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🧲 Books like this

The White Giraffe

Lauren St. John · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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The Scorpio Races

Maggie Stiefvater · 435 pages

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die. At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them. Puck Connolly is different. She

Animal CompanionDeath of a ParentOrphansAdventure
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Julie of the Wolves

Jean Craighead George · 170 pages

Miyax, like many adolescents, is torn. But unlike most, her choices may determine whether she lives or dies. At 13, an orphan, and unhappily married, Miyax runs away from her husband's parents' home, hoping to reach San Francisco and her pen pal. But she becomes lost in the vast Alaskan tundra, with no food, no shelter, and no idea which is the way to safety. Now, more than ever, she must look har

Animal CompanionMiddle GradeDeath of a ParentOrphans
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The Girl Savage

Katherine Rundell

Death of a ParentOrphansAnimal CompanionMiddle Grade
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The Golden Compass

Philip Pullman · 399 pages

In a landmark epic of fantasy and storytelling, Philip Pullman invites readers into a world as convincing and thoroughly realized as Narnia, Earthsea, or Redwall. Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mys

Animal CompanionOrphansMiddle GradeAdventure
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Animal CompanionDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeAdventure
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Harry Potter Boxset

J.K. Rowling

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeProphecy
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Fly Trap

Frances Hardinge · 584 pages

Adventurous orphan Mosca Mye, her savage goose, Saracen, and their sometimes-loyal companion, Eponymous Clent, become embroiled in the intrigues of Toll, a town that changes entirely as day turns to night.

Animal CompanionOrphansMiddle GradeAdventure
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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.

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeMagical Realism
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A Dog Called Homeless

Sarah Lean · 224 pages

Fifth-grader Cally Louise Fisher stops talking, partly because her father and brother never speak of her mother who died a year earlier, but visions of her mother, friendships with a homeless man and a disabled boy, and a huge dog ensure that she still communicates.

Death of a ParentAnimal CompanionMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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Paint the Wind

Pam Munoz Ryan · 327 pages

After her overprotective grandmother has a stroke, Maya, an orphan, leaves her extremely restricted life in California to stay with her mother's family on a remote Wyoming ranch, where she discovers a love of horses and encounters a wild mare that her mother once rode

Animal CompanionOrphansMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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The Magician's Elephant

Kate DiCamillo · 224 pages

What if? Why not? Could it be? When a fortune teller's tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchenne knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortune teller's mysterious answer (an elephant! An elephant will lead you there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that you w

OrphansAnimal CompanionMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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The Leanin' Dog

K.A. Nuzum · 250 pages

In wintry Colorado during the 1930s, eleven-year-old Dessa Dean mourns the death of her beloved mother, but the arrival of an injured dog and the friendship they form is just what each needs to change their lives forever.

Animal CompanionDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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Bud, Not Buddy

Christopher Paul Curtis · 249 pages

It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him: 1. He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. 2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeAdventure
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Running Wild

Michael Morpurgo · 138 pages

When 10-year-old Will's father dies in the Iraq war, his mother surprises him with a trip to Indonesia. She couldn't have known what awaited them both there. The first Will knows that anything is wrong is when Oona, the elephant he is riding along the beach, begins to spook. Then, suddenly, she takes off into the jungle with Will on her back. And that's when Will sees the tsunami come crashing in!

Animal CompanionDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeAdventure
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Alabama Moon

Watt Key · 294 pages

After the death of his father, ten-year-old Moon Blake is removed from the Alabama forest where he was raised and sent to a boy's home, where, for the first time, he has contact with the outside world and learns about friendship, love, and humanity.

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeAdventure
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Island of the Blue Dolphins

Scott O'Dell · 184 pages

Story of a young girl abandoned on a small island by her family and her village, and of her fight for survival. The incredible courage, determination and strength of this girl is showcased throughout as she learns to do the things that only the men of her tribe did before, and battles not only the hunters who frequent the island, but also her desperate loneliness as well... Excellent read fo

Animal CompanionDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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Like the Willow Tree: The Diary of Lydia Amelia Pierce, Portland, Maine, 1918

Lois Lowry · 224 pages

After being orphaned during the influenza epidemic of 1918, eleven-year-old Lydia Pierce and her fourteen-year-old brother are taken by their grieving uncle to be raised in the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake. Includes author's note about the Shakers.

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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The Bad Beginning

Lemony Snicket · 162 pages

After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeAdventure
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Dancing Shoes

Noel Streatfeild · 243 pages

After her mother's death, Rachel and her adopted sister Hilary are taken in by Aunt Cora, who runs a dancing school where Rachel's spoiled cousin Dulcie is the star pupil.

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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The Crow-Girl: The Children of Crow Cove

Bodil Bredsdorff · 155 pages

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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Listening for Lions

Gloria Whelan · 194 pages

Historical fiction with a wicked twist.Listening for Lions is a breathtaking story of tragedy, deception, and triumph against all odds. National Book Award–winning author Gloria Whelan sets this richly historical coming–of–age adventure in British East Africa in the year 1918. This irresistible novel entangles an orphaned girl in a deceit filled plot. Young Rachel Sheridan is made to leave her bel

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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Ferals

Jacob Grey · 288 pages

Animal CompanionOrphansMiddle GradeAtmospheric
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Eight Keys

Suzanne LaFleur · 216 pages

When twelve-year-old Elise, orphaned since age three, becomes disheartened by middle school, with its bullies, changing relationships, and higher expectations, keys to long-locked rooms and messages from her late father help her cope.

OrphansDeath of a ParentMiddle GradeFemale Lead
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Spellbinder

Helen Stringer · 400 pages

Twelve-year-old Belladonna Johnson, who lives with the ghosts of her parents in the north of England, teams up with an always-in-trouble classmate to investigate why all of the ghosts in the world have suddenly disappeared.

Death of a ParentMiddle GradeOrphansAdventure
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