Fishing is the rare thing a child gets invited into long before they are any good at it. Someone hands over a rod, points at the water, and then—on purpose—nothing happens for a very long time. That is the design, and it is why the fish is almost never the interesting part of a fishing book. The interesting part is the dark drive to the water, the grandfather who does not say much until the line is in, the family that fishes because supper depends on it rather than because the weekend does, and the half-second when the rod tip bends and every rule about being quiet is abandoned at once.
Drawing from Bookroo’s collection of 105 fishing books, our editors chose thirteen that are worth the wait: a Caldecott Honor about a father and son fishing before dawn for food, a Newbery Honor set in the Florida scrub, a nearly wordless morning that turns into a whale rescue, a novel in verse about a little sister who out-fishes her brother, and a First Salmon Ceremony on the Northwest Coast. Start with the shortlist, then use the shelves below—picture books for the three-to-eight crowd, and chapter books and middle grade for readers ready to spend a whole novel on the water.
