasons for which are eventually explained, as are the connections between the two.

I liked the characters in this book, where the plot plays second fiddle to the characters and setting in many ways. I especially enjoyed the relationships. The sense of home and the strong love seeping from the actions of the guardian figures in this novel seem to welcome the reader, as well.

I’m deeply affected by the poetic, haunted quest of a Korean adoptee who seeks his place in the world, shifting back and forth in time— Tee’s present in a Massachusetts rehab facility with his time in Prague. 

I respond to how present the awareness of being other is, while I can occasionally pretend to forget mine. I share the question about the past.

Tormented about being an adoptee, Tee left his family behind after facing the tragedy of an uncle’s suicide and a disturbing revelation from his father. In Prague, he has newfound happiness interrupted by a forced evacuation because of an epic flood that comes every 100 years.

Tee decides to remain with his lover: “If the water did rise and cut them off from the rest of Prague, they would be unreachable,” Tee thinks, “even from his pasts.”

For years, I used to walk past the statues of St. Wenceslaus, František Palacký, and other Czech national heroes without giving them much thought. After reading this book, I came to appreciate how much Prague’s monuments can tell us about the city’s history. Their creators offered a variety of interpretations over the meaning of “Czechness”, and these monuments have inspired passionate debates about nationhood and religion ever since. The book also made me think about ways that monuments can exclude others and inspire hatred, and not just in Prague. Consider, for example, statues celebrating the Confederacy erected by white supremacists decades after the end of the Civil War. Many still dot my part of the country.