Recommended Titles for When You're Stuck in the House

AGES 0-3

Tummy Time: Happy Baby (published by DuoPress); Where's the Astronaut (published by Nosy Crow); Once Upon a World series (published by Little Simon); Penguin Bedtime Classics (published by Penguin Random House); 8 Little Planets (published by Sourcebooks Explore); Where is Little Fish? by Lucy Cousins; BabyLit series by Jennifer Adams; Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton; Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown; Look, Look! by Peter Linenthal; Leo Loves Baby Time by Anna McQuinn; The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle; Peek-a-Who? by Nina Laden; Besos for Baby by Jen Arena; The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton (and all her other books); No No Yes Yes by Leslie Patricelli; Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt; All the World by Liz Garton Seanlon; Welcome: A Mo Willems Guide for New Arrivals by Mo Willems; Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann; That's Not My Dragon by Usborne Books; Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney; and so many more...

 

AGES 4-8

Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth; The Mitten by Jan Brett; Ramona by Beverly Cleary; Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo; Bread and Jam for Francis by Russell Hoban; The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norman Juster; Piinkalicious by Victoria Kann; Fancy Nancy series by Jane O'Connor; Paula Deen's My First CookbookAmelia Bedelia series by Peggy Parish; Chicken Butt by Erica Perl; Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal; Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak; Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst; The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne; Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park; and so many more...

 

AGES 9-12

The Princess Bride by William Goldman; Mr. Poppers Penguins by Richard Atwater; SuperFudge by Judy Blume; The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl; The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies; Guinness Bok of World RecordsDiary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney; When Life Gives You O.J. by Erica Perl; 39 Clues series by Rick Riordan (and all his other series); Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling; Lemony Snicket series by Lemony Snicket; Wayside School series by Louis Sachar; Holes by Louis Sachar; Hatchet by Gary Paulsen; Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web by E.B. White; Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery; Titanic trilogy by Gordon Korman; The Mysterious Benedict Society trilogy by Trenton Lee Stewart; Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett; The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis; Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson; Coraline by Neil Gaiman (and so many of his other books); and so many more...

 

YA AGES 13-18

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli; The Book Thief by Markus Zusak; A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle; The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton; The Giver by Lois Lowry; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee; Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor; Monster by Walter Dean Myers; The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman; Looking for Alaska by John Green (and any of his other books); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon; Wonder by R.J. Palacio; The Once and Future King series by T.H. White; The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; Little Women by Louisa May Alcott; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien; Lord of the Flies by William Golding; The Call of the Wild by Jack London; A Separate Peaceoby John Knowles; The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier; Feed by M.T. Anderson; The Alchemyst by Michael Scott; The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin; Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson; A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly; The Wall by Peter Sis; A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness; The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury; Every Day by David Levithan; and so many more...

 

ADULTS (FICTION)

Dept. of Speculation or Weather by Jenny Offill; The Summer Book by Tove Jansson; I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith; Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson; A Room With a View by E.M. Forster; Autumn by Ali Smith; Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford; Writers & Lovers by Lily King; A Good Neighborhood by Therese Fowler; News of the World by Paulette Jiles; Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac; Ledger by Jane Hirshfield; Gilead by Marilynne Robinson; The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (or any of her other books); Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth; Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross; Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome; The Color Purple by Alice Walker; Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed; Fingersmith by Sarah Waters; In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez; The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka; The Storyteller by Pierre Jarawan; All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr; The Essential Ellison by Harlan Ellison (short stories); and so many more...

 

ADULTS (POETRY)

Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser (hard to find); Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón; My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet; Together and By Ourselves by Alex Dimitrov; When I Grow Up I Want to be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen; Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith; Beastiary by Donika Kelly; Milk by Dorothea Lasky; Lessons on Expulsion by Erika L. Sánchez; Holy Moly Carry Me by Erika Meitner; Night by Etel Adnan; Electric Arches by Dr. Eve L. Ewing; If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar; Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2017 by Frank Bidart; Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky; There Should Be Flowers by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza; Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora; Eye Level by Jenny Xie; Whereas by Layli Long Soldier; Devotions: Collected Poems by Mary Oliver; Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith; In Mad Love and War by Jo Harjo; and so many more...

 

ADULTS (NONFICTION)

When the World Feels Like a Scary Place: Essential Conversations for Anxious Parents and Worried Kids by Abigail Gewirtz; The In-Betweens by Mira Ptacin; Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe; Yes Please by Amy Poehler; This Land is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto by Suketu Mehta; The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang; The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer; Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep; In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado; Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane; The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom; Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller; Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe; The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (essays or thoughts on writing and life); Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (thoughts about writing and taking your time); I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara; The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack by Jim and Jamie Dutcher; Everything is Horrible and Wonderful: A Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love, and Loss by Stephanie Wittels Wachs; Just the Funny Parts...And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club by Nell Scovell; Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion by Michelle Dean; And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready by Meaghan O'Connell; Meaty by Samantha Irby (humorous essays); My Dead Parents by Anya Yurchyshyn; How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee (essays); Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou; The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump by Michiko Kakutani; and so many more...

 

AND FOR THOSE WHO ARE UP TO IT...

 

PANDEMIC/DYSTOPIAN READS (FICTION)

The End of October by Lawrence Wright (brand new at the end of April and eerily prescient); Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel; Severance by Ling Ma; The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai; The Power by Naomi Alderman; The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis; Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks; The Training Commission by Ingrid Burrington and Brendan Byrne; The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton; Cold Storage by David Koepp; The Companions by Katie M. Flynn; The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe; The Passage by Justin Cronin; The Plague by Albert Camus; The Stand by Stephen King; Zone One by Colson Whitehead; The Road by Cormac McCarthy; and I'm sure there are many more...

 

PANDEMIC READS (NONFICTION...TO HELP PUT THINGS IN CONTEXT)

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts (AIDS); The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson (Cholera); The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (Ebola); Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 by Gina Kolata (Influenza); The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years by Sonia Shah (Malaria); A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman (The Plague); Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth A. Fenn (Smallpox); and no doubt there will be several books to come on COVID-19...

 

(I PROMISE TO REMOVE THE TWO LISTS ABOVE WHEN THIS IS ALL OVER)

 

And finally...

 

COMFORTING/THOUGHT-PROVOKING READS

Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara (poetry collection); My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (a novel); Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel Mallory Ortberg; Persuasion by Jane Austen (or any of her works for that matter); The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro; The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows; I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan; The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith; Plainsong by Kent Haruf; The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George; A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver (poetry); Clock Dance by Anne Tyler; The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman; Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have One by Raphaelle Giordano; Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore; Cottage by the Sea by Debbie Macomber; My Antonia by Willa Cather; Chocolat by Joanne Harris; The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho; Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence by Rachel Sherman; But What If We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman; We  Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride; Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan; A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman; Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell; An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine; The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by Dalai Lama XIV and Howard C. Cutler; Loving What Is by Byron Katie; The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle; and so many, many more.

TummyTime(R): Happy Baby (TummyTime®) By duopress labs, Violet Lemay (Illustrator) Cover Image
By duopress labs, Violet Lemay (Illustrator)
$8.95
ISBN: 9781947458796
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: duopress - September 17th, 2019

Zen Shorts (A Stillwater and Friends Book) By Jon J. Muth, Jon J. Muth (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Jon J. Muth, Jon J. Muth (Illustrator)
$18.99
ISBN: 9780439339117
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Scholastic Press - March 1st, 2005

The Princess Bride Deluxe Edition Hc: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure By William Goldman Cover Image
$37.00
ISBN: 9781328948854
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Harper - October 10th, 2017

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda By Becky Albertalli Cover Image
$15.99
ISBN: 9780062348685
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Balzer + Bray - June 7th, 2016

Dept. of Speculation (Vintage Contemporaries) By Jenny Offill Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780345806871
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Vintage - October 7th, 2014

Weather: A novel By Jenny Offill Cover Image
$23.95
ISBN: 9780385351102
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Knopf - February 11th, 2020

Oceanic By Aimee Nezhukumatathil Cover Image
$17.00
Email or call for price
ISBN: 9781556595264
Published: Copper Canyon Press - April 10th, 2018

When the World Feels Like a Scary Place: Essential Conversations for Anxious Parents and Worried Kids By Abigail Gewirtz, PhD Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781523508310
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Workman Publishing Company - June 9th, 2020

The End of October: A novel By Lawrence Wright Cover Image
$27.95
Email or call for price
ISBN: 9780525658658
Published: Knopf - April 28th, 2020

Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It By Gina Kolata Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780743203982
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Atria Books - January 9th, 2001

Meditations in an Emergency By Frank O'Hara Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9780802134523
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Grove Press - April 1st, 1996