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🧲 Books like this

The Kneebone Boy

Ellen Potter · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J. K. Rowling · 332 pages

When a letter arrives for unhappy but ordinary Harry Potter, a decade-old secret is revealed to him that apparently he's the last to know. His parents were wizards, killed by a Dark Lord's curse when Harry was just a baby, and which he somehow survived. Escaping his hideous Muggle guardians for Hogwarts, a wizarding school brimming with ghosts and enchantments, Harry stumbles upon a sinister adven

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

J.K. Rowling · 341 pages

Throughout the summer holidays after his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter has been receiving sinister warnings from a house-elf called Dobby. Now, back at school to start his second year, Harry hears unintelligible whispers echoing through the corridors. Before long the attacks begin: students are found as if turned to stone. Dobby’s predictions seem

Absent ParentWhimsicalMiddle GradeAdventure
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The Field Guide

Holly Black, Tony DiTerlizzi · 107 pages

When the Grace children go to stay at their Great Aunt Lucinda's worn Victorian house, they discover a field guide to fairies and other creatures and begin to have some unusual experiences.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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Doll Bones

Holly Black · 244 pages

Zach, Alice, and Poppy, friends from a Pennsylvania middle school who have long enjoyed acting out imaginary adventures with dolls and action figures, embark on a real-life quest to Ohio to bury a doll made from the ashes of a dead girl.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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Inkheart

Cornelia Funke · 560 pages

Characters from books literally leap off the page in this engrossing fantasy. Meggie, 12, has had her father to herself since her mother went away when she was young. Mo taught her to read when she was five, and the two share a mutual love of books. Things change after a visit from a scarred man who calls himself Dustfinger and who refers to Mo as Silvertongue. Meggie learns that her father has be

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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Danny the Champion of the World

Roald Dahl · 206 pages

Can Danny and his father outsmart the villainous Mr. Hazell? Danny has a life any boy would love—his home is a gypsy caravan, he's the youngest master car mechanic around, and his best friend is his dad, who never runs out of wonderful stories to tell. But one night Danny discovers a shocking secret that his father has kept hidden for years. Soon Danny finds himself the mastermind behind the most

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L'Engle · 211 pages

A Wrinkle in Time is a science fiction fantasy novel by American writer Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. It is about Meg And Charles Walence. Their father, who was working on a interesting project called a tesseract, goes missing! Then they meet a boy and some strange women. This story won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award For this amazing story! It also

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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Nim's Island

Wendy Orr · 125 pages

Nim loves her island home and the animals she shares it with even while her scientist father is away doing research, but trouble is on the way and a new e-mail friend could be the only one who can help.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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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.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalCastle
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Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk

Liesl Shurtliff · 320 pages

Relates the tale of Jack who, after trading his mother's milk cow for magic beans, climbs a beanstalk to seek his missing father in the land of giants. This tale relates the story of Jack, who, after trading his mother's milk cow for magic beans, climbs a beanstalk to search for his missing father in the land of giants.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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Fablehaven

Brandon Mull · 351 pages

For centuries, mystical creatures of all description were gathered to a hidden refuge called Fablehaven to prevent their extinction. The sanctuary survives today as one of the last strongholds of true magic in a cynical world. Enchanting? Absolutely! Exciting? You bet. Safe? Well, actually, quite the opposite . . . Kendra and her brother Seth have no idea that their grandfather is the current c

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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Flora Segunda

Ysabeau S. Wilce · 448 pages

Absent ParentWhimsicalMiddle GradeAdventure
🙂

The Zigzag Kid

David Grossman, Betsy Rosenberg · 314 pages

Twelve-year-old Nonny Feuerberg's father is the world's greatest detective, wholly dedicated to the war on crime. Nonny aspires to follow in his father's footsteps but, to his father's dismay, his wild side keeps breaking out. Then all of a sudden Nonny finds himself traveling on a train with the magnetic, elegant Felix Glick, international outlaw extraordinaire. Not until Felix has hijacked the

Absent ParentWhimsicalAdventureMiddle Grade
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Talking to Dragons

Patricia C. Wrede · 255 pages

A fast paced, humorous YA science fiction. Young Daystar, raised by his mother Cimorene at the edge of the Enchanted Forest, is sent out on an adventure with a magical sword, meeting a young fire witch and an immature dragon on the way. This is the fourth book of the Enchanted Forest series, and takes place a generation after the first.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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The Lightning Thief

Rick Riordan · 384 pages

Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson is on the most dangerous quest of his life. With the help of a satyr and a daughter of Athena, Percy must journey across the United States to catch a thief who has stolen the original weapon of mass destruction—Zeus’ master bolt. Along the way, he must face a host of mythological enemies determined to stop him. Most of all, he must come to terms with a father he ha

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalAdventure
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The Wishing Spell

Chris Colfer · 448 pages

Frustrated by all the happy goofy representations of fairy tales? (Note: Chris began the concept for this book in his late high school years, which were much earlier than the copyright date of 2012.) Well, so was Chris. So, he decided to mix them up a little. This book has several of the standard fairy tale characters, such as Red Riding Hood, the witch who liked to eat children (Hansel & Gretel),

Middle GradeAbsent ParentWhimsicalAdventure
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The Case of the Missing Marquess

Nancy Springer · 216 pages

When Enola Holmes, sister to the detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers her mother has disappeared, she quickly embarks on a journey to London in search of her. But nothing can prepare her for what awaits. Because when she arrives, she finds herself involved in the kidnapping of a young marquess, fleeing murderous villains, and trying to elude her shrewd older brothers—all while attempting to piece

Absent ParentMiddle GradeAdventureMissing Person
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Coraline

Neil Gaiman · 176 pages

When Coraline steps through a door to find another house strangely similar to her own (only better), things seem marvelous. But there's another mother there, and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and courage if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsicalEerie
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The Lives of Christopher Chant

Diana Wynne Jones · 252 pages

PerfectBound e-book exclusive extras: "Diana Wynne Jones's The Chronicles of Chrestomanci: Nine Notes"; and our exclusive interview with Diana Wynne Jones.His father and uncles are enchanters, his mother a powerful sorceress, yet nothing seems magical about Christopher Chant except his dreams. Night after night, he climbs through the formless Place Between and visits marvelous lands he calls the A

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsical
🙂

Keeper

Kathi Appelt · 399 pages

On the night of the blue moon when mermaids are said to gather on a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, ten-year-old Keeper sets out in a small boat, with her dog BD and a seagull named Captain, determined to find her mother, a mermaid, as Keeper has always believed, who left long ago to return to the sea.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeWhimsical
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A Wrinkle in Time Movie Tie-In Edition

Perfection Learning Corporation

Absent ParentMiddle GradeAdventureMissing Person
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Queste

Angie Sage · 608 pages

There's trouble at the Castle, and it's all because Merrin Meredith has returned with Darke plans for Septimus. More trouble awaits Septimus and Jenna in the form of Tertius Fume, the ghost of the very first Chief Hermetic Scribe, who is determined to send Septimus on a deadly Queste. But Septimus and Jenna have other plans—they are headed for the mysterious House of Foryx, a place where all Time

Middle GradeWhimsicalAdventureCastle
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The Wide Window

Lemony Snicket · 214 pages

This fun, exciting book in the life of the Baudelaire orphans will take on yet another thrilling ride. Count Olaf has returned, and the Orphans are in trouble!!!

Middle GradeWhimsicalAdventureEerie

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