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

🧲 Books like this

Old Yeller

Fred Gipson · 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
❤️

Where the Red Fern Grows

Wilson Rawls · 249 pages

More than anything else in life, Billy Colman wanted a dog. When at the age of ten he saw an ad for two coon-hound pups, he resolved to its their purchase price of $50. Two years later, having scrimped and saved, he attained his goal—the dogs were his, and he named them Old Dan and Little Ann. Billy spent weeks training his dogs to hunt their ring-tailed quarry. Night after night the three of t

Pet LossRite of PassageDogsTearjerker
❤️

Sounder

William H. Armstrong · 116 pages

Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and through his relationship with his devoted dog Sounder.

Pet LossDogsAnimal CompanionTearjerker
🙂

Bridge to Terabithia

Katherine Paterson · 144 pages

The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm.

Rite of PassageLoss of InnocenceTearjerkerComing of Age
🙂

A Dog's Purpose

W. Bruce Cameron · 332 pages

Pet LossAnimal CompanionTearjerkerDogs
🙂

Wonder

R.J. Palacio · 330 pages

## **Don't judge a boy by his face.** ## Auggie is a kid who just wants to be ordinary. He does ordinary things, like play on his Xbox and watch TV and eat. But ordinary kids don't make people stare just by walking down the block. They don't scare kids by looking at his face. They *definitely* haven't had over 20 surgeries by age 10. But when Auggie starts going to school for the first time in h

Pet LossRite of PassageTearjerkerComing of Age
🙂

Shiloh

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor · 128 pages

Animal CompanionDogsRite of PassageComing of Age
🙂

The Knife of Never Letting Go

Patrick Ness · 496 pages

An unflinching novel about the impossible choices of growing up, by an award-winning writer.Imagine you're the only boy in a town of men. And you can hear everything they think. And they can hear everything you think. Imagine you don't fit in with their plans... Todd Hewitt is just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man. But his town has been keeping secrets from him. Secrets th

Pet LossLoss of InnocenceDogsComing of Age
🙂

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

Christopher Paul Curtis · 239 pages

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

Loss of InnocenceRite of PassageComing of AgeTearjerker
🙂

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Scott O'Dell · 184 pages

Story of a young girl abandoned on a small island by her family and her village, and of her fight for survival. The incredible courage, determination and strength of this girl is showcased throughout as she learns to do the things that only the men of her tribe did before, and battles not only the hunters who frequent the island, but also her desperate loneliness as well... Excellent read fo

Animal CompanionRite of PassageDogsComing of Age
🙂

All the Pretty Horses

Cormac McCarthy · 301 pages

*All the Pretty Horses* is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It was a bestseller, and it won both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Along with *The Crossing* (1994), and C*ities of the Plain* (19

Rite of PassageLoss of InnocenceComing of AgeRural Farm
🙂

My friend Flicka

Mary O'Hara · 318 pages

Animal CompanionRite of PassageComing of AgeRural Farm
🤷

Rilla of Ingleside

L.M. Montgomery · 277 pages

Fifteen-year-old Rilla, the daughter of Anne Shirley Blythe, grows from a carefree, irresponsible girl into a strong and capable young woman during the war years, 1914-1918.

Loss of InnocenceComing of AgeRural FarmBittersweet
🤷

Julie of the Wolves

Jean Craighead George · 170 pages

Miyax, like many adolescents, is torn. But unlike most, her choices may determine whether she lives or dies. At 13, an orphan, and unhappily married, Miyax runs away from her husband's parents' home, hoping to reach San Francisco and her pen pal. But she becomes lost in the vast Alaskan tundra, with no food, no shelter, and no idea which is the way to safety. Now, more than ever, she must look har

Animal CompanionRite of PassageComing of AgeBittersweet
🤷

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Garth Stein · 321 pages

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing,

Pet LossAnimal CompanionDogsTearjerker
🤷

Charlotte's Web

E.B. White · 184 pages

Charlotte's Web is a book of children's literature by American author E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams; it was published on October 15, 1952, by Harper & Brothers. The novel tells the story of a livestock pig named Wilbur and his friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered by the farmer, Charlotte writes messages praising Wilbur (such a

TearjerkerAnimal CompanionRural FarmBittersweet
🤷

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

David Wroblewski · 566 pages

A tale reminiscent of "Hamlet" that also celebrates the alliance between humans and dogs follows speech-disabled Wisconsin youth Edgar, who bonds with three yearling canines and struggles to prove that his sinister uncle is responsible for his father's death.

Animal CompanionDogsTearjerkerComing of Age
🤷

Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

John Grogan · 368 pages

The heartwarming and unforgettablestory of a family in the making and thewondrously neurotic dog who taughtthem what really matters in lifeJohn and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.Marley quickly grew int

Pet LossAnimal CompanionDogsTearjerker
🤷

The Red Pony

John Steinbeck · 120 pages

Tells story of a young boy and his life on his father's ranch. Ownership of a red pony teaches ten-year-old Jody about life and death.

Pet LossLoss of InnocenceComing of AgeRural Farm
🤷

The Giver

Lois Lowry · 180 pages

At the age of twelve, Jonas, a young boy from a seemingly utopian, futuristic world, is singled out to receive special training from The Giver, who alone holds the memories of the true joys and pain of life.

Rite of PassageLoss of InnocenceComing of AgeBittersweet
🤷

Assassin's Apprentice

Robin Hobb · 435 pages

Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father's gruff stableman. He is treated like an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in Fitz's blood runs the magic Skill--and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by hi

Pet LossComing of AgeDogsBittersweet
🤷

A Separate Peace

John Knowles · 196 pages

Gene Forrester looks back fifteen years to a World War II year in which he and his best friend were roommates in a New hampshire boarding school.

Rite of PassageLoss of InnocenceComing of AgeBittersweet
🤷

White Fang

Jack London · 230 pages

The story of a wolf/dog cross, who is raised by Indians, and becomes a deadly fighter.

DogsAnimal CompanionComing of AgeClassics
🤷

The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton · 192 pages

According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs f

Loss of InnocenceTearjerkerComing of AgeBittersweet
🤷

Lassie Come Home

Eric Knight · 239 pages

A collie named lassie has to be sold because her family are having bad times . Lassie escapes twice but when her new owner takes her to a place too far to run from will lassie be able to make the journey back to her home ? A collie undertakes a thousand-mile journey in order to once again meet her former master at the school gate. Lassie is Joe's prize collie and constant companion. But when Jo

Animal CompanionDogsBittersweetChildren's
📖 New 2026 Kindles just released. See them on Amazon ↗