Books like 'If I Ever Get Out of Here'
Readers who enjoyed If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century historical-fiction realistic indigenous-mc friendship bullying poc-mc family coming-of-age
-
The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron
Rated: 4.54 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe extraordinary story of Stefania Podgorska, a Polish teenager who chose bravery and humanity by hiding thirteen Jews in her attic during WWII -- from #1 New York Times bestselling author Sharon Cameron.One knock at the door, and Stefania has a choice to make..Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction realistic 20th-century -
The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBorn into a basket of clean sheets—ruining a perfectly good load of laundry—Emmeline never quite fit in on her family's rural Nova Scotian farm. After suffering multiple losses in the First World War, her family became so heavy with grief, toxicity, and mental illness that Emmeline felt their weight smothering her. And so, she fled across the Atlantic and built her life in England...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family realistic humor friendship fiction historical literary-fiction -
Heaven to Betsy & Betsy in Spite of Herself by Vera Neville
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHeaven to Betsy : Betsy Ray is loving every minute of freshman year at Deep Valley High-with new and old friends all around her...not to mention boys! But most intriguing of all is the one she and her best friend, Tacy, dub "the Tall Dark Stranger...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age friendship high-school historical-fiction 20th-century book classics -
Betsy Was a Junior & Betsy and Joe by Vera Neville
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBetsy Was a Junior: It's the best school year ever, especially now that charming, funny Tib Muller is back in Deep Valley. But when her crowd gets into trouble, Betsy's best year could turn out to be her worst...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age friendship high-school historical-fiction humor 20th-century book -
-
The Lost Letters of Aisling: A Novel by Cynthia Ellingsen
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA woman faces the past she fled in a heart-stirring novel about unforgettable love and indomitable courage by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Lighthouse Keeper.Rainey’s grandmother makes a startling Take me home. To Ireland, the country she fled post–World War II. Though they’re inseparably close, Rainey knows few of her grandmother’s secrets...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family coming-of-age friendship fiction historical ww2 20th-century -
The Children of Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWelcome to Noisy Village! Go crayfishing in the summer at Nocken, "dipping in the pot" at Christmastime with Lisa and Karl, and join Britta and Anna who know the best way to go about "nutting" for the New Year...Categorized as:
children family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
Betsy's Wedding by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBetsy returns from Europe to marry Joe Willard—and soon learns that beloved friend Tacy is expecting a baby! It's wartime in America, but Betsy, Joe, and their wonderful circle of friends brave their hardships together...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic 20th-century -
The Colours of Love by Rita Bradshaw
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCan love survive when all is lost? England is at war, but nothing can dim land girl Esther Wynford's happiness at marrying the love of her life - fighter pilot Monty Grant. Their short honeymoon results in a baby, but on the birth of her daughter, Joy, Esther's world falls apart... -
Far From Home by Lyn Andrews
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs daughter of the blacksmith in her tiny Irish village, sixteen-year-old Kitty Doyle knows little of the ways of the world, but she has to grow up fast when her widowed father re-marries and she has no choice but to leave the family home.Luckily there's work to be found over the water in 1920s Liverpool and soon Kitty has a job in a grocer's, where she also catches the eye of the owner...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFirst published in 1956, this much sought-after autobiographical recollection of Truman Capote's rural Alabama boyhood has become a modern-day classic. We are proud to be reprinting this warm and delicately illustrated edition of A Christmas Memory--"a tiny gem of a holiday story" (School Library Journal, starred review)...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic university -
Madeline and the Bad Hat by Ludwig Bemelmans
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Spanish Ambassador has moved next door, and Madeline knows right away that his son, Pepito, is bad news... -
Heaven to Betsy by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHigh School is Heaven! It's Betsy Ray's freshman year at Deep Valley High School, and she and her best childhood chum, Tacy Kelly, are loving every minute...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction realistic 20th-century -
Betsy and Joe by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMade for Each Other? Betsy Ray has always thought that she and the fascinating Joe Willard would make the perfect couple. Now, in her senior year at Deep Valley High School, it looks as though she'll get her wish. As soon as Joe returns from his summer job in North Dakota, he's on the Rays' porch with sweet words for Betsy...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction realistic 20th-century book -
Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsWith Father in Washington and Cuffy, their housekeeper, away visiting a sick cousin, almost anything might happen to the Melendy kids left behind at the Four-Story Mistake. In the Melendy family, adventures are inevitable: Mr...Categorized as:
children family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
-
Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsClad ln a doeskin, alone and unafraid, she stood straight and proud before the onrushlng Forces of America’s destiny: Sacajawea. child of a Shoshoni chief, lone woman on Lewis and Clark‘s historic trek-beautiful spear of a dying nation.She knew many men, walked many miles...Categorized as:
children historical-fiction indigenous-mc poc-mc realistic 20th-century action-adventure book -
The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsEverything’s changing for twelve-year-old Marlee. Her brother’s gone off to college and her sister’s moved out of the room they’ve shared since Marlee was born. To Marlee, it feels like her whole world’s falling apart. On top of all that, she’s starting middle school and has to break in new teachers—teachers who don’t yet know Marlee doesn’t talk...Categorized as:
bullying children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction poc-mc realistic -
Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWelcome back to Deep Valley Emily Webster, an orphan living with her grandfather, is not like the other girls her age in Deep Valley, Minnesota. The gulf between Emily and her classmates widens even more when they graduate from Deep Valley High School in 1912. Emily longs to go off to college with everyone else, but she can't leave her grandfather...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction 20th-century book -
Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShorty and his family, along with thousands of Japanese Americans, are sent to an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fighting the heat and dust of the desert, Shorty and his father decide to build a baseball diamond and form a league in order to boost the spirits of the internees. Shorty quickly learns that he is playing not only to win, but to gain dignity and self-respect as well...Categorized as:
bullying children family friendship historical-fiction poc-mc realistic 20th-century -
Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBetsy Ray is now a sophomore, and she and her Crowd are in the thick of things at Deep Valley High. Whether she's carrying out her duties as class secretary, trying to charm the exasperating Joe Willard, or juggling the demands of rhetoricals, football games, parties, and exams, Betsy's got her hands full. She should be happy... but she is dissatisfied...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction realistic 20th-century book -
Let the Circle Be Unbroken by Mildred D. Taylor
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA sequel to the universally acclaimed Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, continuing in the story of the Logan family in Mississippi during the Depression. The children, especially Cassie, are happy in their warm, stable family but outside is a climate of fear and tension. Their friend T.J. goes on trial for murder and stands before an all-white jury...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family historical-fiction poc-mc realistic teens 20th-century -
Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThree of a Kind Betsy and Tacy are best friends. Then Tib moves into the neighborhood and the three of them start to play together. The grown-ups think they will quarrel, but they don't. Sometimes they quarrel with Betsy's and Tacy's bossy big sisters, but they never quarrel among themselves.They are not as good as they might be... -
The Story That Cannot Be Told by J. Kasper Kramer
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA powerful middle grade debut that weaves together folklore and history to tell the story of a girl finding her voice and the strength to use it during the final months of the Communist regime in Romania in 1989.Ileana has always collected stories...Categorized as:
children family friendship historical-fiction poc-mc realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
The Lightning Queen by Laura Resau
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen Esma and her caravan come to Teo's Oaxacan village in the mid-1900's, she sparks new ideas and life. Can the two friends make their impossible fortune come true and save each other when no one else can? Historical fiction meets magical realism in this award-winning middle-grade novel by acclaimed author Laura Resau...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction humor indigenous-mc poc-mc -
The Peach Rebellion by Wendelin Van Draanen
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA historical tale of friendship, family, and the power of sisterhood to help heal the wounds of the past and step boldly into the future of post-WWII America.Ginny Rose and Peggy were best friends at seven, picking peaches on hot summer days. Peggy’s family owned the farm, and Ginny Rose’s were pickers, escaping the Oklahoma dust storms...Categorized as:
historical-fiction coming-of-age family friendship poverty realistic romance young-adult -
-
My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWinner of the Mildred L. Batchelder medal for most oustanding children's book in translation.Escaping Nazi Germany on the kindertransport changes one girl's life foreverAt the start of World War II, ten-year-old Franziska Mangold is torn from her family when she boards the kindertransport in Berlin, the train that secretly took nearly 10,000 children out of Nazi territory to safety in England...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction realistic teens -
Assassins by Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEvoking a fraternity of political assassins and would-be assassins across a hundred years of our history, Sondheim and Weidman daringly examine success, failure and the questionable drive for power and celebrity in American society. "Dark, demented humor, as horrifying as it is hilarious... -
Fortune's Daughters by Consuelo Saah Baehr, Nicol Zanzarella
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFaith Simpson is born at the dawn of the twentieth century into a dynasty that gives her everything she will ever need—except her parents’ love and attention. Often misunderstood, she trusts few as she grows up on the family’s manicured Long Island estate. Just twenty-nine miles away, on lower Manhattan’s dirty, crowded streets, Hope Lee’s world is one of poverty and desperation... -
A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"So it is that Vine, Cherokee-born and raised in the early 1900s, trains her eye on a young white man, forsaking her family and their homeland to settle in with Saul's people: his smart-as-a-whip, slow-to-love mother, Esme; his brother Aaron, a gifted banjo player, hot tempered and unpredictable; and Aaron's flightly and chattery Melungeon wife, Aidia...Categorized as:
family friendship historical-fiction indigenous-mc poc-mc realistic 20th-century adult -
Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe charming adventures of the Mama of an immigrant Norwegian family living in San Francisco. This bestselling book inspired the play, motion picture, and television series I Remember Mama...Categorized as:
children family high-school historical-fiction humor 20th-century book children-books -
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery, Jane Urquhart
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsEmily Starr was born with the desire to write. As an orphan living on New Moon Farm, writing helped her face the difficult, lonely times. But now all her friends are going away to high school in nearby Shrewsbury, and her old-fashioned, tyrannical aunt Elizabeth will only let her go if she promises to stop writing! All the same, this is the first step in Emily's climb to success...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction realistic teens -
Betsy Was a Junior by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Best School Year Ever That's the kind of junior year Betsy Ray has planned for herself. And when her childhood friend Tib Muller moves back to Deep Valley, Betsy's sure her perfect year is off to a grand start. With charming, funny Tib around, Crowd doings are more fun than ever -- especially after Betsy starts Okto Delta, the first -- ever sorority at Deep Valley High...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction realistic 20th-century book -
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsBetsy, Tacy, and Tib can't wait to be ten. After all, getting two numbers in your age is the beginning of growing up—exciting things are bound to happen. And they do! The girls fall in love with the King of Spain, perform in the School Entertainment, and for the first time, go all the way over the Big Hill to Little Syria by themselves...Categorized as:
children family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic 20th-century audiobook -
Grenade by Alan Gratz
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsHere it is! The hugely anticipated follow-up to Gratz's NYT bestselling, critically acclaimed phenomenon REFUGEE. This is another searing and heart-pounding look at kids making their way through war.A New York Times bestseller!It's 1945, and the world is in the grip of war.Hideki lives on the island of Okinawa, near Japan...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction poc-mc realistic -
The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Education of Little Tree tells of a boy orphaned very young, who is adopted by his Cherokee grandmother and half-Cherokee grandfather in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the Great Depression...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family high-school historical-fiction humor indigenous-mc poc-mc -
-
Liverpool Lou by Lyn Andrews
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOne of Lyn Andrews' first eight novels, transferring from the original publisher to Headline; already steady sellers, they will be targeted for a huge increase in sales. Aunt Babsey considered herself a cut above her neighbours on Everton Ridge. For one thing she was 'trade'. She taught her children to be respectable, and she ruled her family with a rod of iron...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
The Kudzu Queen by Mimi Herman
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 7 ratings“Funny, sad, and tender… Mimi Herman has written a novel that possesses a true and hard won understanding of the South.” —David Sedaris, author of Happy-Go-Lucky Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T...Categorized as:
historical-fiction realistic family coming-of-age fiction literary-fiction historical audiobook -
4 Years Trapped in My Mind Palace by Johan Twiss
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDiagnosed with a rare form of meningitis, a teenage boy is paralyzed from head to toe--trapped in his own mind. To cope with his imprisonment, he retreats to an imaginary world called his Mind Palace, but the lines between reality and time blur into wild adventures after he gets a new roommate--an old, outspoken, Jewish jazz musician with dementia...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
Friends Forever by Lyn Andrews
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBest friends Bernie and Molly are just seventeen when they set off from Ireland in 1928, heading for Liverpool. They quickly find jobs and rooms; soon both women are in love with local men. Tragically, though, Bernie is widowed when she's still barely an adult, while Molly has chosen a bad 'un and faces the deepest shame when he deserts her... -
The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIt is the early 1970s. Twelve-year-old Joan is sure that she is going to be miserable when her family moves from Connecticut to California. Then she meets a most unusual girl. Sarah prefers to be called "Fox" and lives with her author dad in a rundown house in the middle of the woods...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook by Joyce Lankester Brisley
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe stories of Milly-Molly-Mandy and her family and friends have charmed generations of children since they first appeared in 1925. This collection of twenty-one classic tales about this resourceful and thoughtful little girl reflect with accuracy the dilemmas and challenges of a child's world...Categorized as:
children family friendship historical-fiction realistic 20th-century action-adventure anthologies -
The Queen of Water by María Virginia Farinango, Laura Resau
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBorn in an Andean village in Ecuador, Virginia lives with her large family in a small, earthen-walled dwelling. In her village of indigenas, it is not uncommon to work in the fields all day, even as a child, or to be called a longa tonta- stupid Indian- by members of the ruling class of mestizos, or Spanish descendants...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction indigenous-mc poc-mc -
Elephant Run by Roland Smith
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn 1941, bombs drop from the night skies of London, demolishing the apartment Nick Freestone lives in with his mother. Deciding the situation in England is too unstable, Nick's mother sends him to live with his father in Burma, hoping he will be safer living on the family's teak plantation. But as soon as Nick arrives, trouble erupts in this remote Burmese elephant village...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction poc-mc realistic -
Betsy and the Great World by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNow available for the first time in paperback--the final books in the Betsy-Tacy series. Betsy's childhood dream is finally coming true: she's off to Europe just like she and Tacy planned so long ago. Despite her travels and many adventures, Betsy's heart won't let her forget Joe Willard, her high school sweetheart...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic 20th-century -
In Grandma's Attic by Arleta Richardson
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA young girl delights in her grandmother’s stories of days gone by, sparked by keepsakes and simple questions, Grandma shares marvelous stories of mischief , discovery, and laughter, such as the time she accidentally lost the family buggy. Part of the bestselling Grandma’s Attic series, these charming tales—updated with delightful new illustrations—will whisk you away to another time and place... -
-
La Maravilla by Alfredo Véa
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Buckeye Road wasn't much of a town, just a place where a pocked and pitted road met an invisible street....It was less that unincorporated, it was unknown..."Yet it is here in the desert outside the Phoenix city limits that Alfredo Vea, Jr., finds a world of marvels spilling out of the adobe homes, tar-paper shacks, rusted Cadillacs, and battered trailers that are otherwise known as "Buckeye...Categorized as:
coming-of-age historical-fiction humor indigenous-mc poc-mc university 20th-century adult -
Devil on My Heels by Joyce McDonald
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn 1957 fifteen-year-old Dove, the daughter of a prosperous orange grower in Benevolence, Florida, feels increasingly uneasy after learning of acts of racism against the African American orange pickers by those close to her...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age friendship historical-fiction 20th-century book children-books classics -
Lime Street Blues by Maureen Lee
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the 1960s Liverpool, and the glamorous world of music, is the place to be... -
Island of Shattered Dreams by Chantal T. Spitz
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFinally in English, Island of Shattered Dreams is the first ever novel by an indigenous Tahitian writer. In a lyrical and immensely moving style, this book combines a family saga and a doomed love story, set against the background of French Polynesia in the period leading up to the first nuclear tests...Categorized as:
historical-fiction indigenous-mc poc-mc family fiction 20th-century journey colonization -
The Sun Rose in Paris: Portraits in Blue - Book One by Penny Fields-Schneider
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen a chance foray into the midst of the 1930s Parisian art world ignites passions Jack did not know existed, how can he possibly go home? Jack has been praised all his life for his extraordinary artistic talent and is rarely seen without his sketchpad... -
Carry Me Home by Sandra Kring
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe love of family. The heartbreak of war. The triumph of coming home. 1940. Rural Wisconsin. Sixteen-year-old Earl “Earwig” Gunderman is not like other boys his age. Fiercely protected by his older brother, Earwig sees his town and the world around him through the prism of his own unique understanding. He sees his mother’s sadness and his father’s growing solitude...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.