Here are 100 books that The Midnight Guardians fans have personally recommended if you like
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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 the Land of…
I am the oldest of six children – all girls! I used to make up imaginary worlds for my little sisters. We’d steal clothes from Mum and Dad for dressing up; we’d pull all the cushions off the sofa to make a show; we even used to put ribbons on the poor dog. Nowadays I write books with magic and fairy tales and adventure. I write for the child inside me; the child that loved an exciting, fantastical story. I have written over 50 books for children from picture book to middle grade, and I still love inventing imaginary worlds.
Spooky and magical! I remember staying up all night to finish this one when I was a child. It’s scary but so, so exciting. The real thrill comes from the idea that magic is all around us, alongside us in our everyday lives. The relationship between the boy and his grandmother is warm and loving, and their positivity is what provides the hope and joy in this book.
From the World's No. 1 Storyteller, The Witches is a children's classic that has captured young reader's imaginations for generations.
This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches.
Grandmamma loves to tell about witches. Real witches are the most dangerous of all living creatures on earth. There's nothing they hate so much as children, and they work all kinds of terrifying spells to get rid of them. Her grandson listens closely to Grandmamma's stories-but nothing can prepare him for the day he comes face-to-face with The Grand High Witch herself!
I am the oldest of six children – all girls! I used to make up imaginary worlds for my little sisters. We’d steal clothes from Mum and Dad for dressing up; we’d pull all the cushions off the sofa to make a show; we even used to put ribbons on the poor dog. Nowadays I write books with magic and fairy tales and adventure. I write for the child inside me; the child that loved an exciting, fantastical story. I have written over 50 books for children from picture book to middle grade, and I still love inventing imaginary worlds.
Magic comes in many forms and the version in this book is fast, funny, and modern. Scarlett has trouble controlling her emotions – something children will really connect with – but whenever she tries to push her feelings down, they find a very clear way of bursting out. Maz Evans knows how her readers think and speak: the dialogue and setting feel so alive and authentic; and she knows what makes them laugh.
Scarlett Fife has BIG feelings. And she's about to get into BIG trouble. From the bestselling Maz Evans comes a heartfelt and hilarious new series, perfect for fans of Roald Dahl's Matilda.
'A laugh-out-loud story full of warmth, Big Feelings and explosive results.' Dominique Valente, author of Starfell
'So funny, you'll explode with laughter' Sam Copeland, author of Charlie Changes into a Chicken
Scarlett Fife has BIG FEELINGS. And when she has BIG FEELINGS, they explode out of her like an over-squeezed stress ball.
Scarlett's in big trouble after a BIG FEELINGS episode leads to a runaway hamster getting into…
Eleven-year-old Sierra just wants a normal life. After her military mother returns from the war overseas, the two hop from home to homelessness while Sierra tries to help her mom through the throes of PTSD.
I am the oldest of six children – all girls! I used to make up imaginary worlds for my little sisters. We’d steal clothes from Mum and Dad for dressing up; we’d pull all the cushions off the sofa to make a show; we even used to put ribbons on the poor dog. Nowadays I write books with magic and fairy tales and adventure. I write for the child inside me; the child that loved an exciting, fantastical story. I have written over 50 books for children from picture book to middle grade, and I still love inventing imaginary worlds.
Dragon Mountain is fast and cinematic, full of excitement and thrills. It’s the story of a group of children at a holiday camp, who find a secret entrance to a world of dragons. There are battles and races and high-speed chases. I’ve always loved stories with a training session segment where the character learns new skills and, really, who wouldn’t want to learn to fly a dragon?
Shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Children's Book Award, the Children's Book of the Year (British Book Awards) and longlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award. The first book in the ROARsome DRAGON REALM series for 9+ readers! Perfect for those who love fantasy, magic, adventure and DRAGONS! Dragon Destiny, the fifth and final instalment, is now available.
'Rollicking, escapist storytelling with a dragon-sized heart'- Kiran Millwood Hargrave, bestselling author of THE GIRL OF INK AND STARS
Deep within the mountain, a great creature stirred in its sleep. Its eyes rolled back in its head, and its wings jerked wide open...
I’m the sort of writer who constantly asks “what kind of story could I set here?” A quiet copse, a busy mall, a shabby wedding venue, all locations have their own stories to tell in addition to those of the characters who inhabit them. Stories work best when the location is the pivot around which everything else happens. This is doubly true for secondary world fantasy because, when you’re creatinga world, you don’t just tease the story out of its locations—you can weave it into the fabric of the place. Which is how I created the world of Queen Of Clouds, down to its very motes.
The setting of this masterful story is contemporary London, but one dominated by water: rain, rivers, canal boats, ponds. As the novel progresses, the characters’ only partially successful attempts to connect feel hampered by the decreasing definition of the boundaries between land and water. A sense of hopeless inevitability pervades every page, that in the world of this drowning London something has changed. Something irreversible.
'A mesmerising, mysterious book . . . Haunting. Worrying. Beautiful' Russell T. Davis
'Brilliantly unsettling' Olivia Laing
'A magificent book' Neil Gaiman
'An extraordinary experience' William Gibson
Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2020, this is fiction that pushes the boundaries of the novel form.
Shaw had a breakdown, but he's getting himself back together. He has a single room, a job on a decaying London barge, and an on-off affair with a doctor's daughter called Victoria, who claims to have seen her first corpse at age thirteen.…
Although I’m from New Zealand, Europe has been home for a lot of my adult life, and that has included a lot of time in North Yorkshire. It always seems to me that there’s potential for magic around every corner, in the deep sinkholes and high fells of the Dales, or the cobbled charm of the York Shambles and the loom of the Abbey over Whitby harbour. So I do feel that the fact so many stories are set in London is a waste of so many delightfully different settings, and I make a point of hunting out as many alternatives as I can. I hope you enjoy this selection!
In the depths of the Cotswolds, Andy Caplet is a small-town journalist with a disastrous career (and life). Until, that is, the mysterious Inspector Hobbes offers him a spare room and the chance to follow along on some investigations. The only problem being, none of the cases are exactly the usual sort of crime, and Inspector Hobbes is not a usual inspector. Or a usual human. These stories are just fun, goofy escapism, caught somewhere between cosy mystery and urban fantasy, and they’re pure entertainment. Andy can be a bit annoying, but Inspector Hobbes is delightful.
A reporter with nothing to lose. An inspector with something to hide. The Cotswolds’ newest odd couple is on the case…
Of all the journalists at his small-town paper, Andy Caplet is far and away the worst. At least he has a job. But when his latest expose on the strange and scandalous Inspector Hobbes backfires, Andy is left broke and homeless. The inspector’s offer of a spare room for a few days (or months) seems like the only option…
Andy agrees to accompany the inspector to investigate a sudden surge in crime and soon finds himself immersed in a…
Taking only what they can quickly pack, 11-year-old Mardella and her mom secretly move away from their abusive home to start a fresh life in Haven, MN. But Mardella’s sure she's to blame—if only she hadn’t dialed 911, her dad wouldn’t be in jail, her mom wouldn't have been fired,…
I didn’t know anything about Victorian history before I started writing the Arrowood books. The idea for the character of William Arrowood came as I was reading a Sherlock Holmes story. It occurred to me that if I was a private detective working in London at the same time, I’d probably be jealous, resentful, and perhaps a little bitter about his success and fame. That was the basis of Arrowood. I started to write a few pages and then realized I needed to learn a lot about the history. Since then, I’ve read hundreds of books on the topic, pored over newspapers in the British Library, and visited countless museums.
This is another book written by a journalist. The stories in it are about the working class and destitute life in London at the end of the nineteenth century. Not only do they portray intimate relationships, prostitution, crime, and alcohol abuse, but they also give a sense of the life stories of the people who lived in these communities.
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Warner is a multi-disciplinary artist who began with object theatre – writing, designing and building characters, and performing. Now, history writing is his primary focus, having written two books for 14 years, and still counting, writes a monthly blog, combining words and images to tell stories of early Snohomish.
Rebecca Stott sets her adventure story in the Roman ruins of early London around 500 AD, and is included in this collection because Stott is, in a sense, creating the first draft of history where none exists with this admirable tale.
It’s of two sisters, Isla and Blue, whose father dies and they must deliver the Sword he forged to the client, King Osric. Listening to the story transported me to the sister’s side as they overcome one obstacle after another. Found myself listening in a dream state — an extraordinary listen that called me to make the exception to include this book in my list.
On the author's website I wanted to learn more about the title and clicked on the tab "Mysterious Black Soil". Reading the entry, I was entranced all over again by this amazing tale. Briefly, when the Romans abandoned Londinium, around 420 AD, the mile-wide…
A “superb” (The Guardian) novel about two sisters fighting for survival in Dark Ages Britain that weaves “a dazzling blend of history and fantasy” (BuzzFeed)
“Rich in history and folklore . . . Stott is astute on the use of stories to control others and maintain power. . . . Female defiance blazes through as her women reclaim this brutal period from the men.”—The Telegraph
The year is 500 AD. Sisters Isla and Blue live in the shadows of the Ghost City, the abandoned ruins of the once-glorious mile-wide Roman settlement Londinium on the bank of the River Thames. But…
When offered a plot at the community garden, I thought it would be fun to invite other families to learn to grow food together. As a science teacher, I knew that for toddlers, digging in the dirt and growing plants for food could plant seeds for a life-long love of exploring nature, hands-on science inquiry, environmental stewardship, and joy in healthy eating. As we gardened, I noticed what questions children and their parents had, and how we found the answers together. I wrote the picture book How to Say Hello to A Worm: A First Guide to Outside to inspire more kids and their parents to get their hands dirty.
Why garden at all? Isn't it a lot of work? I can always count on The Talking Vegetables, a retelling of a traditional African story, to delight toddlers and preschoolers. They revel in Spider's laziness as he shirks helping neighbors grow food at the community garden, and are just as delighted when he gets his comeuppance as the insulted vegetables refuse to let him get away without contributing to the team effort.
A wonderful folktale from the award-winning authors of Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile The villagers are planting a garden, but Spider refuses to help. He has plenty of rice to eat, so why should he do all that hard work? Then one day Spider gets tired of plain rice and decides to pick some of the delicious produce. Imagine his surprise when the vegetables start talking! The talented team that created the award-winning titles Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile and Head, Body, Legs join together once again for a laugh-out-loud funny Liberian story. The Talking Vegetables is a…
Eleven-year-old Mira wishes everything could go back to the way it was. Before she changed schools and had to quit gymnastics. Especially before Papa died. Now she spends her days cooking and cleaning for her stepsisters and Val—who she still won’t call mom and still won’t forgive for the terrible…
As a child, I spent summers looking for adders on the Common and winters walking through snowstorms pretending to be a Hobbit in Tolkien's Middle Earth. My travels and studies taught me the importance of respecting different cultures and our planet. Glasgow Libraries gave me my first storytelling work in 1992, and I have a Master's degree in Scottish Folklore. I live in Scotland, sharing stories through writing and storytelling. Having collected hundreds of traditional folktales about our ancestors' wisdom and folly, I co-authored my first book, Dancing With Trees, Eco-Tales from the British Isles, to reflect our need to understand nature's wisdom and help us live sustainably on Earth.
This book has over forty traditional folktales from thirty-one countries that speak of our relationship to the Earth.
This was my first Eco-Storytelling book, which I often return to because the stories are brilliantly retold. MacDonald is an American folklorist and storyteller who structures tales skilfully for oral telling - she also includes great tips for telling to live audiences.
Researchers, folklorists, and storytellers will appreciate the amazing detail and professionalism of the Bibliography and 'Tale Notes'.
I discovered my all-time favourite environmental folk story in this book, Mikku, and the Trees, a tale from Estonia that tells why trees no longer speak to humans unless you learn to listen very carefully. MacDonald is one of our most generous and highly respected folklorists.
Highlight the environment with these thought-provoking stories and activities!
Our relationship to the planet earth is at the heart of the single largest problem we face today. We have a choice: hurt mother earth and we hurt ourselves; care for the earth and we reap its bounty. People from ancient times have always known this and have expressed it in their traditional stories.
Here are more than forty stories from thirty cultures that touch upon ecological themes: "Caring for the Land," "Caring for Other Creatures," "All Things Are Connected," "No Thing is Without Value," and "Planning for the Future." These…
