Riot Recommendation

45 Of Your Favorite Books About Families

S. Zainab Williams

Executive Director, Content

S. Zainab would like to think she bleeds ink but the very idea makes her feel faint. She writes fantasy and horror, and is currently clutching a manuscript while groping in the dark. Find her on Twitter: @szainabwilliams.

This Riot Recommendation for books about families is sponsored by HarperAudio, publisher of Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder is now available in digital audio! Listen to excerpts from all nine audiobooks, performed by Cherry Jones, plus the playing of “Pa’s fiddle” by Paul Woodiel: https://soundcloud.com/harperaudio_us/sets/little-house-series


Whether they’re about being shipwrecked on a desert island, the lives of sisters, or getting by in 1940s Brooklyn, family stories present the familiar and relatable, often alongside the exceptional and uncanny.

We asked you to share your favorite books about families, and you responded. Here are 45 of your favorites!

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Watership Down by Richard Adams

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Roots by Alex Haley

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Bigot Hall by Steve Aylett

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

A Bridge Between by Velia Pola

Crawling: A Father’s First Year by Elisha Cooper

Don’t Block the Blessings by Patti LaBelle

Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family by Condoleezza Rice

Farewell, My Beijing by Chi Newman

From Ashes to Africa by Josh and Amy Bottomly

Gift of a Lifetime by Sue Batton Leonard

Life On the Color Line by Gregory Howard Williams

Not the Mother I Remember by Amber Lea Starfire

Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

Sweet Summer by Bebe Moore Campbell

The Last Blind Date by Linda Yellin

The Lobster Chronicles by Linda Greenlaw

When We Were Colored: A Mother’s Story by Eva Rutland

You Have No Idea by Vanessa Williams and Helen Williams

Family Matters And More: Stories Of My Life In Soviet Russia by Sol Tetelbaum

Funny In Farsi: A Memoir Of Growing Up Iranian In America by Firoozeh Dumas

The Black Girl Next Door: A Memoir by Jennifer Baszile

The Kitchen Sink Papers: My Life as a Househusband by Mike McGrady

The Life and Laughs of an At-Home Mom by Chris Liefer

A Hamster is Missing in Washington, D.C. by Ed Spivey Jr.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang

A Painted House by John Grisham

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Wonder by Raquel J. Palacio

Want even more books about families? We got you with this list of 100 must-read books.  

Save