If You Loved Harry Potter, Read These Next

The question comes up constantly, and the usual answers are unhelpful, because “books like Harry Potter”
is not one category. People love different things about it. Work out which, and the next book chooses
itself.

If you loved the school and the friendships

What you want is a series with a found family and a place to belong, not necessarily magic. Start with
Young Adult — Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books are the closest structural match,
built on Greek mythology instead of wizardry, and written with more jokes.

If you loved the world-building

Then what you actually enjoy is fantasy, and Science Fiction & Fantasy
is your shelf. Be warned that adult fantasy is slower to start and much longer — that is a feature for some
readers and a wall for others.

If you loved growing up alongside the characters

This is the one people underestimate. Part of what Harry Potter did was age with its readers: book one
is for children, book seven is not. If that is what you are chasing,
The Hunger Games and
Catching Fire do it faster and darker.

If you are ready for the adult version

The Handmaid’s Tale is where a lot of readers go next and stay. It has
the same quality of a world that runs on rules you slowly work out, but the rules are political rather than
magical.

If you want the one that is nothing like it

Sometimes the right recommendation after a series ends is a clean break.
The Shadow of the Wind is set in
a hidden library, is genuinely mysterious, and is written for adults. It is the book we hand to readers who
say they have “finished fantasy” and are not sure what is next.

A note for parents buying these

The jump from the early Harry Potter books to most young adult fiction is larger in content than in
reading difficulty. A ten-year-old who reads fluently can manage the words in almost any YA novel; that does
not mean the book was written for them. If you want, tell us
the age and we will say plainly what is in the book before you buy it.