Kid Book Match

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you.

Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
When Kendra and Seth go to stay at their grandparents' estate, they discover that it is a sanctuary for magical creatures and that a battle between good and evil is looming.

If you like the Fablehaven series you might like:
 

The Alchemyst by Michael Scott
While working at pleasant but mundane summer jobs in San Francisco, fifteen-year-old twins, Sophie and Josh, suddenly find themselves caught up in the deadly, centuries-old struggle between rival alchemists, Nicholas Flamel and John Dee, over the possession of an ancient and powerful book holding the secret formulas for alchemy and everlasting life.
 
 

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
Nathaniel, a magician's apprentice, summons up the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon Lovelace.

Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
Orphaned after a fever epidemic, Creel befriends a dragon and unknowingly inherits an object that can either save or destroy her kingdom.

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you.

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance.

If you liked The Westing Game you might like:



The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie King
Sherlock Holmes takes on a young, female apprentice in this delightful and well-wrought addition to the master detective's casework. In the early years of WW I, 15-year-old American Mary Russell encounters Holmes, retired in Sussex Downs where Conan Doyle left him raising bees. Mary, an orphan rebelling against her guardian aunt's strictures, impresses the sleuth with her intelligence and acumen. Holmes initiates her into the mysteries of detection, allowing her to participate in a few cases when she comes home from her studies at Oxford. The collaboration is ignited by the kidnapping in Wales of Jessica Simpson, daughter of an American senator. The sleuthing duo find signs of the hand of a master criminal, and after Russell rescues the child, attempts are made on their lives (and on Watson's), with evidence piling up that the master criminal is out to get Holmes and all he holds dear. (Publishers Weekly Review)
 

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
When seemingly unrelated and strange events start to happen and a precious Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an international art scandal.

Down the Rabbit Hole: An Echo Falls Mystery by Peter Abrahams
Welcome to Echo Falls. Home of a thousand secrets, where Ingrid Levin-Hill, super sleuth, never knows what will happen next. Ingrid is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or at least her shoes are. Getting them back means getting involved in a murder investigation rivaling those solved by her idol, Sherlock Holmes, and Ingrid has enough on her plate with club soccer, school, and the plum role of Alice in the Echo Falls production of Alice in Wonderland . But much as in Alice's adventures down the rabbit hole, things in Ingrid's small town keep getting curiouser and curiouser.


The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
A group of children, entranced with the study of Egypt, play their own Egypt game, are visited by a secret oracle, become involved in a murder, and befriend the Professor before they move on to new interests, such as Gypsies.

Here are several great books that are timeless classics, great reads about animals, and similar to Charlotte’s Web!

Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.
When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs.

Faraway Home by Jane Kurtz
Desta's father, who needs to return briefly to his Ethiopian homeland, describes what it was like for him to grow up there.

If you like trains, here are some other books you might enjoy:

Full Steam Ahead by Faye Gibbons. A young boy and his grandpa ride on a steam locomotive chugging through Georgia one hot summer day.

All Aboard! by Mary Lyn Ray. A large white rabbit named Mr. Barnes goes on a train trip and enjoys all the sights and sounds of the ride.

Circus Train by Jos. A. Smith. After moving to a house in the country, Timothy wonders how he will make any friends, but his problem is solved when he finds an imaginative way to rescue a stranded circus train.

If you're a beginning reader who likes to read series books, here are a couple suggestions. Each title is the first in the series.

26 Fairmount Avenue by Tomie DePaola. The true-life adventures of the famous children's book author, including dropping out of school on the first day of kindergarten.

Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin. Do those kittens really have wings?

McBroom Tells a Lie by Sid Fleischman. Josh McBroom, his dear wife, and their eleven children outwit mean Heck Jones by using frozen sunlight and a car that runs on popcorn.

If you like longish books, here are some suggestions.

All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor. Five sisters living on New York's Lower East Side in 1912 get a big surprise when their mother has a new baby.

Cougar by Helen V. Griffith. Is that really the ghost of a horse that Nickel sees?

Dog Friday by Hilary McKay. Who would have thought that a boy who's been attacked by a dog would actually hope that he could adopt the stray dog he found on the beach?

 If you like fantasy and family stories, here are some other titles you might enjoy.

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong.

Thank you for requesting a Book Match. I have not read the Heartland series, but here are some other inspiring horse stories you may enjoy:

Colt by Nancy Springer.
Summary: A young boy with a crippling disease learns, through a horseback riding program, to overcome his own anxieties and to help others in dealing with their own problems.

If you like the Molly Moon series, you might also like to read:

The City of Ember by Jeanne Du Prau.
In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions. The sequel, The People of Sparks, has just been published.