Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

What are your favorite books about animals, fiction or nonfiction, real or imaginary?

The One and Only Ivan
The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild
The Last Rhinos: My Battle to Save One of the World's Greatest Creatures
Dog on It (and the rest of this series - I ❤ Chet the Jet!
Black Beauty
Old Yeller

Temeraire from His Majesty's Dragon is my all time favorite Dragon

The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar (graphic novel) and Following Atticus by Tom Ryan (non-fiction)

As a kid
Lassie Come-Home
The Incredible Journey
The Story of Doctor Dolittle (though of course some of the racial stereotypes are now unacceptable)
The Jungle Book

Adult books
Watership Down
The Wild Road (cats)
Dog on It and sequels narrated by Chet the dog
Three Bags Full (sheep)

Gaspode from Moving Pictures is one of my all-time favourite Terry Pratchett characters. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is full of great animal characters.

I loved Gobbelino London & a Scourge of Pleasantries, it's about a snarky cat who is a private detective with a human sidekick. I'm hoping the rest of the series is just as good.

I'm note sure I'll every recover emotionally from Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog and The Call of the Wild!

Bad Monkey isn't about animals, but the monkey from Pirates of the Caribbean is the standout character in the book.

Jennie is a brilliant book narrated by a boy who is turned into a cat and hangs out with other cats, including Jennie. In the US the book is titled The Abandoned.

As a child I loved dog books by Albert Payson Terhune (Lad: A Dog, etc.), Joseph Wharton Lippincott (Wilderness Champion: The Story of a Great Hound), and Jim Kjelgaard (Big Red); and horse books by Walter Farley (The Island Stallion), Marguerite Henry (King of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian), and especially Patsey Gray, all of whose books I still have copies of (Jumping Jack).

Two books I carried around as a child and read until they fell apart are The Observer's Book of Dogs and Wild Animals of the World 252 Pictures, 100 in Color. I also loved:

The Incredible Journey
Doctor Dolittle (Box Set of Five books) The Story Of Doctor Dolittle; Dr Dolittle"s Zoo; The Voyages of Dr Dolittle; Doctor Dolittle's Circus; Dr. Dolittle's Post Office
Owls in the Family
Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds
Charlotte's Web
A special shout-out to Walter R. Brooks (Freddy and the Perilous Adventure and 25 others)- I have a complete collection of Walter R. Brooks's "Freddy the Pig" adventures, which are funny and smart.

Not surprisingly, I grew up to become an animal trainer. Excellent non-fiction books about animals for grown-ups include Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals, The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs and everything else by Patricia McConnell; and Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs. I also recommend anything by Robert Sapolsky (A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons) and Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel).

Dixie wrote: "Jennie is a brilliant book narrated by a boy who is turned into a cat and hangs out with other cats, including Jennie. In the US the book is titled The Abandoned.

As a child I loved ..."

So cool that you got to work in your favorite field!

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned horse books like Misty of Chincoteague. I wasn't particularly interested, but many girls went through phases of loving horses and everything about them.

I kinda found Misty a bit boring as a kid. I did really like King of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian and reread that a few times. I read lots of fiction and nonfiction horse books as a kid, but I don't really remember them. Mostly the same 'girl wants a horse, will she get a horse?' or 'girl falls off a horse, will she get back on the horse?' type stories.

As an adult, I've read and loved The Horse Whisperer and The Loop. I also recently read The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis, which was very good.

With a small child, I'm eager to read her Winnie the Pooh, Wizard of OZ, and Narnia.

As a kid, I read every horse book I could get my hands on. My favorites were

The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley

and the books by Marguerite Henry - Justin Morgan Had a Horse, Born to Trot, Brighty of the Grand Canyon, King of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian, Black Gold to name a few

Robin P wrote: "Dixie wrote: "Jennie is a brilliant book narrated by a boy who is turned into a cat and hangs out with other cats, including Jennie. In the US the book is titled The Abandoned.

As a ..."

I did mention Marguerite Henry. She was the author of Misty of Chincoteague.

When I was in first grade my three favorite books all featured animals: Why Can't I Fly?, My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes and Sophie and Gussie..

YA/Middlegrade
The Secret of NIMH - It was my favorite movie even before I could read.
Racso and the Rats of NIMH - It's a sequel written by someone else years later, and I loved it every bit as much.

Adult fiction
Tailchaser's Song - A couple of cats set out on a grand adventure in search of a cat that has gone missing. Special assist comes from the squirrels.
The Cold Moons - All about badgers. I bought a copy of this from a book sale when I was 7. I couldn't read it at the time, but I kept it as a goal book for when my reading level was up to snuff.
Leaving Time - It's about elephants. And a psychic who talks to ghosts looking for a missing person, but mostly elephants.😉

Nonfiction
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law - Funny and interesting look at how people and wild animals interact.

Dixie wrote: "I did mention Marguerite Henry. She was the author of Misty of Chincoteague.

Sorry, I must have missed it.

Robin P wrote: "Dixie wrote: "I did mention Marguerite Henry. She was the author of Misty of Chincoteague.

Sorry, I must have missed it."

No big deal at all! I specifically mentioned King of the Wind as an example, but I read all of her books that I could get my hands on. A writer friend of my aunt and uncle, Ronald Rood, adopted a pony from the Chincoteague roundup and wrote a book about it Hundred Acre Welcome. I got to know him and his wife on our summer visits to Vermont. His nature books for children were popular in the late 60s and early 70s.

The Soul of an Octopus and the Winnie the Pooh stories off the top of my head.

Oh, and Charlotte's Web. How could I forget that one?

I devoured Misty of Chincoteague, Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague, and Stormy, Misty's Foal as a kid. I must have read them 20 times (a funny story - when I went back to college at 38, I would occasionally take my kiddo with me. Once, a friend walked by and said, "Hi Misty. Hi Stormy!" LOL.) I also loved The Incredible Journey and Black Beauty. As an adult I have enjoyed "The Cat Who..." books by Lillian Jackson Braun, The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, and The Cat Who Came for Christmas.

A few other animal favorites of mine are The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught her to Fly by Luís Sepúlveda, and Penguin Highway by Tomihiki Morini . And, I love the dog Snowey in the Tin Tin graphic novels.

Oh, yes ... Marguerite Henry's books were a staple of my middle-school years for me. I also read many of the The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley.

And speaking of horses ... Horse by Geraldine Brooks
And the nonfiction: Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand

And for something completely different ..
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (featuring a Giant Pacific Octopus)

You just can't go wrong with Winnie-the-Pooh, Eyeore, Owl....

The Warriors (cat books) were faves for a while

I enjoy reading books about cats. This year The Cat Who Saved Books was a fave

Denise wrote: "You just can't go wrong with Winnie-the-Pooh, Eyeore, Owl....

Good thought -There are some great picture books, including Frog and Toad Are Friends, George and Martha: The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends, The Story of Ferdinand, Horton Hatches the Egg, The Berenstain Bears, Bedtime for Frances and others of that series.

Robin P wrote: "Denise wrote: "You just can't go wrong with Winnie-the-Pooh, Eyeore, Owl....

Good thought -There are some great picture books, including Frog and Toad Are Friends, [book:George and M..."

The Velveteen Rabbit. Beatrix Potter's animals