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🧲 Books like this

The Water Mirror

Kai Meyer · 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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The Undrowned Child

Michelle Lovric · 442 pages

In this macabre tale 11-year-old Teodora has always longed to visit Venice, and at last she has her chance. But strange and sinister things are afoot in the beautiful floating city. Teo is quickly subsumed into a secret world in which salty-tongued mermaids run subversive printing presses, ghosts good and bad patrol the streets, statues speak, rats read, and librarians fluidly turn into cats. And

VeniceMermaids and SirensMiddle GradeAtmospheric
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City of Masks

Mary Hoffman · 344 pages

Lucien is very sick with cancer and struggles with his parents' worry every day. But each night, through a magical gift from his father, his mind is transported to an enchanting city, Bellezza, a parallel city to Venice of our world. In Bellezza, Lucien discovers that he is a Stravagante, a rare person able to travel through worlds while sleeping. Befriended by a local girl and protected by an

VeniceAtmosphericMiddle GradeFantasy
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Venom

Fiona Paul

In Renaissance Venice, orphaned Cassandra Caravello is one of the elite but feels trapped in the city of water until she stumbles upon a murdered woman and is drawn into a dangerous world of courtesans, grave robbers, and secret societies, guided by Falco, a mysterious and alluring artist.

VeniceOrphansAtmosphericFemale Lead
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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

OrphansAtmosphericMiddle GradeFantasy
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Foundling

D.M. Cornish · 434 pages

OrphansAtmosphericAdventureFantasy
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Secret of the Sirens

Julia Golding · 357 pages

Upon moving to her aunt's seaside home in the British Isles, Connie becomes part of a secret society that shelters mythical creatures, and must use her ability to communicate with these beings to protect them from evil and the incursions of humans.

Mermaids and SirensMiddle GradeAdventureFantasy
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Perchance to Dream

Lisa Mantchev · 355 pages

Bertie, who is blessed with word magic, and her fairy sidekicks, seek to save Nate, who has been kidnapped by the Sea Witch, but Bertie is torn between Nate and Ariel, an air spirit who loves Bertie enough to die for her.

Mermaids and SirensOrphansAdventureFantasy
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Withering-By-Sea

Judith Rossell · 156 pages

WINNER ABIA BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR YOUNGER READERS 'Fans of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events will eat up Withering-by-Sea' -- Shelf Awareness High on a cliff above the gloomy coastal town of Withering-by-Sea stands the Hotel Majestic. Inside the walls of the damp, dull hotel, eleven-year-old orphan Stella Montgomery leads a miserable life with her three dreadful Aunts. But one night,

OrphansMiddle GradeAtmosphericAdventure
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Wolf Brother

Michelle Paver · 320 pages

This exciting fast-paced novel is an engaging depiction of a young boy's life during Neolithic times. This fictional account includes details based on archeological evidence of tool use, clothing, and other details of everyday life during the Stone Age. The main character loses his father in a 'demonic' animal attack, so is left alone to face the harsh realities of survival without the benefit o

OrphansAtmosphericMiddle GradeAdventure
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The Book of Dead Days

Marcus Sedgwick · 273 pages

With the help of his servant and an orphan girl, a magician named Valerian searches graveyards, churches, and underground waterways for a book he hopes will save him from a pact he has made with evil.

OrphansAtmosphericMiddle GradeFantasy
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The Crossing of Ingo

Helen Dunmore · 367 pages

Sapphy and her brother Conor have been called to take part in an ancient and dangerous coming-of-age ritual, but Ervys and his followers are determined to stop them.

Mermaids and SirensMiddle GradeAtmosphericFantasy
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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.

OrphansMiddle GradeAdventureFantasy
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The Squire's Tale

Gerald Morris · 224 pages

Life for the young orphan Terence has been peaceful, living with Trevecent the old Hermit in a quiet, isolated wood. That is, until the day a strange green sprite leads him to Gawain, King Arthur's nephew, who is on his way to Camelot hoping to be knighted. Trevecent can see the future and knows that Terence must leave to serve as Gawain's squire. From that moment on, Terence's life is filled with

OrphansMiddle GradeAdventureFantasy
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Wildwood Imperium

Colin Meloy · 592 pages

from publisher: From Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists, and Carson Ellis, acclaimed illustrator of The Mysterious Benedict Society, comes the stunning third book in the New York Times bestselling fantasy-adventure series the Wildwood Chronicles. A young girl's midnight séance awakens a long-slumbering malevolent spirit.... A band of runaway orphans allies with an underground collect

OrphansMiddle GradeAtmosphericAdventure
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The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Joan Aiken · 181 pages

Wicked wolves and a grim governess threaten Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia when Bonnie's parents leave Willoughby Chase for a sea voyage. Left in the care of the cruel Miss Slighcarp, the girls can hardly believe what is happening to their once happy home The servants are dismissed, the furniture is sold, and Bonnie and Sylvia are sent to a prison-like orphan school. It seems as if the endless hour

OrphansMiddle GradeAtmosphericAdventure
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Blackbringer

Laini Taylor · 437 pages

When the ancient evil of the Blackbringer rises to unmake the world, only one determined faerie stands in its way. However, Magpie Windwitch, granddaughter of the West Wind, is not like other faeries. While her kind live in seclusion deep in the forests of Dreamdark, she’s devoted her life to tracking down and recapturing devils escaped from their ancient bottles, just as her hero, the legendary B

AtmosphericAdventureMiddle GradeFantasy
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Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal / Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal es el primer volumen de la ya clásica serie de novelas fantásticas de la autora británica J.K. Rowling. «Con las manos temblorosas, Harry le dio la vuelta al sobre y vio un sello de lacre púrpura con un escudo de armas: un león, un águila, un tejón y una serpiente, que rodeaban una gran letra H.» Harry Potter nunca ha oído hablar de Hogwarts hasta que empiezan a

OrphansMiddle GradeAdventureFantasy
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The Folk Keeper

Franny Billingsley · 176 pages

OrphansAtmosphericMiddle GradeFantasy
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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.

OrphansMiddle GradeAdventureFantasy
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The Blue Sword

Robin McKinley · 272 pages

This is the story of Corlath, golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the Lady Aerin. And this is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimad-sol, King's Rider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since the Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle. And this is the song of the kelar of the Hillfolk, the magic of the blood

OrphansAtmosphericFantasyAdventure
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Dragon Keeper

Carole Wilkinson · 339 pages

set in China in 141 B.C. In a remote western palace, Ping, a slave girl of unknown origin, serves the emperor's Dragon Keeper, an incompetent drunkard who neglects the two last-known dragons in his charge. When one of them dies and an evil hunter threatens to kill the other for his magical body parts, the old dragon, Danzi, escapes with the girl. He entrusts Ping with his precious and beautiful pu

OrphansMiddle GradeAdventureFantasy
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Plain Kate

Erin Bow · 320 pages

Plain Kate's odd appearance and expertise as a woodcarver cause some to think her a witch, but friendship with a talking cat and, later, with humans help her to survive and even thrive in a world of magic, charms, and fear.

OrphansAtmosphericMiddle GradeFantasy
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The Farfield Curse

Kaleb Nation · 464 pages

OrphansMiddle GradeFantasyAdventure
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Vivaldi's Virgins

Barbara Quick · 294 pages

In this enthralling new novel, Barbara Quick re-creates eighteenth-century Venice at the height of its splendor and decadence. A story of longing and intrigue, half-told truths and toxic lies, Vivaldi's Virgins unfolds through the eyes of Anna Maria dal Violin, one of the elite musicians cloistered in the foundling home where Antonio Vivaldi—known as the Red Priest of Venice—is maestro and compose

VeniceOrphansAtmosphericFemale Lead
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