The Best Books to Read After Harry Potter

This ‘What to Read After Harry Potter’ booklist is presented in partnership with author Carole P. Roman.

What books are similar to the Harry Potter series?

Did you love the real-world-meets-adventure vibe of Harry Potter? Are you fascinated by stories about fantastic schools? If so, then we know just what you should read next.

Here’s our top ten list of recommendations for what to read after Harry Potter:

Everyone at Grady’s school wants just one thing: to be accepted into the highly prestigious and mysterious Templeton Academy, a high school for superheroes. Grady hasn’t bothered to apply though; he’s a loser, and everyone knows it. Besides, his Uncle Leo has forbidden him from applying. Then, the acceptance letter arrives. Aarush, his best friend, secretly entered him, and now it looks like the two friends will be training as superheroes together. Unfortunately, lessons at Templeton Academy will reveal some old and nasty secrets, and even superpowers might not be enough to save Grady from them. Focusing on inner strength, friendship, and confidence, this school story is all about discovering yourself.

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Every year, children are kidnapped from Sophie and Agatha’s village and taken to the School for Good and Evil to train as fairytale heroes and villains. Convinced she will be a fantastic fairytale princess, Sophie can’t wait to be kidnapped. Her best friend Agatha is equally sure that with her ugly looks and surly temper, she’s on her way to the School for Evil. However, when the two girls each end up at the “wrong” school, they start to learn hard lessons about fate, destiny, and identity. As much as it is about school, this is also a series about knowing who you are and what you want.

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No Humans Allowed is the first book in the Dungeon Academy series. Zellidora Stormclash is nothing like the other students in Dungeon Academy. Smaller, less ferocious, and fundamentally less interested in annihilating human adventurers than her classmates, her terrible secret is that she’s also human. If her demon classmates knew, they’d tear her to shreds, but it’s not until she discovers her relationship with the most feared human of all that she begins to understand that she belongs far, far from this school for monsters. Set in the well-known Dungeons and Dragons world, this series invites readers to think about what it means to fit in, as well as the ways we find meaning in life.

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Books in the Bella Santini series offer themes of self-belief and empathy. Bella is like any other teenage girl, angry about having to waste her summer on a family camping trip and wishing her parents would just let her spend her summer the way she wants to—painting and hanging out with her friends. However, when she accidentally interrupts a fairy ceremony, her camping holiday is cut way shorter than she intended.

Arrested, kidnapped, and then enrolled at the Yelimoon School of magic, Bella finds herself embroiled in Queen Tatiana’s fight as an emissary of love against the forces of evil. Only by excelling at her lessons can Bella find the power she needs to get back home, but the School’s initiation quest will test her strength against monsters, dark magic, and a seriously unpleasant bully.

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When Amari’s brother disappears, she refuses to believe he is dead. Her suspicions about his death grow stronger, however, when she discovers a nomination to a summer tryout at the secretive Bureau of Supernatural Affairs hidden away in his closet – meant for her. Certain the Bureau is the key to her brother’s disappearance, Amari tries out and gets in. Before she can set about finding her brother, however, there are a few things she’ll need to master – her new and illegal magical powers, a band of magical super criminals, and her new classmates’ suspicions of her. As well as magic and adventure, this is a series about race, class, self-belief, and resilience.

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For as long as he can remember, Kase Garrick’s life ambition has been to train as a warrior at the Academy. Unfortunately, things start to go wrong almost the minute he arrives on campus. After accidentally starting a fight with his sister’s boyfriend, he finds himself in the discipline room alongside a wizard fire starter and a trespassing scholar. Scholars, wizards, and warriors don’t usually mix at the Academy, but to Kase’s amazement, friendship with these misfits may be his ticket to success in the Academy’s ultimate challenge. As well as being a fun take on the classic school story, this is a story about the value of teamwork and inclusivity.

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Alessia has never fit in at any of the many schools she’s been sent to. With her pale skin and her weird ability to experience the feelings of others, there’s something otherworldly about her. It isn’t until she explores the seaside town her mother once came from that she learns the truth – the world she really belongs in is deep under the sea, in the long-lost city of Atlantis. As its newest returning citizen, she’ll be attending a new sort of school – one focused on teaching her everything she needs to know about survival in a secret, technologically advanced underwater realm.

All is not as it seems in Atlantis, however, and soon Alessia will find herself drawn into a dangerous rebellion against the tyrannical Atlantide Emperor. Gripping and exotic, this is also a story about choice and free will.

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Linus Baker is one of the most loyal and hard-working employees at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY), charged with evaluating the orphanages that house magical children. He is known for being impartial and unbiased, putting the needs of the children above all else. However, when he’s called to evaluate the students at Marsyas Island Orphanage, he finds much more than he bargained for.

With students as varied as a dragon, an alien blob, and the anti-Christ, the lessons and teachers at this school have no choice but to be utterly unique too. Linus will discover a lot about the school and the children – but he will learn more about himself and the world he lives in. This book is the definition of feel-good literature, with a good dose of social commentary thrown in.

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Jacob’s grandfather has always told him a fascinating story: on an island in Wales; there was once a school for “peculiar” children with strange powers and wonderful talents. The children lived at the school to control and contain their strange powers and to protect them from the monsters that hunted “peculiars” like them. Jacob’s grandfather claimed to have been one of those children. Jacob stopped believing the stories when he grew up – until the day the monsters came for his grandfather and killed him.

Battling against his own self-doubt, grief, and depression, Jacob must travel to Wales to find the school and learn once and for all what the truth is. Dark and humorous at the same time, this beautiful series combines stunning photography with gripping storytelling for a fantasy school like no other.

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The first book of The Young Inventors Guild series, The Atomic Weight of Secrets, follows the story of five brilliant children. Taken to a mysterious boarding school in Ohio when their parents are unexpectedly called away by the sinister “Men in Black,” these children find themselves prisoners in a very welcoming prison.

Given the love and attention their parents never had time for, as well as all the education and lab equipment they can dream of, the children are nevertheless aware that something is very wrong in this new school. Determined to find answers – and their parents – they begin to hatch a secret plan of their own. Diverse, humorous, and well-written, this series is perfect for lovers of mystery and science.

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Already a victim of bullying and neglect, Danny Caulfield is neither surprised nor hopeful about being sent off to boarding school. However, it seems his luck has turned when the taxi delivers him not to the boarding school but to a school like none other: Wilsons Spy Academy, where the students learn spy training and magic.

Not only is Wilsons a school for young spies, but it is also a place of magic and secrets. What’s more, the school has an important mission, to stand guard over the opening to our own world, defending it from the evil Lower World. Danny, it turns out, looks just like the enemy. It means he’s the perfect student to infiltrate the Ring of Five, the ruthless leaders of the Lower World. Unfortunately, it also means more bullying – and maybe deeper treachery as well. Fast-paced and twisty, this is a magical school at its most exciting.

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What to Read Next:

• Why Everyone Should Read Harry Potter
• Books and Gifts for Harry Potter Fans Apparating to a Bookshelf Near You
• 5 Harry Potter Gift Books For Your Favorite Potterhead Movie Buff
• Imagination Soup’s 40 Best Books Like Harry Potter (Read Alikes!)

What to Read after Harry Potter was curated by Dr. Jen Harrison. Discover more books like these titles by following along with our reviews and articles tagged with Harry Potter, Magic, and School.