If you’re curious about the folklore behind werewolves and other shapeshifters, this book list is a good way to wet your feet. The good thing is that many of these books are also part of a series, so you can really delve into the characters’ lives over a longer timeframe!

The series includes Finding the Fox, Running the Risk, Going to Ground, Dowsing the Dead, Stirring the Storm, and Feather and Fang. There are a plethora of sorcerers to choose from in this 13-book series, but Polgara has always been my favourite. She’s the only woman in a brotherhood of sorcerers, but she’s also strong, smart, and can hold her own not against other people, but against gods as well. In the final book in the series we see her in a number of roles, from child and twin to her mortal sister to the most powerful politician in the world, giving a full sense of who she is outside of her abilities. But add in her tendency to shift into a snowy white owl, and she’s an unstoppable force. 2. Remus Lupin, from the Harry Potter series by JK RowlingReading fantasy books that include eerie shapeshifters is a great way of looking at things from a different perspective. For example, British Library acclaims Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as an insightful look at the tension between one’s public and private self, as well as between social duty and personal desire. The Shapeshifter is a series of books by Ali Sparkes. The series follows the life of a boy named Dax Jones and is primarily set in England, firstly in the Cornwall area and later in the Lake District. During the first book, Finding the Fox, Dax discovers his ability to shapeshift into a fox, and is whisked away from his hated stepfamily by the government. Dax is one of a number of Colas (Children of Limitless Ability), young people who possess amazing supernatural powers. Some of his classmates are able to heal, move objects with their mind, communicate with the dead, or see into the future. These children attend a school called Tregarren College in Cornwall, which is later destroyed by a tidal wave, and the children move to Fenton Lodge, in the Lake District. Shapeshifter fiction concerns men and women who are able to — or cursed to — periodically change into animal form or mimic other human appearances. Werewolf fiction is the most common variant of this sub-genre. Looking for a love triangle in your shifter romance? Arizona Tape has you covered. Wolf’s Whisper is the first in a lesbian paranormal series that follows Akira, a wolf-shifter on the prowl for a sacred stone. Instead, she finds not one but TWO (!!) soulmates: Ashleigh and Aspen. Akira wants Ashleigh, but Aspen won’t give up without some scheming of her own. Hot damn, the drama abounds! YA Shifter Romance Books Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls #1) by Maggie Stiefvater Curses - main character gains a coat that allows her to turn into a fox, runs around and experiences things from a fox's point of view sometimes.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness - series set in Bronze Age, about a boy who can talk to wolves and later finds out he can "spirit walk" into other being's bodies. Similar to animorphs in that he has to grapple with their instinct, but it's more spiritual than scientific, e.g. who's soul is stronger. Dr. Franklin's Island - kids are slowly transformed into a manta ray and a bird, explores both physical and mental changes.White Cat - hard to explain without spoiling it, but shapeshifting plays a major part later in the book. It's hardly a focus but the world was interesting enough to carry it.