18 books like World's fair

What to read after World's fair — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Last Days of Summer Updated Ed Steve Kluger · 1998 · ★ 4.4 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate From Goodreads: The hilarious and heart–warming story about a down–and–out kid who finds inspiration in his favourite baseball hero. In Brooklyn, 1940, a wisecracking, baseball loving twelve–year–old boy, Joey Margolis, is in desperate need of a hero. His rich father has recently divorced his mother, leaving her all but penniless, and she is forced to move herself and her son to an Italian… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans, New york

The Neon Bible John Kennedy Toole · 1989 · ★ 3.8 · 176p · ≈ 5h · Moderate The first novel by the Pulizer Prize-winning author of A Confederacy Of Dunces. David is a young boy growing up in a small Southern town in the 1940s. From his porch, David can see the whole valley, including the neon Bible that lights up the sky, emblem of the God-fearing folk who snub his family because Poppa can't afford the church dues. Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

His Whole Life Elizabeth Hay · 2015 · 352p · ≈ 11h · Moderate 1 volume ; 20 cm Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Twelve Nick McDonell · 2002 · ★ 3.2 · 244p · ≈ 8h · Moderate "White Mike is clean. He has never smoked a cigarette in his life. Never had a drink, never sucked down a doobie. But White Mike has become a very good drug dealer, even though it started out as a one-shot deal with his cousin Charlie. White Mike was a good student, but he's been out of school for six months, and though some people might wonder what he's doing, no one seams to care very much that… Shares: Bildungsromans, New york

Bicycle days John Burnham Schwartz · 1989 · 253p · ≈ 8h · Moderate When Alec Stern arrives in Japan, he discovers a land of opportunity. For only in Tokyo could an impressionable young man fresh out of college find, in one stroke, a new job, a new family, and a society that lavishes attention on Japanese-speaking gaijin. Yet, even as Alec claims a place in this new world, he is haunted by memories of the one he left behind—a world once infinitely secure but… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury · 1946 · ★ 4.1 · 221p · ≈ 7h · Challenging The summer of '28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

A Painted House John Grisham · 2000 · ★ 4.1 · 462p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Using his own childhood for inspiration (and leaving the lawyers behind), bestselling author John Grisham sets A Painted House in 1950s rural Arkansas. During harvest time, together with hired Mexicans and hill people, seven-year-old Luke Chandler picks cotton on his family's rented 80 acres. But racial tension, a forbidden love affair, and murder cause Luke to grow up before he's ready. Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Jonas a judge; or, Law among the boys Jacob Abbott · 1840 · 179p · ≈ 5h · Challenging Early one winter morning, while Jonas was living upon the farm, in the employment of Oliver's father, he came groping down, just before daylight, into the great room. The great room was, as its name indicated, quite large, occupying a considerable portion of the lower floor of the farmer's house. There was a very spacious fireplace in one side, with a settle, which was a long seat, with a very… Shares: Boys, Children

All the ugly and wonderful things Bryn Greenwood · 2016 · ★ 4.0 · 349p · ≈ 11h · Moderate "As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing… Shares: Children, Bildungsromans

Great Expectations Charles Dickens · 1861 · ★ 3.8 · 546p · ≈ 18h · Challenging Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (the book is a bildungsroman; a coming-of-age story). It is Dickens' second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Jim the boy Tony Earley · 2000 · ★ 3.9 · 227p · ≈ 7h · Moderate A fatherless ten-year-old boy comes of age in a Depression-era, southern farming community in this charming and humorous debut novel.A New York Times Notable Book of the Year"Rich and satisfying . . . A novel that perfectly captures the innocence and confusion and wonder of childhood." —Chicago TribuneHailed as one of those rare works with the power to enchant readers of all ages, this luminous… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Lord of the Flies William Golding · 1954 · ★ 3.9 · 222p · ≈ 7h · Moderate Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize–winning British author William Golding. The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves. Themes include the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality. The novel has been generally well… Shares: Boys, Children

Boy Swallows Universe Trent Dalton · 2018 · ★ 4.3 · 472p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Raw, whimsical, existential, heartbreaking, modern mythology Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

A fine dark line Joe R. Lansdale · 2003 · ★ 4.1 · 307p · ≈ 10h · Moderate It is the summer of 1958 in Dewmont, Texas, a town the great American postwar boom passed by. The kids listen idly to rockabilly on the radio and waste their weekends at the Dairy Queen. And an undetected menace simmers under the heat that clings to the skin like molasses... For thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchell, the end of innocence comes with his discovery of the mysterious long-ago demise of… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Midnight Whispers V.C. Andrews · 1991 · ★ 3.9 · 440p · ≈ 14h · Moderate HAPPY AND INNOCENT, DAWN'S DAUGHTER CHRISTIE HAS GROWN UP IN THE SAFEST, MOST LOVING OF HOMES... Yet Christie can't help feeling as if a dark cloud hovers over Cutler's Cove... a cloud whose origins lie in her family's troubled history, and the many questions no one, not even Dawn, will answer. Only one person can always chase away her blues: Gavin, Daddy Jimmy's young and handsome… Shares: Bildungsromans, New york

Brewster Mark Slouka · 2013 · ★ 3.9 · 288p · ≈ 9h · Moderate It is 1968, and 16-year-old Jon and his friends form a tight friendship in which they find in each other everything they lack at home and plot to leave their dead-end town. The plot contains pervasive profanity, sexual situations, and graphic violence. Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

The real diary of a real boy Henry A. Shute · 1902 · ★ 3.0 · 194p · ≈ 6h · Challenging The diary of an exuberant and mischievous eleven-year-old boy growing up in the town of Exeter, N.H., in the 1860's. Shares: Boys, Children

The angel of darkness Caleb Carr · 1997 · ★ 4.1 · 640p · ≈ 21h · Moderate In one of the most critically acclaimed novels of the year, Caleb Carr-- bestselling author of The Alienist--pits Dr. Laszlo Kreizler and his colleagues against a murderer as evil as the darkest night. . . .From the Paperback edition. Shares: Children, New york

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