The Best Books with Lovable Animal Characters - Shepherd

I am really excited that shepherd.com chose to host one of my books! Shepherd is like wandering around your favorite bookstore but reimagined for the online world. They make book browsing fun and all the recommendations are made by authors, experts, and creators. They don't just talk about the books of the authors they host, but on each book's page they highlight several other books in the same genre and with the same general audience. That way, if you find a particular book you like, you'll also find a few others as well! Take a look at the page they created for my book, Felicity and the Featherless Two Foot. They also have links to five other books that I have enjoyed reading which feature animal characters. These books include I Don't Want to Eat Bugs! by Rachel Branton, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, The Golden Owl, by Lana Axe, and Detective Trigger and the Ruby Collar by M.A. Owens.

I Don't Want to Eat Bugs! by Rachel Branton

I don't Want to Eat Bugs by Rachel Branton is a cute story about a little girl named Lisbon who wants a snack before dinner. All her well-intentioned animals friends want to help her out, but nothing they offer is appetizing!

Will Lisbon find a snack, or will she just be disappointed? Children and adults will enjoy following Lisbon on her adventures as she looks for a snack with the help of her various animal friends. The story is both adventurous and informative as it helps young children learn about animals and the food that these animals like to eat. It is also a story that children can relate to, since many young children have a hard time waiting for things! This is a great story for adults to read to children, but the font and the reading level are both geared toward young readers who are just starting to read their own books! I Don't Want to Eat Bugs was published in 2016.

The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis

The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis is an exciting book for children and adults. It was first published in 1955. A radio theatre version of it was made in 2005 by Focus on the Family. This version doesn't follow the story word for word, but still is a fun and exciting narrative with special sound effects like other radio plays, and is very well done. I could see what was going on in my head, and enjoyed this version as much as the unadbridged version of the story.

Polly Plumber and Diggory Kirk become friends when Diggory moves next door with his mother into his old maid aunt and old bachelor uncle's house. His mother is very sick, and everyone thinks it's terminal. His father is stuck in India and cannot come home. And to make matters worse, his uncle seems to be rather crazy. One rainy day, while exploring, Diggory and Polly accidentally stumbled into his uncle's study, and Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow ring laying on a tray among other yellow and green rings. Doing so, Polly suddenly vanishes! Uncle Andrew tells Diggory how he can get her back, but doing so lead the two friends on a harrowing journey through various dimensions including an encounter with an evil, power hungry queen who wants to take over any world she can! Will Diggory and Polly be able to keep her from taking over Earth? Read this exciting book and find out!

Holes by Louis Sachar

Holes by Louis Sachar is an excellent coming of age book for young people about friendship, compassion, and redemption. And all of it taught through an exciting story about two friends who work together to get through difficulty.

Stanley Yelnats is a boy who just seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when he's walking along, minding his own business when a pair of shoes falls off an overpass and hits him on the head. And then he's blamed for stealing them. Added onto that, they're not just any pair of shoes, they're the shoes of the famous baseball player, Sweetfeet! He thinks he's hit rock bottom when he's sent to Camp Greenlake and is forced to dig a hole every day in the hot sun that is five feet deep, and five feet across, all around. And of course, he blames his no good, dirty rotten pig stealing great, great grandfather for his woes. His dad's family started having bad luck ever since Elya Yelnats up and left for America after his heart was broken, and forgot to keep a promise to an old gypsie woman. Since then, his dad, grandpa, and great grandpa have had bad luck. His great grandpa was even robbed of his life savings by the notorious outlaw, Kissin' Kate Barlow! But when he meets Zero at Camp Greenlake, and the two start to make friends, will he be able to find a way to turn his bad luck around? Read this fun book, and find out! While it is written mainly for kids, adults who enjoy reading adventure stories are likely to enjoy it as well! Holes was first published in 1998. A movie starring Shia LaBouf was released in 2003.