Young Children & Children
• Ronda and David Armitage’s picture book The Lighthouse Keeper’s Christmas published by Scholastic Press; 36 pages
• Arielle North Olson’s Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter published by Mystic Seaport; 32 pages; review “While Father is away for weeks, Miranda has to keep the lamps burning in the lighthouse.” Ages 4-8.
• Gail Gibbons’ Beacons of Light Lighthouses published by William Morrow & Co Library; 32 pages; review “A survey of lighthouses and how they work in simple text and pictures.” Ages Baby-Preschool.
• Ronda and David Armitage’s picture book The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch published by Scholastic Press; 32 pages
• Deborah Hopkinson’s Birdie’s Lighthouse published by Aladdin Paperbacks; 32 pages; review “The diary of a ten-year-old girl who moves with her family in 1855 from a town on the Maine coast to rugged Turtle Island where her father is to be the lighthouse keeper.” Ages 4-8.
• Peter and Connie Roop’s Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie published by Lerner Publishing Group; 56 pages; review “In the winter of 1856, a storm delays the lighthouse keeper’s return to an island off the coast of Maine, and his daughter Abbie must keep the lights burning by herself.” Ages 4-8.
• Sue Stainton’s The Lighthouse Cat published by HarperCollins Publishers; review “When a fishing boat is caught in a storm, a lighthouse cat named Little Mackerel gathers other cats to try to help out.” ages 4-7.
• Robert N. Munsch’s Lighthouse: A Story of Remembrance published by Cartwheel; 32 pages; review “After her grandfather’s funeral, Sarah wakes her father in the middle of the night so they can go to the lighthouse her grandfather loved and remember other night-time visits there.” Ages 4-8.
• Ann Fearrington’s counting book Who Sees the Lighthouse? published by G.P. Putnam; 32 pages; review “In this cumulative rhyme, lighthouses from around the United States are observed by one sailor, two pilots, three gulls, and more.” Ages 4-8.
• Cynthia Rylant’s The Storm published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; 79 pages; review”Pandora the cat becomes a lighthouse keeper and saves the life of Seabold the dog, and together the two of them create a family with three young mice rescued from the sea.” Ages 4-8.
The Berenstain Bears and the Haunted Lighthouse published by Random House; 87 pages; review “When the Berenstain bears vacation in an abandoned lighthouse, mysterious things start to happen.” Ages 4-8.
• Angeli Perrow’s Lighthouse Dog to the Rescue published by Down East Books; 32 pages; review “A fictionalized account of how Spot, a springer spaniel living on Penobscot Bay in the 1930’s, loves to ring the lighthouse bell, and uses that skill to guide the mailboat safely through a storm.” Ages Baby-Preschool.
• Anita Lobel’s One Lighthouse, One Moon published by Greenwillow Books; 48 pages; review “Presents the days of the week, the months of the year, and numbers from one to ten through the activities of a cat and people in and around a lighthouse.” Ages 4-8.
• Kathleen Karr’s The Lighthouse Mermaid published by Hyperion Books for Children; 57 pages; review “Kate, who lives in a lighthouse and often dreams that she is a mermaid, has a chance to rescue two real mermaids one stormy night.” Ages 8-9.
• Hildegarde Hoyt Swift’s The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge published by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.; 64 pages; review “A little lighthouse on the Hudson River regains its pride when it finds out that it is still useful and has an important job to do.” Ages Baby-Preschool.
• Debby L. Carter’s Clipper published by Harper & Row; review “During a terrible storm a lonely puppy lighthouse keeper has a visitor who turns out to be just the friend he is looking for.”
• Iris Van Rynbach’s Safely to Shore: America’s Lighthouses published by Charlesbridge Publishing; 32 pages; review “What lighthouse was the first built in the United States and still has live-in keepers? Discover the answer to this and many more amazing facts about lighthouses around the U.S.” Ages 4-8.
• John A. Minahan’s Abigail’s Drum published by Pippin Press; 64 pages; review “During the War of 1812, when British soldiers threaten the town of Scituate, Massachusetts, young Rebecca Bates and her sister Abigail, daughters of the local lighthouse keeper, find a way to save both him and the town.” Ages 4-8.
• Brenda Z. Guiberson’s Lighthouses: Watchers at Sea published by Henry Holt; 70 pages; review “Recounts the history of lighthouses from the struggle to build invincible towers, through heroic rescues of lost ships, to the haunted tales surrounding these isolated structures.” Ages 4-8.
Youth & Young Adult
• Thomas Kinkade’s Katherine’s Story: A Cape Light novel published by HarperCollins; 165 pages; review “In 1905, while pursuing her dreams of becoming an artist, the twelve-year-old daughter of the Cape Light lighthouse keeper learns the value of family, home, and friendship.” Ages 9-12.
• Peter Hill’s Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper published by Canongate U.S.; 275 pages; review “In 1973, Glasgow-born Hill dropped out of art school to train as a lighthouse keeper at a series of remote outposts off Scotland’s coast.”
• Susan Fletcher’s Walk Across the Sea published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers; 224 pages; review ” In late nineteenth-century California, when Chinese immigrants are being driven out or even killed for fear they will take jobs from whites, fifteen-year-old Eliza Jane McCully defies the townspeople and her lighthouse-keeper father to help a Chinese boy who has been kind to her.” Ages 9-12.
• Laura E. Williams’ The Mystery of the Dark Lighthouse published by Scholastic Inc.; 117 pages; review “An old lighthouse full of secrets…Find the clues…solve the mystery of the dark lighthouse!” Ages 9-12.
• Karen Hesse’s A Light in the Storm: The Civil War Diary of Amelia Martin published by Scholastic; 169 pages; review “In 1860 and 1861, while working in her father’s lighthouse on an island off the coast of Delaware, fifteen-year-old Amelia records in her diary how the Civil War is beginning to devastate her divided state.”
• Candace Fleming’s Women of the Lights published by Albert Whitman; 71 pages; review “Chronicles the lives of women who lived and worked in lighthouses, braving seas and storms, rescuing people from icy waters, and lovingly caring for their lights.”
• Katherine A. Kirkpatrick’s Keeping the Good Light published by Delacorte Press; 240 pages; review “Bored with living in a New York lighthouse at the turn of the twentieth century, sixteen-year-old Eliza seeks a teaching position away from home.” Ages Young Adult.
• Michael Berenstain’s The Lighthouse Book published by D. McKay Co.; review “Examines the origins, distinctive features, and functions of lighthouses.”
• Mary Louise Clifford and J.Candace Clifford’s Mind the Light, Katie published by Cypress Communications; 144 pages; review “Book has 56 illustrations, mostly black & white archival photographs and contains stories of 33 lady keepers (including Chapters on Fannie Mae Salter of Turkey Point Lighthouse and Josephine Freeman of the old Blackistone Island Light), a glossary, a further reading guide and an index.” ages 12+
• Natalie Kinsey-Warnock’s Gifts from the Sea published by Knopf Books for Young Readers; 128 pages; review “Quila MacFarlane’s father tends the lighthouse on Devil’s Rock, a remote island. When her mother dies, the lonely 12-year-old assumes the role of cook and housekeeper. One day, after a ship goes down, she finds two small mattresses tied together. Inside is a baby. Now the girl has more work than ever, but the baby Celia brings new life to the island, even giving some joy to Quila’s grieving father. Interspersed throughout the novel are details of the lonely, difficult life as a lighthouse keeper in 1858.” Ages 9-12
• Elspeth Campbell Murphy’s Mystery of the Haunted Lighthouse (Three Cousins Detective Club, #7) published by Bethany House Publishers; 63 pages;review “The Three Cousins Detective Club is made up of cousins Titues, Timothy and Sarah-Jane. Sarah-Jane’s father takes them to check out a lighthouse that is for sale. They come to believe it is haunted, but by whom?” Ages 9-12.
• Laurie Krebs’ A day in the Life of a Colonial Lighthouse Keeper published by Rosen Pub. Group’s PowerKids Press; 24 pages; Ages 9-12
• Julia L. Sauer’s The Light at Tern Rock published by Puffin Books; 62 pages; review “Ronnie and his aunt take care of the lighthouse while the keeper is on vacation, and when he does not return as expected, they discover that Tern Rock is a perfect place to spend Christmas.” Ages 9-12