100 Books Like When I Sing, Mountains Dance

My first true religion was being a boy alone in the woods and feeling a deep connection to nature in all its aspects. I felt a connection with all life and knew myself to be an animal—and gloried in it. Since then, I've learned how vigorously humans fight our animal nature, estranging us from ourselves and the planet. Each of these books invites us to get over ourselves and connect with all life on Earth. 

I’m a British author who has always had a fascination with magical realism and novels that blend the serious with the strange. For that reason, though I write literary fiction for adults, I take so much of my inspiration from children’s literature. There’s something so simple about how kids’ books stitch the extraordinary into the every day without having to overexplain things. I now live not far from the forest that inspired A. A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood, and my latest novel is set in and inspired by this part of rural England–with all the mystery and magic that a trip into the woods entails.

I’m a British author who has always had a fascination with magical realism and novels that blend the serious with the strange. For that reason, though I write literary fiction for adults, I take so much of my inspiration from children’s literature. There’s something so simple about how kids’ books stitch the extraordinary into the every day without having to overexplain things. I now live not far from the forest that inspired A. A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood, and my latest novel is set in and inspired by this part of rural England–with all the mystery and magic that a trip into the woods entails.

I’m a British author who has always had a fascination with magical realism and novels that blend the serious with the strange. For that reason, though I write literary fiction for adults, I take so much of my inspiration from children’s literature. There’s something so simple about how kids’ books stitch the extraordinary into the every day without having to overexplain things. I now live not far from the forest that inspired A. A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood, and my latest novel is set in and inspired by this part of rural England–with all the mystery and magic that a trip into the woods entails.

I love getting lost in books because I get to experience more adventures than I could possibly fit into one lifetime. Books invite the exploration of limitless possibilities—for everyone. When a book can fire my imagination, make me feel a connection, or just make me think deeply—that’s magic, whether it was meant to be fiction or not. I want to write books that do that for others. For this list specifically, I wanted to pick books that encourage girls to embrace the notions that they are allowed to dream really big dreams, that the goals they set for themselves are worth pursuing, and that we all deserve room to be our authentic selves.

Growing up, my father was a biologist and my mother was a children’s librarian, so I suppose it’s no surprise that I’ve become a children’s book author who writes about valuing the planet where we we live. I’ve always had a deep love of reading and some of my most cherished childhood memories are of walking through the woods behind our house, with one parent or another identifying the plants, animals, amphibians, birds, and insects that shared our land. My very first piece of writing was a poem about an owl that I wrote in first grade, and now all these years later, I’m still reading, writing, and recommending books that celebrate our marvelous world.

I grew up on a dairy farm on the outskirts of a town with about a hundred residents. I remember walking to town with my sister and two brothers to buy candy and rent a VHS movie from the tiny grocery store. My first job off the farm was doing dishes at the local café, where my father and the other farmers would drink coffee and read the newspaper at table 10. These experiences shaped me as a person and hooked me on small-town living. I believe it’s the people in the smallest of towns that have the biggest of hearts.

I’ve loved both nature and writing since childhood. My birdwatching and prior work as a geologist have taken me to the coasts, forests, and grasslands of New England, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Brazil, and beyond. Through it all, I’ve kept my pen busy writing about my adventures. A former writer-in-residence at the Shoals Marine Laboratory in Maine and beach naturalist with the Seattle Aquarium, I now teach at Smith College in Massachusetts, where I live with my family, many notebooks, and a garden full of native plants and wild birds. 

I’m an environmental journalist (BBC, The Guardian, The Sunday Times) and book author, based in the UK. My interest lies in the intersection between human health, the environment, and climate crisis: the actions we can take that not only reduce climate change for future generations but also improve biodiversity, health, and wellbeing right now. That led to me write my first book, Clearing The Air, about air pollution. And I’m now writing my second book, The Last Drop, looking at how climate change is affecting the world’s water cycle and our access to freshwater. My best books list below maybe misses out on some obvious choices (Naomi Klein, Rachel Carson, etc) in favour of more recent books and authors deserving of a wider audience. 

Jordan Fisher Smith spent 21 years as a park and wilderness ranger. He is the author of the ranger memoir Nature Noir, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of 2005 pick, and an Audubon Magazine Editor’s Choice. His second book Engineering Eden won a 2017 California Book Award and was longlisted for the 2016 PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing. He has also written for The New Yorker, Men’s Journal, Discover, and others and was a principal cast member and narrator of the film Under Our Skin, which was shortlisted for the 2010 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.