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🧲 Books like this

The Great Unexpected

Sharon Creech · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Anne of Green Gables

L.M. Montgomery · 308 pages

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

OrphansFemale FriendshipWhimsicalMiddle Grade
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The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett · 256 pages

A ten-year-old orphan comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors where she discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden.

OrphansCharmingFamily SecretsMiddle Grade
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The Peach Keeper

Sarah Addison Allen · 273 pages

Willa Jackson of Walls of Water, North Carolina, has lately learned that an old classmate--socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood--of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored her family's Blue Ridge Madam home to its former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. But when a skeleton, found buried beneath the lone peach tree on the property is found, Willa and Paxton must confront the dangerou

Female FriendshipCharmingWhimsicalSmall Town
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True

Katherine Hannigan

Female FriendshipCharmingMiddle GradeSmall Town
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Nightbird

Alice Hoffman · 208 pages

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.

Female FriendshipMiddle GradeCharmingSmall Town
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A Tangle of Knots

Lisa Graff

"Destiny leads 11-year-old Cady to a peanut butter factory, a family of children searching for their own Talents, and a Talent Thief who will alter her life forever"--Provided by publisher. Includes cake recipes.

OrphansCharmingWhimsicalMiddle Grade
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The Mysterious Howling

Maryrose Wood · 267 pages

OrphansCharmingWhimsicalMiddle Grade
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Mark Twain · 253 pages

OrphansCharmingWhimsicalSmall Town
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Wren to the Rescue

Sherwood Smith · 216 pages

With the help of a prince and an apprentice wizard, Wren strives to rescue her best friend, a princess named Tess, from the fortress of a wicked king.

OrphansFemale FriendshipCharmingMiddle Grade
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Matilda

Roald Dahl · 240 pages

Matilda applies her untapped mental powers to rid the school of the evil, child-hating headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and restore her nice teacher, Miss Honey, to financial security.

CharmingOrphansMiddle GradeWhimsical
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Moon Over Manifest

Clare Vanderpool · 384 pages

Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past.

Middle GradeFamily SecretsSmall TownCharming
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Rooftoppers

Katherine Rundell

OrphansCharmingWhimsicalMiddle Grade
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Circle of Friends

Maeve Binchy · 560 pages

It began with Benny Hogan and Eve Malone, growing up, inseparable, in the village of Knockglen. Benny--the only child, yearning to break free from her adoring parents...Eve--the orphaned offspring of a convent handyman and a rebellious blueblood, abandoned by her mother's wealthy family to be raised by nuns. Eve and Benny--they knew the sins and secrets behind every villager's lace curtains

OrphansFemale FriendshipCharmingSmall Town
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The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Brian Selznick · 534 pages

ORPHAN, CLOCK KEEPER, AND THIEF, twelve-year-old Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric girl and the owner of a small toy booth in the train station, Hugo’s undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen

OrphansCharmingMiddle GradeWhimsical
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Harry Potter Boxset

J.K. Rowling

OrphansCharmingMiddle GradeWhimsical
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The Little White Horse

Elizabeth Goudge · 272 pages

OrphansCharmingWhimsicalMiddle Grade
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Phoebe and Her Unicorn

Dana Simpson · 224 pages

A boy and his dog . . . a girl and her . . . unicorn? It all started when Phoebe skipped a rock across a pond and accidentally hit a unicorn in the face. Improbably, this led to Phoebe being granted one wish, and she used it to make the unicorn, Marigold Heavenly Nostrils, her obligational best friend. But can a vain mythical beast and a nine-year-old daydreamer really forge a connection? Indee

Female FriendshipCharmingMiddle GradeWhimsical
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A Snicker of Magic

Natalie Lloyd · 323 pages

✨️A Snicker of Magic ✨ Felicity Pickle has a gift: she sees words everywhere—fluttering above people’s heads, painted in the air, waiting to be collected. But when she and her family roll into the town of Midnight Gulch, Felicity discovers the place might still hold a snicker of magic—if she’s brave enough to believe in it. With quirky characters, small-town secrets, and heartwarming adventures

CharmingWhimsicalMiddle GradeSmall Town
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The Star of Kazan

Eva Ibbotson · 388 pages

After twelve-year-old Annika, a foundling living in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.

OrphansCharmingMiddle GradeFamily Secrets
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The Penultimate Peril

Lemony Snicket · 353 pages

Dear Reader, If this is the first book you found while searching for a book to read next, then the first thing you should know is that this next-to-last book is what you should put down first. Sadly, this book presents the next-to-last chronicle of the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, and it is next-to-first in its supply of misery, despair, and unpleasantness. Probably the next-to-last thin

OrphansWhimsicalMiddle GradeFamily Secrets
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The Midwife's Apprentice

Karen Cushman · 122 pages

In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp-tempered midwife, and in spite of obstacles and hardship, eventually gains the three things she most wants: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world.

OrphansMiddle GradeCharmingSmall Town
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Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

Maud Hart Lovelace · 171 pages

Female FriendshipCharmingSmall TownMiddle Grade
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The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Vol. 1

Diana Wynne Jones · 608 pages

OrphansCharmingWhimsicalMiddle Grade
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Mistress Masham's Repose

T.H. White · 253 pages

Ten-year-old Maria, an orphaned heiress living with her unpleasant guardians on a crumbling English estate called Malplaquet, finds her life changing in unimagined ways when she explores an overgrown island on the estate's lake and discovers the descendants of Gulliver's Lilliputians.

OrphansWhimsicalCharmingMiddle Grade

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