AmongReaders.com Add a tiny library
📚 AmongReaders — track what you read, talk chapter by chapter without spoilers, and read with friends. Free.Join AmongReadersSign in

🧲 Books like this

The Warden's Daughter

Jerry Spinelli · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

The Leanin' Dog

K.A. Nuzum · 250 pages

In wintry Colorado during the 1930s, eleven-year-old Dessa Dean mourns the death of her beloved mother, but the arrival of an injured dog and the friendship they form is just what each needs to change their lives forever.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

The Secret Hum of a Daisy

Tracy Holczer · 316 pages

"After 12-year-old Grace's mother's sudden death, Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met. Then she discovers clues in a mysterious treasure hunt--one that will help her find her true home"-- After the sudden death of her mother, twelve-year-old Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met. Then she discovers clues in a mysterious treasure hunt, one that will help

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

Silhouetted by the Blue

Traci L. Jones · 212 pages

After the death of her mother in an automobile accident, seventh-grader Serena, who has gotten the lead in her middle school play, is left to handle the day-to-day challenges of caring for herself and her younger brother when their father cannot pull himself out of his depression.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse · 235 pages

"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ." A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands. To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. Wh

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningTeen ProtagonistMiddle Grade
❤️

Coming Home

Lauren Brooke · 140 pages

Amy has always had her mother to help with Heartland, " a place where the scars of the past can be healed, a place where frightened and abused horses can learn to trust again," but recently she passed away heading to help a stallion who was locked in a barn during a storm. The fateful car crash has made it so that everything at heartland has gone hay wire, and Amy has to suddenly take on her mothe

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

Night

Elie Wiesel · 126 pages

PrisonDeath of a ParentGrief and MourningTeen Protagonist
❤️

Perfect

Natasha Friend · 232 pages

Following the death of her father, a thirteen-year-old uses bulimia as a way to avoid her mother's and ten-year-old sister's grief, as well as her own.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

The Heaven Shop

Deborah Ellis · 192 pages

Compelling and uplifting, this powerful new work by the author of The Breadwinner trilogy is a contemporary novel that puts a very real face on the African AIDS epidemic, which to date has orphaned more than 11 million children. All royalties for this book will be donated to UNICEF.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

Like the Willow Tree: The Diary of Lydia Amelia Pierce, Portland, Maine, 1918

Lois Lowry · 224 pages

After being orphaned during the influenza epidemic of 1918, eleven-year-old Lydia Pierce and her fourteen-year-old brother are taken by their grieving uncle to be raised in the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake. Includes author's note about the Shakers.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeHistorical Fiction
❤️

Chains

Laurie Halse Anderson · 326 pages

If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl? As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth a

Middle GradeGrief and MourningDeath of a ParentTeen Protagonist
❤️

Crazy Lady!

Jane Leslie Conly · 186 pages

As he tries to come to terms with his mother's death, Vernon finds solace in his growing relationship with the neighborhood outcasts, an alcoholic and her retarded son.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

The Librarian of Auschwitz

Antonio Iturbe · 432 pages

Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.

PrisonDeath of a ParentTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
❤️

Hero

Mike Lupica

Fourteen-year-old Billy learns he has the same special abilities as his father, who was the President's globe-trotting troubleshooter until "the Bads" killed him, and now Billy must decide whether to use his powers in the same way at the risk of his own life.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

A Dog Called Homeless

Sarah Lean · 224 pages

Fifth-grader Cally Louise Fisher stops talking, partly because her father and brother never speak of her mother who died a year earlier, but visions of her mother, friendships with a homeless man and a disabled boy, and a huge dog ensure that she still communicates.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeFemale Lead
❤️

Refugee

Alan Gratz · 352 pages

Although separated by continents and decades, Josef, a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl trying to escape the riots and unrest plaguing her country in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 whose homeland is torn apart by violence and destruction, embark on harrowing journeys in search of refuge, discovering shocking connections that tie their stories together.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

Saving Wonder

Mary Knight · 272 pages

Curley Hines has lost his father, mother, and brother to coal mining, and now he lives with his grandfather in the Appalachian mountains of Wonder Gap, Kentucky--but when the mining company prepares to destroy their mountain he must use the words his grandfather has taught him to save Red Hawk Mountain, even if it means losing the life he loves.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
❤️

Between Shades of Gray

Ruta Sepetys · 348 pages

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circ

PrisonDeath of a ParentGrief and MourningTeen Protagonist
❤️

Love, Aubrey

Suzanne LaFleur · 272 pages

"I had everything I needed to run a household: a house, food, and a new family. From now on it would just be me and Sammy--the two of us, and no one else."A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey's world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: SpaghettiOs and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing lett

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeFemale Lead
❤️

Dandelion Clocks

Rebecca Westcott · 288 pages

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeFemale Lead
🙂

Chicken Boy

Frances O'Roark Dowell · 216 pages

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
🙂

Thunderwith

Libby Hathorn · 311 pages

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningTeen ProtagonistFemale Lead
🙂

Nest

Esther Ehrlich · 332 pages

Death of a ParentMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
🙂

A Northern Light

Jennifer Donnelly · 396 pages

In 1906, sixteen-year-old Mattie, determined to attend college and be a writer against the wishes of her father and fiance, takes a job at a summer inn where she discovers the truth about the death of a guest. Based on a true story.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
🙂

Anne of Green Gables

L.M. Montgomery · 308 pages

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

Middle GradeDeath of a ParentGrief and MourningTeen Protagonist

In the works

To be read SpinnerCan’t pick your next book? Spin your Want to read.Blind date with a bookPick a mood, unwrap a surprise.Add a tiny librarySnap a little free library and its books.