Animal Tales
Misty of Chincoteague

Misty of Chincoteague

This 1947 novel is a must-read for any young horse lover. A tiny island in coastal Virginia is home to a band of beautiful wild ponies, and Paul and Maureen dream of making one of them their own. The children learn that following a dream isn’t easy, and that sometimes it’s hard to hold onto what you love. Newbery Honor Book.

More info →
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Come On, Seabiscuit

Come On, Seabiscuit

Author:

Adults may know Come On, Seabiscuit as the book Laura Hillenbrand credited with inspiring her lifelong fascination with the horse. Kids will love this exciting true story of a knobby-kneed horse, a down-on-his-luck jockey, and the unlikely path that brought them victory.

More info →
Buy from Amazon
Lassie Come-Home

Lassie Come-Home

Author:

Lassie is Joe’s beloved dog and constant companion, but when Joe’s father loses his job, Lassie must be sold. Three times Lassie escapes from her new owner to return home to Joe in Yorkshire, but then she’s sold to a wealthy lord in Scotland to be trained for dog shows … but she desperately misses her “boy” and is determined to find him. A poignant tale of the bond between a boy and his dog, and a perfect book for any young dog-lover.

More info →
Buy from Amazon
Where the Red Fern Grows

Where the Red Fern Grows

Author:

A story of a boy and his dogs, and about so much more: love and yearning, struggle and poverty, and hunting—which means it's necessarily about death. My fifth grade teacher made a class of thirty students cry, excepting none, when she read the final chapters aloud. Of note: Rawls spent twenty years writing this novel, then burned it out of embarrassment. Lucky for us, his wife encouraged him to write it again, and he dashed off the whole thing (sans punctuation) in three weeks. Originally published as an adult novel, it still didn't sell until teachers and students got ahold of it.

More info →
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Mr. Popper’s Penguins

Mr. Popper’s Penguins

Author:

Mr. Popper is a mild-mannered house painter who spends all his spare time reading about Admiral Drake and his expeditions to the Antarctic, and dreams of being an explorer himself. Mr. Popper writes the Admiral a letter and the Admiral responds by sending him a special present—a penguin! This charmingly absurd book is about having the courage to be different and the conviction to follow your dreams. Newberry Honor book.

More info →
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com

Where do you want to go next?

paper gains table of contents
good reads for bookish parents
books that belong in every family’s library
series kids love (and their parents do, too)
great picture books
books for baseball fans
books girls love
books boys love
books for young creatives
delightfully silly books
animal tales
books for the transportation-obsessed
books for young adventurers
books to fire young imaginations
books to pore over
classics for a reason
Use the buttons below to share the book love with facebook or twitter. Hover on the images to pin. Thank you!

Also, be sure to check out my other reading guides.

This page contains my affiliate links. Thanks for supporting MMD!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *