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Built on ISFDB, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Open Library. Curated reading orders carry their reasoning on the page; the rest follow publication order. Data sources & licenses

© Loreful · data: ISFDB · CC BY

More like Root Magic

anchored on:fantasywitchesnorth americamiddle gradehistorical fantasycoming of age+1 more

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Mood

The mood the book leaves you in.

  • The reading experience is propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical risk; excitement and forward momentum dominate over dread or introspection.
  • Joy and loss are deliberately mixed; the resolution grants characters something real while taking something else away, leaving warmth and sorrow together.
  • The book demands work from the reader — dense prose, difficult structure, unfamiliar ideas, or morally uncomfortable material — as part of its intended effect.
  • Grim events, cruelty, or despair dominate the atmosphere, and the book does not soften them with comfort or comic relief.
  • The atmosphere is quietly unsettling — wrongness, unease, and the uncanny pervade the book without necessarily escalating into overt horror.
  • The book is built to move the reader; character feeling is foregrounded and major scenes aim at a strong emotional response.
  • Humor is a primary aim and the prose plays for laughs — comic situations, wit, or dialogue produce sustained comedy, not occasional levity.
  • The book insists that things can improve; effort and decency are shown to matter, and the arc bends toward better outcomes even through hardship.
  • The book teaches as it goes — real facts, history, science, or craft are conveyed in enough depth that learning is part of the reading experience.
  • The book is designed to uplift and motivate, presenting perseverance or achievement in a way that invites the reader to aspire or act.
  • The overall register is cheerful and easygoing; stakes are kept gentle and the book avoids dwelling on pain or dread.
  • Withheld information drives the experience; the book sustains enigmas and secrets the reader wants resolved, whatever its genre.
  • The book is contemplative and inward-looking, giving more weight to thought, memory, and meaning than to external events.
  • The book works as comfort reading — low tension, a soothing pace, and an atmosphere the reader can unwind in.
  • Grief, loss, or melancholy set the dominant register, and the book lets sorrow stand rather than resolving it into comfort.
  • Sustained suspense is the point; the book keeps the reader braced for what happens next through danger, pressure, or impending revelation.
  • Playful invention and charm define the register — fanciful conceits, light absurdity, and a narration that delights in its own oddity.

About

What the story runs on.

  • Stories centered on witches and the practice of witchcraft — covens, hedge magic, familiars, and the witch's place in her community.
  • Stories structured as a quest — a journey undertaken to find, deliver, or destroy something of great import.
  • Stories in which staying alive against nature, catastrophe, or scarcity is the central problem.
  • Stories of lovers kept apart by law, family, faith, or station, where the obstacle to love is the plot.
  • Stories in which a friendship — its making, testing, or loss — is the emotional center.
  • Stories of growing up — a young protagonist crossing from childhood into adult knowledge and responsibility.
  • Stories about who a character truly is — self-discovery, doubled lives, and the search for a self.
  • Stories about mourning — living through the death of a loved one and what loss does to the survivors.
  • Stories in which a buried family truth — hidden parentage, crimes, or shames — surfaces and reorders the present.
  • Stories driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories in which war itself is the subject — combat, occupation, and what warfare does to soldiers and civilians.
  • Stories organized around investigating a killing — the case, the clues, and the pursuit of the killer, in any genre's clothing.

Shelf

Where it sits in the library.

    • Fiction built on magic or other supernatural elements that have no scientific explanation.
    • Secondary-world fantasy at large scale, where the fate of nations or the world turns on the protagonists' struggle.
    • Fantasy set in a recognizably modern city or contemporary world where the supernatural intrudes on everyday life.
    • Fantasy that blends in horror's atmosphere and imagery, keeping a fantastical frame around grim or frightening material.
    • Action-driven fantasy following warriors or rogues with personal stakes against sorcerous threats, rather than world-spanning conflicts.
    • Fantasy set in a real historical period or a close analogue of one, with magic woven into the era.
    • Fantasy in which protagonists cross from the ordinary world into another world through a portal or similar passage.
    • Fiction that retells or reworks a traditional fairy tale in a new form or setting.
    • Fantasy drawing directly on myths, legends, and folklore, retelling them or building on their figures and logic.
    • Fantasy of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, and similar phenomena, usually set in an otherwise ordinary world.
    • Fiction mixing science-fictional trappings with overtly magical or impossible elements in one setting.
    • Low-stakes fantasy emphasizing comfort, community, and everyday pleasures over conflict and peril.
    • Speculative fiction of pervasive moral ambiguity, violence, and cynicism that rejects heroic conventions — fantasy and SF alike.
      • Fiction that extrapolates from science and technology — future societies, space travel, or speculative inventions — within at least nominally natural laws.
      • Science fiction of interstellar scope — starships, galactic polities, and adventure across star systems.
      • Science fiction committed to scientific rigor, where technical plausibility constrains the story.
      • Science fiction centered on armed forces and warfare, told largely from a military point of view.
      • Science fiction of networked, corporate-dominated near futures, pairing high technology with social decay.
      • Science fiction styled on nineteenth-century steam-powered technology, often in a Victorian or pseudo-Victorian setting.
      • Fiction depicting an oppressive or catastrophic society, presented as a warning.
      • Fiction set after civilization's collapse, following survivors in the ruins of the old world.
      • Fiction in which characters move between past and future, and the mechanics or consequences of that travel drive the plot.
      • Fiction exploring a world where a historical event went differently and history diverged from ours.
      • Science fiction about humanity's first encounter and communication with an alien intelligence.
      • Science fiction in which extraterrestrial forces attack or occupy Earth and humanity resists.
      • Fiction whose primary aim is to frighten or unsettle the reader through dread, menace, or the monstrous.
      • Horror of vast, indifferent, incomprehensible entities before which humanity is insignificant, in the Lovecraft tradition.
      • Horror of decaying houses, buried family secrets, and oppressive atmosphere in the Gothic literary tradition.
      • Horror centered on hauntings and the returning dead.
      • Horror located in the mind — paranoia, obsession, and unreliable perception rather than external monsters.
      • Horror built around the reanimated dead and survival amid their outbreaks.
      • Horror defined by explicit, transgressive gore that refuses to cut away from violence.
      • Speculative fiction of the strange and uncanny that resists both natural explanation and standard genre categories.
      • Fiction organized around solving a crime or puzzle, typically following an investigator toward the identification of a culprit.
      • A puzzle-first mystery that lays out clues so the culprit's identity can be deduced before the reveal.
      • Crime fiction of moral ambiguity, fatalism, and hard-edged style, set among the corrupt and the doomed.
      • A mystery following the realistic routines of police work — forensics, interviews, and case-building.
      • A gentle mystery with an amateur sleuth, a small community, and violence kept off the page.
      • A mystery set in a past era, where the investigation works within that period's methods and society.
      • Fast-paced fiction driven by imminent danger, pursuit, or high-stakes conspiracy, built to sustain tension.
      • A thriller of espionage — agents, tradecraft, and intelligence services in conflict.
      • A thriller centered on lawyers and the courtroom, where litigation carries the suspense.
      • A thriller driven by detailed contemporary or near-future technology, often military or scientific.
      • A thriller whose tension comes from mental states and manipulation between characters rather than external action.
      • Fiction whose central plot is a romantic relationship and its development toward an emotionally satisfying resolution.
      • Romance in which one or both partners are supernatural beings, blending fantasy elements into the love story.
      • A fantasy-romance hybrid in which the romantic arc and the fantasy plot carry equal weight.
      • Romance set in a past era, with courtship shaped by the period's society and manners.
      • Romance set in the present day, without supernatural or historical elements.
      • Fiction set in a real past period, where the historical setting materially shapes characters and events.
        • General and literary fiction emphasizing prose style, character interiority, or formal ambition over genre plot conventions.
        • Fiction in a realistic world where magical events occur and are treated as ordinary, in the tradition of Latin American literature.
        • Fiction that ridicules people, institutions, or society in order to criticize them.
        • Fiction of dreamlike, irrational imagery and logic that breaks from realistic representation.
        • Fiction that plays with narrative convention through metafiction, fragmentation, and self-reference.
        • Fiction propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical peril, where action and survival carry the plot.
        • Adventure fiction of ships and seafaring — naval engagements, voyages, and life at sea.
        • Fiction of the American frontier West — gunmen, ranchers, and lawmen, typically in the late nineteenth century.
        • Fiction centered on soldiers, campaigns, and the experience of warfare, historical or imagined.
          • Fiction written primarily to amuse, using comedic situations, wit, or parody as its organizing principle.
            • Multi-generational fiction following a family or dynasty across decades, with inheritance and kinship as the through-line.
              • Fiction whose world runs on explicit game mechanics — levels, stats, and skills that characters can see and exploit.
                • Fiction about costumed or superpowered heroes and their conflicts with comparable villains.

                Practical

                How long a commitment, whether it stands alone, and whether it has finished.

                Tap a chip to ask for it · tap again to rule it out · once more to clear. Numbers show what would be left.

                • Cover of Hoodoo
                  Hoodoo

                  Ronald L. Smith · standalone novel · 2015

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                  With this vivid debut, Zora Neale Hurston meets Stephen King in a supernatural Southern Gothic tale for middle grade readers.

                • Cover of Coraline
                  Coraline

                  series · 2 books · 2002

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                • Cover of Lewis Barnavelt
                  Lewis Barnavelt

                  series · 12 books · 1973

                  similar byeeriefantasynorth americamiddle grade+3 more

                  Lewis Barnavelt is a lonely orphan who moves in with his uncle Jonathan, an amateur wizard, in a rambling old house that turns out to hide a doomsday clock built into its walls by a previous, malevolent owner. John Bellairs introduced the character in The House with a Clock in Its Walls (1973), illustrated by Edward Gorey, and after Bellairs's death Brad Strickland continued the series from his notes and outlines for most of its later volumes. It blends gothic horror atmosphere with a gentler, more whimsical strain of children's fantasy.

                • Cover of The Darkest Part of the Forest
                  The Darkest Part of the Forest

                  Holly Black · standalone novel · 2015

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                  The Darkest Part of the Forest is a 2015 young adult fantasy novel written by Holly Black. The book is a standalone but makes mention of characters from Black's Modern Tale of Faerie trilogy, establishing a shared continuity between that trilogy as well as the Folk of the Air series of books.

                • Cover of The Witch Saga
                  The Witch Saga

                  series · 6 books · 1975

                  similar bywitchesfantasyeeriemiddle gradesmall town+2 more

                  The Witch Saga is a 6-part fantasy novel series by author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. The books deal with supernatural forces, specifically witchcraft. Witch's Sister, the first book in the series, was adapted into an episode of the television series, Big Blue Marble.

                • Cover of Verdigris Deep
                  Verdigris Deep

                  Frances Hardinge · standalone novel · 2007

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                  Verdigris Deep is a children's fantasy novel by Frances Hardinge. It concerns three children who fall into the power of a "well witch" after stealing coins from a wishing well. They are given various powers to grant the wishes of others. While many of the wishes seem harmless they all eventually lead to perilous fates. It was originally published by Macmillan in the UK in 2007 and released in the United States a year later under the title Well Witched.

                • Cover of The Mayfair Witches Saga
                  The Mayfair Witches Saga

                  series · 3 books · 1990

                  completed

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                  Lives of the Mayfair Witches is a trilogy of Gothic supernatural horror fantasy novels by American author Anne Rice. It centers on a family of witches whose fortunes have been guided for generations by a spirit named Lasher. The series began in 1990 with The Witching Hour, which was followed by the sequels Lasher (1993) and Taltos (1994). All three novels debuted at No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

                • Cover of Brown Girl in the Ring
                  Brown Girl in the Ring

                  Nalo Hopkinson · standalone novel · 1998

                  similar byfantasynorth americawitchescoming of age+2 more

                  Brown Girl in the Ring is a 1998 novel written by Jamaican-Canadian writer Nalo Hopkinson. The novel contains Afro-Caribbean culture with themes of folklore and magical realism. The novel received critical acclaim, winning the 1999 Locus Award for Best First Novel. It was shortlisted for numerous other awards, including the Otherwise Award, Philip K. Dick Award, and Crawford Award.

                • Cover of Bayou Magic
                  Bayou Magic

                  Jewell Parker Rhodes · standalone novel · 2015

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                  Visiting her grandmother in the Louisiana bayou, ten-year-old Maddy begins to realize that she may be the only sibling to carry on the gift of her family's magical legacy. Visiting her grandmother in the Louisiana bayou, ten-year-old Middy begins to realize that she may be the only sibling to carry on the gift of her family's magical legacy. The plot contains violence.

                • Cover of The Once and Future Witches
                  The Once and Future Witches

                  Alix E. Harrow · standalone novel · 2020

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                  The Once and Future Witches is a 2020 fantasy novel by American writer Alix E. Harrow, the second novel released by Harrow.

                • Cover of Nightbird
                  Nightbird

                  Alice Hoffman · standalone novel · 2015

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                  Twig lives in a remote area of town with her mysterious brother and her mother, baker of irresistible apple pies. A new girl in town might just be Twig's first true friend, and ally in vanquishing an ancient family curse. A spellbinding tale of modern folklore set in the Berkshires, where rumours of a winged beast draw in as much tourism as the town's famed apple orchards.

                • Cover of The Book of Love
                  The Book of Love

                  Kelly Link · standalone novel · 2024

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                  The Book of Love is a 2024 novel by American author Kelly Link. Set in a small coastal town in Massachusetts in December 2014, the fantasy novel follows four teenagers who return from the dead and must navigate magical challenges to remain among the living. Although Link has published several collections of short stories, The Book of Love was her first novel. One of Link's goals in writing a novel was to include elements not typically found in shorter fiction.

                • Cover of Chime
                  Chime

                  Franny Billingsley · standalone novel · 2011

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                  In the early twentieth century in Swampsea, seventeen-year-old Briony, who can see the spirits that haunt the marshes around their town, feels responsible for her twin sister's horrible injury until a young man enters their lives and exposes secrets that even Briony does not know about.

                • Cover of This Poison Heart
                  This Poison Heart

                  series · 2 books · 2021

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                • Cover of Tuck Everlasting
                  Tuck Everlasting

                  Natalie Babbitt · standalone novel · 1975

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                  Publisher's description: "The Tuck family is confronted with an agonizing situation when they discover that a ten-year-old girl and a malicious stranger now share their secret about a spring whose water prevents one from ever growing any older."

                • Cover of Bod Owens
                  Bod Owens

                  series · 3 books · 2007

                  similar byfantasyeeriecoming of agemiddle grade

                  The Graveyard Book follows Nobody "Bod" Owens, a toddler who escapes the murder of his family and is raised among the ghosts of an old English graveyard, absorbing their otherworldly customs while a threat from his past waits beyond the gates. Neil Gaiman's 2008 novel won both the Newbery and Carnegie Medals, and illustrator P. Craig Russell later adapted it into a two-volume graphic novel. Bod's story spans the original novel and that graphic-novel retelling rather than continuing in a prose sequel.

                • Cover of Lily's Ghosts
                  Lily's Ghosts

                  Laura Ruby · standalone novel · 2003

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                  Strange goings-on at her great-uncle's summer home in Cape May, New Jersey, draw Lily and a new friend into a mystery involving lost treasure, a fake medium, and ghosts of all sizes, shapes, and dispositions.

                • Cover of When Women Were Dragons
                  When Women Were Dragons

                  Kelly Barnhill · standalone novel · 2022

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                  When Women Were Dragons is a 2022 fantasy novel by Kelly Barnhill. Kirkus Reviews named When Women Were Dragons one of the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2022.

                • Cover of Practical Magic
                  Practical Magic

                  series · 4 books · 1995

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                  Practical Magic follows sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, raised by witch aunts in Massachusetts after their parents' deaths, as they try — and fail — to outrun both magic and love, with Sally's daughter Kylie later inheriting the family's uncanny "Sight." Alice Hoffman returned to the 1995 original decades later, adding two prequels (The Rules of Magic, Magic Lessons) and a direct sequel (The Book of Magic) that follow the Owens family's inheritance back and forward across generations.

                • Cover of The Root Cellar
                  The Root Cellar

                  Janet Lunn · standalone novel · 1981

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                  The Root Cellar is a children's historical novel by Janet Lunn that is set in the 1980s, although much of the action takes place in the 1860s. It follows Rose Larkin, an orphan, who travels temporally back and forth between Ontario, Canada, of the 1980s and various settings of U.S. Civil War in the 1860s. This time travel is done through the root cellar of the title.

                • Cover of Doll Bones
                  Doll Bones

                  Holly Black · standalone novel · 2013

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                  Doll Bones is a 2013 children's novel by author Holly Black with illustrations by Eliza Wheeler. Doll Bones won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award in Children's Literature and was a Newbery Medal Honor Book in 2014.

                • Cover of ParaNorman
                  ParaNorman

                  Elizabeth Cody Kimmel · standalone novel · 2012

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                  In a quaint New England town with a history of witches and pilgrims, misunderstood eleven-year-old Norman Babcock can see and talk to ghosts. No one believes him, of course-everyone just thinks he's weird (including his parents). But when a folktale of a witch who cursed her accusers turns out to be true, it's up to Norman to save the town from pilgrim zombies! He'll also have to take on a very angry witch, an annoying sidekick, his boy-crazy teenage sister, and dozens of moronic grown-ups who get in his way. This young ghoul whisperer finds his paranormal talents pushed to their otherworldly limits in this hilarious and spooky adventure!

                • Cover of Skellig
                  Skellig

                  David Almond · standalone novel · 1998

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                  Skellig is a children's novel by the British author David Almond, published by Hodder in 1998. It was the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and it won the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British author. In 2007, it placed third in the "Carnegie of Carnegies", after Northern Lights and Tom's Midnight Garden. In the U.S., it was a runner up for the Michael L. Printz Award, which recognises one work of young adult fiction annually. Since publication, it has also been adapted into a play, an opera, and a film. In December of 2011, a prequel, My Name is Mina was published. William Blake's poems feature in the book, the play and the film.

                • Cover of Winternight
                  Winternight

                  series · 3 books · 2017

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                  The Winternight trilogy is a series of adult historical fantasy novels written by American author Katherine Arden. The trilogy consists of The Bear and the Nightingale (2017), The Girl in the Tower (2017), and The Winter of the Witch (2019). At the beginning, the story takes place in a medieval Russian village. Vasilisa "Vasya" Petrovna has received a spiritual gift, using it to see the fantastical creatures that inhabit her village. This leads her to a conflict with the Orthodox Church who becomes convinced that she is a witch.