Here are 66 books that Hooky fans have personally recommended if you like
Hooky.
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Whatever story I’m telling, I try to write female characters who are smart, funny, kind, and ultimately empowering; characters that drive the narrative, not the other way around. It is really important for me that my female characters have agency – that they actively move the story forward, make decisions and step up. Those are the kind of stories I like to read too. The books on this list are some of my favourites and all contain strong female protagonists. I hope you enjoy.
As someone who has always had a somewhat overactive imagination, as soon as I heard the premise of this book – a land created by twins Rose and Arthur that comes to life – I was hooked. The Land of Roar is filled with incredible things – dragons, mermaids, ninja wizards! But it is also filled with their childhood fears, personified by the truly terrifying Crowky. This is a heart-in-your-mouth series with a celebration of childhood adventure at its heart.
The first in a new children's fantasy adventure series, full of imagination, humour and heart, and with echoes of Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Neverending Story and Jumanji.
The Land of Roar is perfect for children aged 8 to 12, and can sit on their bookshelf next to Nevermoor, Wizards of Once and How to Train Your Dragon. Readers can bring their fantasy world to life and meet dragons, unicorns, mermaids and more in this beautifully illustrated children's book.
Believing is just the beginning ...
When Arthur and Rose were little, they were heroes in…
This biography for middle-grade readers and up explains who Jane Addams was and why she caused such a stir worldwide. The story follows Addams' first childhood realization of how poverty limits lives, livelihoods, and health to her becoming one of the most beloved―and disliked―women of her day. She worked to…
I’ve always been fascinated by family dynamics and have studied human development and psychology. I’m also a lifelong voracious reader and treasure my childhood reading experiences. Last but not least, I have three kids. Arguments and hurt feelings are inevitable but kids don’t love a lecture. A good story can bring understanding without being boring or pedantic. And we all know reading with your kids at bedtime is vital, but can’t we as parents ask for a little enjoyment too–maybe even a good laugh?!
The first in Chris Colfer's incredible series, the book centers on twins who find themselves in a fairy tale world.
Amidst the magic and fantasy, the brother and sister deal with real-world sibling dynamics and disagreements. These were so entertaining and clever–my daughter and I zoomed through the whole series together, getting a kick at what Colfer did with the classic fairy tale characters.
Alex and Conner Bailey's world is about to change...Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, twins Alex and Connor leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with the fairy tale characters they grew up reading about. But after a series of encounters with witches, wolves, goblins, and trolls alike, getting back home is going to be harder than they thought.
Since childhood, I’ve been creating stories about worlds just beyond the reach of our fingers but not beyond the reach of our minds. Now, all grown up, I have the pleasure of seeing those stories on bookstore shelves—some in locations and languages all over the world.
I love a good underdog story, and what better underdog is there an unwanted tweenager? Lisa wrote the Unwanteds as a fantastical answer to the loss of arts programs in public schools. In her story, set on the island of Quill, artistic tendencies are suppressed and those who fail to hide it are banished to (well, no spoilers). But if you love a good magical boarding school tale of friends, traitors, and new abilities, this series is for you.
A riveting middlegrade dystopian novel from New York Times bestselling Wake author Lisa McMann that Kirkus Reviews calls "The Hunger Games meets Harry Potter."
Every year in Quill, thirteen-year-olds are sorted into categories: the strong, intelligent Wanteds go to university, and the artistic Unwanteds are sent to their deaths.
Thirteen-year-old Alex tries his hardest to be stoic when his fate is announced as Unwanted, even while leaving behind his twin, Aaron, a Wanted. Upon arrival at the destination where he expected to be eliminated, however, Alex discovers a stunning secret--behind the mirage of the "death farm" there is instead…
Reeni is wild about birds so naturally, when she and her friend Yasmin have to pick a topic for a school assignment, birds in the city are an obvious choice. But when the upcoming bird count is threatened, Reeni has to detour from birding to activism. This is a global…
As an author and illustrator, I much prefer to present my writing with visuals. It’s how I write, by “seeing the story” in my mind. I have written and illustrated many graphic novels and comics on my own and as a part of a team. The art in comic books can be so much work it is often broken into stages: penciled art, then inked, and then colored. These graphic novels are some of the best magical stories for kids that I’ve ever read, and as someone who reads all the time, that’s saying a lot.
A boy without a name, referred to only as “The Human Childe”, lives in an underworld of magical creatures. Stolen from his true parents and kept almost as a pet or a trophy by the Fay King and Queen. He knows he is different and that he doesn’t belong here.
In the world above is a boy named Edmund. Not really his name, for he is a changeling and replaced the true Edmund long ago, but this is the only family he’s ever known, and he loves them, and they love him. However, he can speak to birds and cats and accidentally sets his sister’s hair aflame.
This book is a very complete magical world with beautiful art throughout. The pacing is just excellent, and the story is really engaging.
Rising star author-illustrator Ethan M. Aldridge delivers a fantasy adventure with all the makings of a classic. Illustrated with over two-hundred pages of watercolor paintings, this epic graphic novel is perfect for fans of Amulet.
Edmund and the Childe were swapped at birth. Now Edmund lives in secret as a changeling in the World Above, his fae powers hidden from his unsuspecting parents and his older sister, Alexis. The Childe lives among the fae in the World Below, where being a human makes him a curiosity at the royal palace.
But when the cruel sorceress Hawthorne seizes the throne, the…
I once thought I was broken, because I became so invested in the characters I read about. I carried them with me out into the real world, where their struggles kept me from focusing on my own tasks. Then I learned this connection is a feature of reading, not a bug. While some people collect book boy/girl-friends–and I do enjoy swooning over a love interest–I am more drawn to those characters I’d want to share a rum with or meet for a beer. Authentic characters show us we’re not alone and inspire us to grow. They become so much more to us than mere words on the page.
Two words: Princess Ari. She loves butter as much as I do, but that is not why I love her. This character is far from perfect, but she doesn’t let that stop her. She embraces who she is and refuses to let others’ perceptions of her dictate her sense of self-worth. She is no victim, even when she literally is one. Ari would have your back at all times, and then bake you tasty pastries after your adventures.
An epic, romantic, and action-packed fantasy inspired by the tale of Rumpelstiltskin, about a bastard princess who must take on an evil fae to save her brother’s soul, from C. J. Redwine, the New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow Queen. Perfect for fans of Graceling and the Lunar Chronicles.
The world has turned upside down for Thad and Ari Glavan, the bastard twins of Súndraille’s king. Their mother was murdered. The royal family died mysteriously. And now Thad sits on the throne of a kingdom whose streets are suddenly overrun with violence he can’t stop.
From my early days of reading Fire and Hemlock and various books of mythology, I’ve loved traditional tales from all around the world. In college I didn’t aim to major in things that would be useful to me as a fantasy writer, but anthropology and folklore made a great background for that job. Nowadays, I actively seek out books based on traditional stories, especially those that go beyond the most well-known European fairy tales and myths. Sometimes, they inspire me, in turn, to write my own stories!
So many of the books I read flinch from letting there be truly bad consequences to the protagonist’s actions, but this one is impressive in how little it pulls its punches.
When I picked it up, I wasn’t as familiar with the Persian folklore that inspired it as I am with other novels, but it made me want to go read the tales it’s based on. I also found the writing lovely, a cut above many of the novels I read. And for bonus points, it has queer representation, too!
From the author of Girls Made of Snow and Glass, this captivating and utterly original Persian-inspired fairy tale about a girl cursed to be poisonous to the touch is perfect for fans of Natasha Ngan and Naomi Novik.
'Monstrously beautiful and enchanting' Tasha Suri, author of Empire of Sand
There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away from everyone, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it's not just a story.
A gay retelling of the classic fairy tale--a scrumptious love story featuring ungrateful stepsiblings, a bake-off, and a fairy godfather.
Cinderelliot is stuck at home taking care of his ungrateful stepsister and stepbrother. When Prince Samuel announces a kingdom-wide competition to join the royal staff as his baker, the stepsiblings…
I have a great love of visionary fantasy fiction, metaphysical mystery thrillers, and fiction that doesn’t conform to generic norms, be it novels or film, as well as music and the arts. I’m also passionate about exploring the unknown, the mysteries of the mind, consciousness, and our existence in this unfathomable universe. In that regard, I love to travel. Some of my most recent escapades have included journeys deep into the Peruvian Amazon, Brazil, the Andes, and Mexico, meeting local indigenous folk wherever possible, and participating in shamanic ceremonies and tribal rituals. And lastly, I’m an ardent Formula One fan – something that has not yet featured in my fiction, though it may.
I was instantly transported by this epic saga of high fantasy steeped in legend and myth. The beautiful descriptions of the rugged, dreamlike, and sometimes sinister lands and fabulous otherworld dimensions of the Elder Isles, make Lyonesse an incomparable read. I love Vance’s stunning prose style, his razor-sharp dry humour, and the complexity of his characters. It is boundary-defying fantasy, mercifully devoid of elves, dwarves, and dragons but brimful with intrigues and subplots, unexpected twists, sudden violence, acts of heroism, and scenes of tragedy, love, strangeness, and betrayal. Lyonesse is magic from beginning to end.
The Lyonesse sequence evokes the Elder Isles, is a baroque land of pre-Arthurian myth now lost beneath the Atlantic, where powerful sorcerers, aloof faeries, stalwart champions, and nobles eccentric, magnanimous, and cruel pursue intrigue among their separate worlds . . .
Prince Aillas of Troicinet is betrayed on his first diplomatic voyage and cast into the sea. Before he redeems his birthright, he must pass the breadth of Hybras Isle as prisoner, vagabond, and slave, an acquaintance of faeries, wizards, and errant knights, and lover to a sad and beautiful girl whose fate sets his bitter rivalry with the tyrant…
There is something about books set in the cold, you know immediately bad things are going to happen! It may be my early childhood in Scotland, or my English upbringing, but I have always been drawn to the dark side of stories, the things under the bed, the monsters in the closet. I still love to be scared by the twists and chills but also am a sucker for a happy ending. In my novels, I always strive to entertain, to scare, and surprise, but ultimately there needs to be an emotional truth beneath everything. And this is true of the books I read as well.
Sometimes you think you know all about a famous incident, I mean the Titanic has been overdone in films and books, right? Well, Stacey Lee gives it a totally fresh approach from the point of view of a young Chinese-English teen, Valora Luck. And while this is a fictional take on what might have happened, the fact that there were Chinese people onboard The Titanic, who at that time would not have been allowed into the USA makes for a gripping and thought-provoking read. And then of course there’s Stacey Lee’s wonderful storytelling!
Valora Luck has a dream that one day she and her brother will be famous acrobats, touring America. But once she’s on board The Titanic, she soon discovers she must hide her identity, both as a girl and as a servant, and use her talents to save her brother and his motley band of friends. But like…
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Downstairs Girl comes the richly imagined story of Valora and Jamie Luck, twin British-Chinese acrobats travelling aboard the Titanic on its ill-fated maiden voyage.
Valora Luck has two things: a ticket for the biggest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world, and a dream of leaving England behind and making a life for herself as a circus performer in New York. Much to her surprise though, she's turned away at the gangway; apparently, Chinese people aren't allowed into America.
But Val has to get on that ship. Her twin brother…
As a female grown up in a working-class neighborhood in East Naples (Italy), and as an academic researching political ecologies in Italy, Brazil, and the USA, I am especially interested in how sex/gender, class/work, and race/coloniality are intersected in people’s lives, and especially in how this shapes their perceptions and experiences of environmental problems. This approach has led me to look for the connections between labor and the environment both within and beyond waged/industrial work and formal trade unions, including the unpaid housework and subsistence production done in working-class, peasant, Black, and Indigenous communities and the social movements that represent them.
This is a novel that I have read again over the years, gifted to my loved ones, and recommended to my friends. Set in Kerala (India) between the early 1960s and early 1990s, the book tells the story of the ill-fated love between an upper caste woman and a lower caste man, set against the grain of parallel stories and events involving other members of the two characters' families and village.
What struck me was the profound humanity with which the motivations and worldviews of all characters are depicted and the author's ability to illustrate the chain of suffering that connects them as related to larger social schemes–such as post-colonial relations between the British and the Indian branch of the family.
'They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.'
This is the story of Rahel and Estha, twins growing up among the banana vats and peppercorns of their blind grandmother's factory, and amid scenes of political turbulence in Kerala. Armed only with the innocence of youth, they fashion a childhood in the shade of the wreck that is their family: their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher) and their sworn enemy, Baby Kochamma…
Lois Lowry looks back at history through a personal lens as she draws from her own memories as a child in Hawaii and Japan, as well as from historical research, in this stunning work in verse for young readers.
On the Horizon tells the story of people whose lives were…
I am an award-winning author who grew up in a family of painters, poets, sculptors, and novelists; people who designed their lives around, and dedicated their lives to, artistic expression. I knew I wanted to be a writer at age three when I began dictating a poem every day to my mom. I first fell in love with Jane Austen as a student at Oxford, where I read my favorite of her novels, Persuasion.
I loved reading this book to my kids, who were immediately drawn into the heartbreaking story of Judith, a girl with Down Syndrome, who was separated from her twin sister, Joyce, and institutionalized for many years. This separation led to great pain for both sisters, until decades later, when Joyce brought Judith home, and enrolled her in an art program for differently-abled people. Slowly, Judith flourished, going on to become an artist of renown, with work displayed in museums and galleries around the world.
This tremendous story, of the bond between sisters, the therapeutic value of the creative process, and the potential for creating meaning and joy through artistic expression, helped my very young children develop empathy for and a deeper understanding of differently-abled people.
A moving and powerful introduction to the life and art of renowned artist, Judith Scott, as told by her twin sister, Joyce Scott and illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist, Melissa Sweet.
Judith Scott was born with Down syndrome. She was deaf, and never learned to speak. She was also a talented artist. Judith was institutionalized until her sister Joyce reunited with her and enrolled her in an art class. Judith went on to become an artist of renown with her work displayed in museums and galleries around the world.
Poignantly told by Joyce Scott in collaboration with Brie Spangler and…
