72 books like The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

I would personally recommend Isekai Kids because the characters are an adventurous and entertaining bunch whose antics really speak to children, especially gamers.

Ollie, Jimmy, and Grant activate a magical video game cartridge—and are transported to the land of Otherworld. The characters are realistic in their curiosity and desire to have a fun adventure in a place that is a mix of video game and amusement park with a strong dose of magic. Each of the characters has their own unique personality and approach to solving problems in Otherworld. Ollie is Courageous, Jimmy is Clever, and Grant is Smart as they work their way through the trick, traps, and battles of the Game World. 

Overall, it is a tale of teamwork, and an entertaining story of adventure and exploration.

The fact that it is set in a highly recognizable franchise makes kids very excited to read it. But the text itself is great.

The story follows the rules of the game, staying true to the ‘universe’ in which it is set, and making the text relatable to children worldwide. It contains great humor for the K through 6th grade age range, and honestly, I got a real Disney sense when reading it before giving the book to my son. It swirls with happy-laugh energy, a key element in books these days since they must compete with video games and screen time.

I write because I love to entertain children. Seeing a child write and publish at just ten years old is phenomenal and I fully support his endeavors. Not only that—I honestly enjoy the book. He writes well for his age and, better than that, he maintains the tremendous creativity of youth. The adult continuity that is set and made rigid by our years of getting older is not present in this story.

And many of the things that occur within will honestly make you laugh out loud.

As a book it was written by kids for kids, pretty obviously. But I guarantee it is fun for all ages.

Lone Wolf is a book that is also a game. A LitRPG for Kids, originally written in the 80s, it is the start of a wonderfully long series of illustrated books that both allowed children to choose their actions as the protagonist of the story and also gave them choices on how to develop the hero and make him progress.

It’s a model of book that I really would like to see more of today.

Lone Wolf might be the series that started me on my gaming path, and it is a magical and beautiful quest that teaches about honor, teamwork, and clever tactical planning.

Even better, the author made the series free online in 2015. So it is now available all over the internet and even as a number of free phone apps.

In Claiming T-Mo, Australian-African writer Eugen Bacon re-invents and shatters all the familiar codes of the magical sci-fi genre. A novel about women, magic, fate, and freedom, Claiming T-Mo is also a deep reflection on motherhood, love, masculinity, and identities. As the different female narrators share their views and feelings about T-Mo, the elusive central character, more questions about filiation and heritage unroll, making the reader a part of the quest. I love Eugen Bacon because she is an incredibly versatile talent, who turns everything she writes about into pure gold. 

This sci-fi adventure seems insane when you read the premise – a cowboy, a hitman, and an alien AI armor? Somehow, this manages to actually work, and becomes a thrilling adventure, with a pretty unique romance and fun world-building. It’s just one of those books you need to read to believe.

So you want to find aliens. But where to begin? Digging up microbial neighbors on Mars? Encountering big-brained, tentacled beings in flying saucers? Searching for far-flung habitable exoplanets?

This compilation of essays from astrobiologists, AI experts, psychologists, planetary geologists, and NASA scientists (plus more!) gives the alien-hunter a well-rounded, thoughtful start for their search.

Some of the essays will leave you laughing out loud; others will remind you how much we still have to learn about the universe. I came away feeling both smarter and smaller, and I enjoyed every minute of it. 

For a novel on the list, I have only read once, and a long time ago, I still keep thinking about this. It asks: Can we learn about the universe without first learning about ourselves?

It also goes into the limits of science. There are simply things science cannot tell us. The planet’s colloid sea is nonlinear, the math unsolvable, and the alien is potentially hostile. I choose to believe the planet is attempting to heal some deep-forgotten hurt of the narrator. What is the purpose of bringing up a disastrous relationship? To heal or learn? Or perhaps the alien is simply toying with them?

I read it soon after changing my life's trajectory and attempting to be more peaceful, creative, contemplative, and less frantic or consumptive. I need to read this again.

Honestly, I couldn’t put this book down. I read Rogue Elements during a summer vacation on a lovely North Sea island and I had to force myself to have a break and go out for some bicycling and beach fun.

John Jackson Miller just had me hooked with his tale of dashing (but also sad and often drunken) ex-Starfleet officer Cristóbal Rios – introduced in Star Trek: Picard – living through a hilarious adventure while at the same time trying to find a new purpose in life after being cashiered out of his career because of some fishy diplomatic affair.

Grumpy gangsters, a dangerous woman, strange new crew members, and the hunt for a secret treasure keep Rios on the run throughout the whole novel. 

This whole book, I kept expecting an epic space battle to break out. That’s how space operas work, I thought, but now I’ve been introduced to cozy science fiction.

The book explored a dozen species. Very different people kept finding common ground, something anyone living in the US right now is struggling with.

My life has been filled with people who didn’t fit the average person mold in various ways. I was moved almost to tears more than once as people who were all so different found their way into something like a family. I particularly enjoyed how the love of friends was given the same weight as romantic love. I gloried in how each relationship interwove into something greater than the parts.