45 Books Like To Fudge or Not to Fudge

I’m the author of picture books about feelings (I Hate Everyone), friendship (My Best Friend, Sometimes), and family (While Grandpa Naps) and now, things that go (Bye, Car). I’ve also written about taking a bath and going for a walk. Wanting to be close and cared for, and at the same time, wanting to take even tentative steps toward independence is at the heart of the challenge of growing up for young children. Negotiating between the wish to belong and the wish to separate can be messy. The themes of connection, relationship, love, and ambivalence inspire much of my writing

I’ve been a lifelong horror reader, really since first stumbling onto Stephen King in the 9th grade. There’s something about that genre that has held a particular fascination for me through the years, probably because the best works are some combination of suspenseful, well-written, and cathartic, as they really get your mind racing as to what you might do yourself in a given situation. If you’re lucky, they might even have something to say about the human condition as a whole. But given this prolonged interest and exposure to horror, it’s only natural I would eventually progress to giving it a stab myself.

Known for my sweet billionaire romance novels, I am a purveyor of book boyfriends and happy endings. I absolutely love romance stories as you know exactly what you’re in for when you pick them up. You know there will be a Happily Ever After no matter how dire things get at any given point in the story so you can really just sit back and enjoy the ride. As an author I always write epilogues and I’ve built up a growing universe where characters pop in and out of each other’s books. It’s my happy place and as an author I love sharing that world with others.

I have lived in Alaska for forty years, working both as a construction worker and a college professor. I love Alaska, but not always the way it is depicted, particularly on reality TV. I hope the characters I create and the stories I tell will bring a more balanced view of everyday Alaskans, who are, after all, Americans too. The Hunger of Crows shows small-town Alaska through the eyes of four characters: two lifelong Alaskans, and two “from Outside” as we say here. Hopefully, it will provide a balanced view of this great place.

I've lived in Brooklyn for over 30 years now. I've always had a weakness for fun, snarky urban fantasy where the city is always a supporting character—and sometimes a major one. One day I decided to write a short story in the style of Simon R. Green's Nightside books, only instead of London, it'd feature New York City. And thus, the Conradverse was born. I tend to combine action, humor, real Brooklyn and NYC locations and history, and copious pop culture references when writing in this setting, and I seek out other books that do a great job at handling some or all of these elements.

I’ve always been preternaturally attentive to the way words work—as components of meaning, but also as visual, aural, and functional objects with their own erratic behaviors. Since joining the Oulipo in 2009, I’ve had even more occasion to think and talk about how those behaviors can be pointed in a literary direction, and to recognize successful experiments when I read them. 

When I was writing my first novel, The Garden at the Roof of the World, I tried hard to accurately represent how the unicorn was understood in the medieval world. As my characters transversed Europe, the near east, India, and Nepal, they encountered many people with a strong and abiding love for unicorns. To portray how people understood unicorns, I had to do a lot of research. These books taught me the myths and legends of unicorns that my characters would encounter on their journey. Fans of the novel encouraged the publisher to put out a companion book about unicorns, where I decided to explore the history of the idea of the unicorn from the very real beast that inspired the myths, through the evolution of the myths over time to the present day. I became fascinated, learning how the unicorn was once thought to be the servant of the devil, dragging people to hell. Learning how the Great Khan halted his invasion of India when he was stopped by a unicorn who he believed to be a messenger from the Gods. I even learned that the Sumerian Goddess of Love likened her clitoris to a unicorn’s horn. A far cry from the meek beast that would seek out a virgin.

I look to books as an enlightening way to escape. I’ve always sought out things that paint the world in different hues than what is often presented in reality. When the lines between what you’re told and what it really is become blurry, I like to find the truth that is often available by reading between the lines. 

Being overweight presents an intriguing paradox: being physically large and hard to miss, but also being essentially invisible and easy to ignore. Having struggled with weight for my entire life, I’m very familiar with this juxtaposition of opposites. I wanted to write a novel with a plus-sized protagonist set in a different time, the late 1970s in this case, before the notions of size positivity and body diversity had come to life in society’s collective imagination. For me, this was a way of making fat people more visible in books, especially as main characters. I put together this list of books for the same reason. 

Growing up in an Iraqi Jewish immigrant family in Sydney, Australia, meant that I was always different, without the words or emotional tools to navigate the world around me. Luckily, I was a reader, and so I learned through books Social Emotional Learning (SEL) tools to deal with anxiety and loneliness and develop qualities of empathy, bravery, and the understanding that we don’t have to be the same but can celebrate our cultural and personal differences. Reading with children is a wonderful opportunity to enter their worlds whilst building their social and emotional skills, such as managing emotions, problem-solving, and creating positive relationships.