82 books like From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Sometimes you just want to read a story with a giant talking rat, you know? Oh, just me? Well, whether or not you enjoy giant talking rats, if you like adventure, you should check this out. It’s written by the same woman who wrote The Hunger Games, but this one’s appropriate for middle-grade kids. It’s huge stakes for a kid who just wants to get home. Adventure just under our feet! And if you’re reading this with imagination, you can picture it happening right under the ground… right now.

My love for this book started at age ten, when I read it for the first time and couldn’t put it down.

It introduced me to many of the tropes I would later come to love: the big house in the country, secrets from the past, the wise mother-figure. 

Most of all, though, this story about three children who resurrect a dormant walled garden taught me the power of hope. This novel shows us that although seeds and bulbs may look dead, there is a life inside that just needs care and space to flourish.

It’s a beautiful lesson for children and adults alike.

This story of a 12-year-old boy who runs away from his New York City home to live alone in the Catskills is a comfort read in my house.

The detailed description of how Sam survives—foraging, building traps, hollowing out a tree—and the theme of independence are catnip to the introverts in my family. The book is read on repeat with my boys.

Two African American brothers spend their summer in rural Virginia while their parents navigate a rough patch in their marriage. Genie, 11, and Ernie, 13, get to know their blind grandfather who has a special room filled with plants and songbirds. I identified with Genie, a worrier who likes to pose questions in his notebook. As the two brothers respond differently to their grandfather’s announcement that a brave man learns to shoot a gun at 14, Reynolds is also asking readers to consider what it means to be brave and how we should define family. I loved the themes and vivid setting of the book. As someone who visited a grandparent in a small, rural town each summer, I identified with the boys’ sense that they have travelled not just a state but a whole world away from home.

Miranda Sinclair is a latchkey kid who lives with her single mom on the Upper West Side of New York City in the late 1970s. I love the way Miranda navigates her dirty, dangerous, yet enchanting city – her street smarts, her fears, her relationships with the adults in the neighborhood who keep a watchful eye over her. And the book, while totally gritty and real, also has a lovely, melancholy element of magical realism that makes the story mysterious and poignant. 

The perfect teen horror book doesn’t exist…oh wait, yes it does. Unlike the others, I read this as an adult, but wow! This was a huge influence on my horror book, with its scenes of living in a cemetery.

Gaiman paints certain evil things as beautiful and worthy of redemption, and I appreciate that. A murderer on the loose, a boy living in a cemetery with ghosts, and all manner of monsters lurking in the pages. It’s a gorgeous book and deserves that Newberry Medal on the cover.

I think this book is a great read for all ages and the setting, Camp Green Lake, is not a lake, but a dusty dry desert.

This location informs the plot. It is a punishing environment as the boys sent there are being “reformed” by making them dig huge holes in the sun all day long. Digging holes is a metaphor for digging up the secrets of the camp and the threat of snake bites and dehydration and infighting enhance the tension.

12-year-old Catherine’s feelings toward her younger, autistic brother are complicated. She’s protective of him and also appears to be embarrassed by his behaviour. All she wants is a “normal” life. When she becomes friends with a paraplegic boy she’s forced to think about what “normal” really means. This book is hopeful, humourous, thoughtful, and explores what it means to interact with someone who is neurodivergent. The author is the mother of a child with autism and the complex relationships and friendships in the book felt real and captured the mixed-up emotions of middle-graders. 

What could illustrate sibling tensions better than a book set in a car during a road trip? Raina always wanted a baby sister—until Amara arrived. Now, as she embarks on a weeks-long car trip she remembers what a difficult baby and toddler Amara was, and the ongoing frustration of sharing her parents’ attention Before the graphic memoir is done, the two sisters bond. This is the second in the Smile series, but you can jump in here if you like without getting confused. The art is great, and the story is heart-warming without being sticky-sweet. It brought back memories of road trips with my sisters, sharing snacks, and fighting for space in the back of the station wagon.

This beautiful, bittersweet novel tells the story of Katie; her sister, Lynn; and their brother, Sammy. Growing up in 1950s Georgia, in one of the few Japanese families in their town, the kids stand out and must struggle against prejudice, economic hardship, and Lynn’s eventual illness. What could be a bleak story is redeemed by Katie’s dry humor and the author’s portrayal of the deep bond between the children and within the family and the Japanese community. Lynn teaches Katie that however difficult life becomes, one must look for Kira-Kira—the things that glitter like the stars above. This book doesn’t flinch from hard topics: the labor conditions in the poultry industry, Lynn’s illness, racial prejudice. As a writer, I admire Kadohata’s willingness to tackle these issues and her faith that kids will learn from having such stories as part of their reading lives.