More like Elemental Secrets
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- Alderley
series4 books1960
similar byfantasycontemporary+2 more
Alan Garner's Alderley books begin with The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960) and The Moon of Gomrath (1963), children's fantasies set around the real Cheshire hill of Alderley Edge and drawn from its local legends. Garner returned to the same setting and characters decades later in Boneland (2012), a far darker novel for adults in which the now-grown Colin, afflicted with amnesia covering his entire childhood, tries to piece together what really happened to him and his sister. The three books span most of Garner's writing life rather than forming one continuous trilogy.
- Five Children Universe
series27 books1902
completed
similar byfantasy+4 more
Two separate modern continuations of E. Nesbit's Psammead stories were written decades apart by different authors: Helen Cresswell's The Return of the Psammead (1992) brings the wish-granting sand fairy back for a new set of children, while Kate Saunders's Five Children on the Western Front (2014) follows the now-grown Lamb and his siblings as the First World War arrives, in a more somber sequel to Nesbit's original trilogy. Neither book is by Nesbit herself, and the two have no direct connection to each other beyond both drawing on her creation. Later writers have kept returning to Nesbit's premise long after her own trilogy ended.
- Young Wizards
series24 books1983
similar byfantasyadventurouscoming of ageour worldcontemporary+2 more
Diane Duane's Young Wizards series begins with thirteen-year-old Nita, bullied and friendless, who borrows a library book on wizardry and discovers it's the real thing: an apprenticeship into a covert order that fights entropy, alongside a classmate named Kit. Across fifteen books published between 1983 and 2019, the two age forward in something close to real time as their missions escalate from New York streets to alien worlds and beyond. The series centers on the wizard's Oath and the idea that magic is a responsibility taken on to slow the universe's decay, not a power to be enjoyed for its own sake.
- James and the Giant Peach
Roald Dahlstandalone novel1961
similar byfantasyadventurouscoming of ageour worldcontemporary+1 more
James and the Giant Peach is a children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The first edition, published by Alfred Knopf, featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. There have been re-illustrated versions of it over the years, drawn by Michael Simeon, Emma Chichester Clark, Lane Smith and Quentin Blake. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1996 which was directed by Henry Selick, and a musical in 2010.
- The Dark Is Rising
series5 books1965
similar byfantasyadventurouscontemporary+2 more
The Dark Is Rising Sequence is a series of five contemporary fantasy novels for older children and young adults that were written by the British author Susan Cooper and published from 1965 to 1977. The first book in the series, Over Sea, Under Stone, was originally conceived as a stand-alone novel, and the sequence gets its name from the second novel in the series, The Dark Is Rising. The Dark Is Rising Sequence is used as an overarching title in several omnibus, boxed-set, and coordinated editions; but the title of The Dark Is Rising is also used for the whole series.
- Tales of Magic
series7 books1954
completed
similar byfantasyour worldcontemporary+2 more
Tales of Magic collects Edward Eager's seven loosely connected children's novels about ordinary kids who stumble into magic in everyday American settings, starting with Half Magic, in which four siblings find a coin that grants exactly half of any wish. Each book follows a different, sometimes overlapping set of children and a different magical object or rule, from Knight's Castle to the deliberately ambiguous Magic or Not? and its sequel The Well-Wishers. Eager wrote them as a direct homage to E. Nesbit, sometimes having his own child characters read her books.
- The Indian in the Cupboard
series5 books1980
completed
similar byfantasyadventurouscoming of ageour worldcontemporary
Lynne Reid Banks' Indian in the Cupboard series begins with the 1980 children's novel in which a boy discovers that an old cupboard can bring his plastic toy figures to life. The low-fantasy series, which inspired a 1995 film adaptation, continues across Return of the Indian, The Secret of the Indian, The Mystery of the Cupboard, and The Key to the Indian.
- The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel
series15 books2007
similar byadventurousfantasyour worldcontemporaryyoung adult
The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel is a series of six fantasy novels written by Irish author Michael Scott, completed in 2012. The first book in the series, The Alchemyst, was released in 2007, and the sequels were released at the rate of one per year, concluding with The Enchantress in 2012. The cover artist for the series is Michael Wagner.
- Chrestomanci
series12 books1977
completed
similar byfantasycontemporary+3 more
Chrestomanci, sometimes branded The Worlds of Chrestomanci, is a heptalogy of children's fantasy books written by British author Diana Wynne Jones, published from 1977 to 2006. In the context of the parallel universe setting of the books, Chrestomanci refers to both the British government office that is responsible for supervising the use of magic and Chrestomanci Castle in southern England, which is both residence and headquarters.
- The Last Dragon Chronicles / David Rain
series7 books2001
similar byfantasyadventurouscontemporary+3 more
The Last Dragon Chronicles is a series of seven children's fantasy novels written by Chris d'Lacey. The books follow a college student, David Rain, as he discovers the existence of living clay dragons in the house he lodges at. This series currently includes the novels:The Fire Within (2001) Icefire (2003) Fire Star (2005) The Fire Eternal (2007) Dark Fire (2009) Rain and Fire (2010) - a guide book containing an accumulation of knowledge concerning the series, also containing a preface detailing David's trip from Blackburn to Scrubbley before the novel. The book also contains a sneak-peek for Fire World. Fire World (2011) The Fire Ascending (2013)
- Fionavar Universe
series5 books1984
similar byfantasycontemporary+2 more
Ysabel is a 2007 standalone contemporary fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay, following teenager Ned Marriner as he stumbles into a centuries-old rivalry playing out around the cathedral of Aix-en-Provence. It marked Kay's turn toward urban fantasy and briefly brings back two adult characters from his earlier Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, though it is not itself part of that trilogy and can be read on its own.
- Bromeliad
series3 books1989
completed
similar byfantasyadventurousour worldcontemporary
The Nome Trilogy, also known as The Bromeliad, is a trilogy of children's books by British writer Terry Pratchett, consisting of the books Truckers (1989), Diggers (1990) and Wings (1990). The trilogy tells the story of the Nomes, a race of tiny people from another world who now live hidden among humans. Through the books they struggle to survive in the human world and, once they learn of their history from an artefact known as "The Thing", make plans to return home.
- Artemis Fowl
series15 books2001
similar byfantasyadventurousour worldcontemporary
Artemis Fowl is a series of eleven fantasy novels by Irish author Eoin Colfer, revolving around various members of the Fowl family. The first cycle, the Artemis Fowl series, consists of eight books, and the second cycle, The Fowl Twins series, is a trilogy. Both releases have received commercial success and positive critical reception in the children's literature genre, and also originated graphic novel adaptations. As of 2013, the novels have sold more than 21 million copies in 44 languages, and are one of the best-selling series of all time. In 2010, Artemis Fowl was voted by readers as their favorite Puffin Books title of all time.
- The Heroic Adventures of Kate
series3 books1990
similar byadventurousfantasyour worldcontemporary+2 more
T. A. Barron links three standalone novels around a resourceful girl named Kate confronting environmental threats through fantastical means. In Heartlight, Kate and her inventor grandfather race across space to save a dying sun; in The Ancient One, she travels five centuries into the past to defend an old-growth forest from the destructive creature Gashra. The Merlin Effect completes the loosely connected set, published together as the omnibus The Heartlight Saga.
- Heir Chronicles
series5 books2006
similar byfantasycontemporaryyoung adult+4 more
Cinda Williams Chima's Heir Chronicles begins with The Warrior Heir, in which sixteen-year-old Jack learns he has hidden magical, warrior ancestry and is drawn into training to fight enemy wizards he didn't know existed. The following books widen the cast to other magical bloodlines — wizards, dragons, enchanters, sorcerers — each heir navigating the same hidden system of guilds and rival houses operating alongside the ordinary world. It's a contemporary-set YA fantasy about inherited power and the factions that police it.
- The World of Skulduggery Pleasant
series38 books2007
similar byadventurousour worldcontemporaryyoung adult+2 more
These are standalone companion stories set in Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant world, rather than a numbered sequence of their own. Hell Breaks Loose is a one-off prequel following the skeleton detective Skulduggery on a solo hunt years before the main series begins; The Haunted House on Hollow Hill and A Small Matter of Impending Catastrophe are novellas slotted between the main series' sixteenth and seventeenth books, the former adapted from an audio drama. None require following a separate ongoing plot of their own.
- His Dark Materials Universe
universe13 books1995
Start hereHis Dark Materials · Start here
similar byadventurousfantasycoming of ageyoung adult+1 more
In a world like ours and unlike it, every human soul walks outside the body in the shape of an animal — a daemon, who speaks, who cannot be lied to, and who settles into one fixed form only when childhood ends. This is the country of His Dark Materials: a company of parallel worlds across which an invisible dust of consciousness drifts down upon the waking mind; where a Church that calls itself the Magisterium would sooner sever a child's soul than let that Dust be understood; and where a golden instrument, the alethiometer, answers true questions for anyone with the patience to read it. Philip Pullman's design stands in two trilogies and a scatter of shorter tales. His Dark Materials — Northern Lights (published in America as The Golden Compass), The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass — carries Lyra Belacqua from the rooftops of a shadow Oxford across the borders between worlds. The Book of Dust returns to that same territory: La Belle Sauvage looks back to Lyra as an infant carried through a great flood, while The Secret Commonwealth follows her grown and less certain into adulthood, with a concluding volume closing the arc. Around them sit slim companion books — Lyra's Oxford, Once Upon a Time in the North, Serpentine — and Nicholas Wright's stage adaptation, made with Pullman's blessing. The register is grave and luminous at once, its title lifted from Milton and its quarrel drawn from Blake: a story that takes the side of curiosity, love, and the physical world against any authority that would forbid them. It reads as adventure — armoured bears, aeronauts, knife-cut windows between skies — yet reasons like philosophy. Begin with Northern Lights / The Golden Compass and read the first trilogy through before turning to The Book of Dust, which deepens everything the first has already made you feel.
- The Tapestry
series4 books2007
similar byadventurousfantasymagic schools+4 more
The Hound of Rowan opens Henry H. Neff's Tapestry series with Max McDaniels, a twelve-year-old who discovers a strange Celtic tapestry in a museum's secret room and finds a letter afterward directing him to Rowan Academy, a hidden school for gifted children like him. The series follows Max's education and the wider magical conflicts Rowan is drawn into across The Second Siege, The Fiend and the Forge, and The Maelstrom. Neff both wrote and illustrated the series.
- Alfred Kropp
series3 books2005
similar byfantasyadventurouscoming of ageour worldcontemporaryyoung adult
Rick Yancey's Alfred Kropp trilogy follows the teenage title character through three young-adult fantasy-adventure novels. The debut, The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp, was a Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book and a Carnegie Medal finalist, and the story continues in The Seal of Solomon and The Thirteenth Skull.
