Authors Similar like Gary Soto

Ann Howard Creel

Ann Howard Creel writes guaranteed heart-wrenching historical fiction. In her novels, strong female characters face unforeseen obstacles and then have to make life-changing decisions.

After first writing for children, she turned her attention to Historical Fiction. Her first novel for adults, THE MAGIC OF ORDINARY DAYS, was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie on CBS. Her recent titles have been Kindle bestsellers and include WHILE YOU WERE MINE, THE WHISKEY SEA, THE UNCERTAIN SEASON, THE RIVER WIDOW, and MERCY ROAD.

She now writes full-time. Ann's main characters are always strong women facing high-stakes situations and having to make life-changing decisions. Her historical settings have ranged from Victorian-era Galveston to World War

Buy books on Amazon

Karen English

Karen English is a Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winner and the author of the Nikki and Deja and The Carver Chronicles series. Her novels have been praised for their accessible writing, authentic characters, and satisfying storylines. She is a former elementary school teacher and lives in Los Angeles, California.

Buy books on Amazon

Thomishia Booker

Dr. Thomishia Booker is CEO/ Owner of Hey Carter! Incorporated. She began writing her first series in 2016 called "Hey Carter! Children's Book Series. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion in children's entertainment. Her book "Brown Boy Joy" has been featured in Essence, NBC, and Netflix Family. Her book series focuses on building self confidence in pride among children 3-5 years old. She has set a clear vision to curate animated series filled with "Happy Black children loving their happy Black Lives!"

Earning a Masters in Social Work and Doctorate in Education Counseling Psychology she spent the early part of her career working in Early Childhood Mental Health. Her background serves as a foundation for writing books focused on bu

Buy books on Amazon

Pleasant DeSpain

Pleasant DeSpain is a world traveler, storyteller and author of 18 published books,and more than 350 stories. He's currently living in Northern Thailand as well as the USA, while working on a collection of stories from his 70 plus years of life and adventures. The goal of the new work is to share his practical as well as spiritual journey. Pleasant does not have answers or truths for others, but he has many good stories to tell!

His many collections of folk and fairy tales, legends and original tales, most of which are published by August House Publishers, Atlanta, Georgia, continue to be in circulation and used in schools throughout the United States and other countries. These stories endure and will always be relevant in our various cultu

Buy books on Amazon

Bonnie Dobkin

Here's everything you wanted to know about me...and probably a lot you didn't.

THE BASICS. I'm older than I act, red haired (usually), and excessively fond of chocolate. I work in textbook publishing, so I'm partially to blame for killer backpack syndrome. Sorry.

I love to sing, and have been known to act. I'd like to be on Broadway, but the closest I've ever come was reality TV. Finally, I'm the mother of three exceptionally handsome and talented sons. I say this with the sole purpose of embarrassing them. My husband is a dentist who really would like to be Doc Holliday, and I'm the love object of a 90-pound mutt of dubious heritage.

Buy books on Amazon

Betsy Byars

Betsy Byars was an American author of children's books. She wrote over sixty books for young people. Her first novel was published in 1962. Her novel Summer of the Swans won the 1971 Newbery Medal. She also received a National Book Award for Young People's Literature for The Night Swimmers and an Edgar Award for Wanted ... Mud Blossom!!

Daughters Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers are also writers.

Buy books on Amazon

Julia Alvarez

Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia

Buy books on Amazon

Arnold Lobel

Arnold Stark Lobel was a popular American author of children's books. Among his most popular books are those of the Frog and Toad series, and Mouse Soup, which won the Garden State Children's Book Award from the New Jersey Library Association.

Buy books on Amazon

Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley (b. 1952) is the author of the bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins, as well as numerous other works, from literary fiction and science fiction to a young adult novel and political monographs. His short fiction has been widely published, and his nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and the Nation, among other publications. Mosley is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Grammy, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in New York City.

Buy books on Amazon

Mitali Perkins

Mitali Perkins has written many books for young readers as well as a couple for adults, including You Bring the Distant Near (nominated for the National Book Award) Rickshaw Girl (a NYPL best 100 Book for children in the past 100 years, film adaptation at rickshawgirlmovie.com), Bamboo People (an ALA Top 10 YA novel), and Forward Me Back to You, which won the South Asia Book Award for Younger Readers. Her newest novel, Hope in the Valley, received five starred reviews and was selected as a Best Book for Young Readers by Kirkus and Book Page. She currently writes and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area: mitaliperkins.com.

Buy books on Amazon

Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award. A graduate of Rutgers College, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is the cofounder of Voices of Our Nation Workshop.

Buy books on Amazon

Alan Gratz

Alan Gratz is the bestselling author of a number of novels for young readers. His 2017 novel Refugee has spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, and is the winner of 14 state awards. Its other accolades include the Sydney Taylor Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction Award, a Charlotte Huck Award Honor, and a Malka Penn Award for Human Rights Honor. Refugee was also a Global Read Aloud Book for 2018.

Alan’s novel Grenade debuted at number three on the New York Times bestseller list, and his most recent book, Allies, debuted at number two on the list and received four starred reviews. His other books include Prisoner B-3087, which was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Readers pick and

Buy books on Amazon

Loreth Anne White

Loreth Anne White is an Amazon Charts, Washington Post, and Bild bestselling author of thrillers, mysteries, and suspense. With over 3 million books sold around the world, she is an ITW thriller award finalist, a three-time RITA finalist, an overall Daphne du Maurier Award winner, Arthur Ellis finalist, and winner of multiple industry awards.

A recovering journalist who has worked in both South Africa and Canada, she now calls Canada home. She resides in the Pacific Northwest, dividing time between Victoria on Vancouver Island, a ski resort in the Coast Mountains, and a rustic lakeside cabin in the Cariboo.

When she’s not writing or dreaming up plots, you will find her on the lakes, in the ocean, or on the trails with her dog where she tries

Buy books on Amazon

Teresa Toten

My earliest and most fervent ambition was to grow up and take my rightful place among the other mermaids. When cruel and insensitive adults crushed that dream by insisting that mermaids did not exist, I settled on the more mature aspiration of becoming an intergalactic astronaut. Then I realized that math would likely be involved. So, in the end, I went to Trinity College at the University of Toronto where I got a BA and then an MA in Political Economy taking great care not to take a single English or Creative Writing class. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was never ever going to be a writer. That would be silly, fanciful and well, unrealistic. And then I started to write...

Buy books on Amazon

Kwame Alexander

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and New York Times Bestselling author of 21 books, including The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American literature for Children, the Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor, The NCTE Charlotte Huck Honor, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, and the Passaic Poetry Prize. Kwame writes for children of all ages. His other works include Surf's Up, a picture book; Booked, a middle grade novel; and He Said She Said, a YA novel.

Kwame believes that poetry can change the world, and he uses it to inspire and empower young people through his PAGE TO STAGE Writing and Publishing Program released by Scholastic. A regular speaker at colleges and confere

Buy books on Amazon

Pam Muñoz Ryan

Pam Muñoz Ryan is the author of the New York Times Best Seller, ECHO, a 2016 Newbery Honor Book, and winner of the Kirkus Prize. She has written over forty books for young people—picture books, early readers, and middle grade and young adult novels. She the author recipient of the NEA's Human and Civil Rights Award, the Virginia Hamilton Literary Award, the Willa Cather Award, the Pura Belpré medal, the PEN USA award, and many others. Her novels include Esperanza Rising, Riding Freedom, Becoming Naomi León, Paint the Wind, The Dreamer, and Echo. She was born and raised in Bakersfield, California, holds a bachelor's and master's degree from San Diego State University and lives in north San Diego county with her family.

Buy books on Amazon

Donalyn Miller

Donalyn Miller has worked with a variety of upper elementary and middle school students and currently teaches fifth grade at O.A. Peterson Elementary in Forth Worth, Texas. In her popular book, The Book Whisperer, Donalyn reflects on her journey to become a reading teacher and describes how she inspires and motivates her middle school students to read 40 or more books a year. In her latest book, Reading in the Wild, Donalyn collects responses from 900 adult readers and uses this information to teach lifelong reading habits to her students. Donalyn currently facilitates the community blog, The Nerdy Book Club and co-writes a monthly column for Scholastic’s Principal-to-Principal Newsletter. Her articles about teaching and reading have appear

Buy books on Amazon

Chevy Stevens

CHEVY STEVENS lives on Vancouver Island with her husband and daughter. When she’s not working on her next book, she’s spending time with her family and their two dogs. Chevy's debut novel, STILL MISSING, was a New York Times bestseller and won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel. Her books, including THOSE GIRLS which Stephen King called "incredibly scary" have been published in more than thirty countries. Her eighth novel, THE HITCHHIKERS, is out Oct.7/25

Buy books on Amazon

Daphne Benedis-Grab

Daphne Benedis-Grab is the author of four middle grade books and two books for teens. She lives and writes in New York City.

Buy books on Amazon

Jeff Zentner

Jeff Zentner is the author of The Serpent King, which Kirkus Reviews named one of the best books of the 21st Century, as well as In the Wild Light, Goodbye Days, Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee, Colton Gentry's Third Act, and Sunrise Nights, coauthored with Brittany Cavallaro. He has two books—Wayfarers and Love, Like Apples—forthcoming in 2026.

Among other honors, he has won the ALA’s William C. Morris Award, the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award twice, the Muriel Becker Award, the International Literacy Association Award, been longlisted twice for the Carnegie Medal, and is a two-time Southern Book Prize finalist.

His books have been translated into fifteen languages and been featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, and in Vanity Fa

Buy books on Amazon

Ashley Herring Blake

Ashley Herring Blake is a reader, writer, and mom to two boisterous boys. She holds a Master’s degree in teaching and loves coffee, arranging her books by color, and cold weather. She is the author of the young adult novels Suffer Love, How to Make a Wish, and Girl Made of Stars (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), the middle grade novels Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World, The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James, and Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea (Little, Brown), and the adult romance novels Delilah Green Doesn't Care and Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail (Berkley). Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World was a Stonewall Honor Book, as well as a Kirkus, School Library Journal, NYPL, and NPR Best Book of 2018. Her YA novel Girl Made of Stars was a Lambda Literar

Buy books on Amazon

Kristen LaValley

Kristen LaValley is a writer and storyteller whose words offer a refreshing perspective on faith and spirituality and resonate with those who carry tension in their faith. She offers insights that intersect doubt and belief, hope and suffering, beauty and heartache. With a deep love for the Christian faith and a willingness to explore its complexities, Kristen's writing offers nuanced conversations that challenge readers to think deeply and wrestle with important questions. Kristen lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Zach, and their five children.

Buy books on Amazon

Julia Walton

Julia Walton received her MFA in creative writing from Chapman University. When she's not reading or baking cookies, she's indulging in her profound love of Swedish Fish, mechanical pencils, and hobbit-sized breakfasts. Julia lives in Huntington Beach, California, with her husband and daughter.

Buy books on Amazon

Tiffany D. Jackson

Tiffany D. Jackson is the New York Times Bestselling author of YA novels including the Coretta Scott King — John Steptoe New Talent Award-winning Monday’s Not Coming, the NAACP Image Award-nominated Allegedly, Let Me Hear A Rhyme, and her 2020 title GROWN. She received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University, her master of arts in media studies from the New School, and has over a decade in TV/Film experience. The Brooklyn native is a lover of naps, cookie dough, and beaches, currently residing in the borough she loves, most likely multitasking.

Buy books on Amazon

Kelly Yang

Kelly Yang is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of the FRONT DESK series, winner of the 2019 Asian Pacific American Award for Children's Literature. Her books include FRONT DESK, THREE KEYS, ROOM TO DREAM, PARACHUTES, NEW FROM HERE, and other middle grade and young adult novels. She was born in China and grew up in Los Angeles. She went to college at the age of 13 and graduated from UC Berkeley at the age of 17 and Harvard Law School at the age of 20. After law school, she founded The Kelly Yang Project, a writing and debating program for children in Asia. Prior to becoming a novelist, she wrote for many years for the South China Morning Post, The New York Times, Washington Post, and the Atlantic. She lives in Los Angeles

Buy books on Amazon

Laura Taylor Namey

Laura Taylor Namey is the New York Times and international bestselling author of young adult fiction including Reese's Book Club pick A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. A proud Cuban-American, she can be found hunting for vintage treasures and wishing she was in London or Paris. She lives in San Diego with her husband and two children.

Buy books on Amazon

Paulette Kennedy

Originally from the Missouri Ozarks, Paulette Kennedy now lives with her family in a quiet suburb of Los Angeles.

When she's not writing or reading, she enjoys tending to her garden, knitting, and finding unique vintage treasures at thrift stores and flea markets.

As a history lover, she can get lost for days in her research—learning everything she can about the places in her stories and the experiences her characters might have had in the past.

This dedication to research infuses her world-building with realistic detail and creates a cinematic, immersive experience for the reader.

Paulette’s next novel is The Devil and Mrs. Davenport, a domestic gothic set in the 1950s about a homemaker who develops psychic abilities after a viral illness.

Buy books on Amazon

Stephanie Campisi

Stephanie Campisi is an Australian-born children's book author living in the US. She has slept in a cemetery, has a friend who was bullied by a prince, and has lived in a haunted house in a haunted town. Two of the three statements in the previous sentence are true. Or maybe they all are.

Stephanie is the author of the picture books Luis and Tabitha, Very Lulu, Five Sisters and the forthcoming Quacks Like a Duck and Stacks of Axolotls.

Buy books on Amazon

Annie Fox

ANNIE FOX is an author of books for children and teens. Annie loves making art, baking with sourdough, hiking in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband David and Gracie the Dog. Her first novel The Little Things that Kill: A YA Friendship Afterlife Apology Tour was published in 2024. Her most recent novel (YA sci-fi), Leeta Simtar: A Life on Two Planets (The Unauthorized Biography) was published in 2025. Both books are available wherever books are sold in ebook, audiobook, and print. Follow Annie on Bluesky: @anniefox.com

Annie's previous books include picture books (People Are Like Lollipops and reissued, Are You My Friend, Are We Lost), a parenting book (Teaching Kids to be Good People: Progressive Parenting for the 21st Century), and

Buy books on Amazon

Gary Soto

Total similar authors (29)