Keep Kids Reading this Summer with Readalikes for Popular Books and Series

If Your Kid Loves Harry Potter, try The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, by Diana Wynne Jones
To soothe Potter-withdrawal blues, try the Chrestomanci series. This collection of seven books is set in different worlds which are united by the figure of Chrestomanci, a British government official who is responsible for regulating the use of magic (not unlike Rowling’s Ministry of Magic). They can be read in any order! The first, chronologically, is 1988’s The Lives of Christopher Chant, but the first Jones wrote was 1977’s Charmed Life, about an appealing orphan named Eric who thinks he’s ordinary, and that only his imperious sister Gwendolyn has magic powers. The book that will put readers most in mind of Hogwarts is 1982’s Witch Week, set at a British boarding school for the children of witches. Diana Wynne Jones is a witty, imaginative writer who populates her books with authentic characters your kids just might come to love as much as Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

If your kid loves the Little House on the Prairie series, try the Birchbark series, by Louise Erdrich
If your child was fascinated by the adventures of the Ingalls family and details of life on the American frontier in 1870’s, try Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark series, which begins in 1847, but tells the story of an Ojibwe family living in Minnesota. The heroine, Omakayas, whose name means Little Frog, is every bit as charming as Laura Ingalls, and the details of her family life, how they gather and preserve food, get ready for winter, and enjoy the bounty of summer are as rich as those in Wilder’s books. The series begins with 1999’s The Birchbark House and includes three others.

If your kid loves animal chapter books, try the novels of Dick King-Smith
If your child can’t get enough of books with animal protagonists, try something by Dick King-Smith. King-Smith was a British farmer who so identified with his animals that they became the stars of dozens of his books. He was particularly adept at capturing the emotional life of pigs—Babe the Gallant Pig, made into the movie Babe, is his best-known book, but I’m partial to Pigs Might Fly, the story of Daggie Dogfoot, the runt of the litter, who decides to make himself into an extraordinary pig by learning how to swim, thanks to lessons from a friendly duck. This ability ends up helping him save the day when a flood hits.

If your kid loves How to Steal A Dog by Barbara O’Connor (or other realistic books about kids), try The Egypt Game, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
How to Steal a Dog introduced readers to Georgiana Hayes, a girl whose family has been evicted from their home and who hatches an unusual plan to raise money. If your child is engrossed by realistic stories of kids solving their own problems, try The Egypt Game and other books by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Keatley Snyder’s appealing characters are dealing with real-world problems, such as the The Egypt Game protagonist April Hall, who is left by her mother to live with her grandmother in a California college town, a situation she’s resentful of. April is theatrical and tries to hide her feelings, but when she meets her new neighbor, Melanie Ross, they bond over their mutual interest in ancient Egypt, and come up with an increasingly elaborate Egypt game. Even though this book was published in 1967, it still feels fresh, in no small part due to its multicultural cast of characters.

If Your Kid Loves The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, try The Hundred and One Dalmations, by Dodie Smith
In The One and Only Ivan, the narrator is a silverback gorilla named Ivan who was stolen from the jungle as a baby, and now lives a drab life at a run-down zoo in a mall. With the help of his animal friends, he’s able to change everyone’s life. In Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel, The Hundred and One Dalmations, the charismatic villain Cruella de Vil steals the fifteen Dalmation puppies of Pongo and Misses. The humans try to find them, but really, why send a person to do a dog’s job? Dogs across the English countryside unite to try to locate the puppies and spring them from captivity before Cruella makes them into a fur coat. Smith writes with great wit, here characters are distinctive, and the action is nail-biting. (And, yes, there’s also the iconic Disney movie to watch once they finish the book.) Check out her sequel, The Starlight Barking, too.
What are your favorite readalikes for popular children’s books?