Half fairy, half vampire, and never quite sure which half she is. That’s Isadora Moon, and newly-independent readers adore her.
So if you’re hunting for books like Isadora Moon, it helps to know what makes hers work. Short chapters. A picture on nearly every page. A girl who’s a bit different, working out where she fits. They feel grown-up enough to read alone but cosy enough for bedtime.
The catch is there are only so many of them, and a child who’s clicked with that fully-illustrated, just-magical style tends to race through the lot.
Here are five that are a great sweet spot. Magic, short chapters, loads of pictures, nothing scary. They’re all magical books for younger readers, and every one is on Little Reads.
Books like Isadora Moon to read next
Kitty and the Moonlight Rescue (Paula Harrison)
Kitty and the Moonlight Rescue
Kitty comes from a family of superheroes, but she isn’t at all sure she wants to be one.
Then a frightened kitten gets stuck high up on the clock tower, and Kitty heads out across the moonlit rooftops with her cat crew to help. Turns out being brave matters every bit as much as having special powers.
This is the closest match to Isadora here. A girl with something that makes her different, lovely night-time pictures, and short chapters a 6 or 7 year old can manage on their own.
There’s a whole run of Kitty adventures to follow.
Aziza’s Secret Fairy Door (Lola Morayo)
Aziza’s Secret Fairy Door
On her birthday, Aziza is given a tiny fairy door. It whisks her off to Shimmerton, a world of naughty fairies, shapeshifters and unicorn shopkeepers.
Then the jewelled doorknob goes missing and she’s stuck there, a long way from home. Luckily her new friends Peri and Tiko are on hand to help her get back.
If it’s the magic-portal, step-into-another-world side of Isadora your reader loves, this is the one. Bright, fast and full of mischief.
Unicorn Academy (Julie Sykes)
Unicorn Academy: Isla and Buttercup
Picture a boarding school where every girl is paired with her own unicorn. That’s Unicorn Academy, on Unicorn Island.
Isla and her unicorn Buttercup notice something is wrong. The island’s magic is draining away, and a girl called Valentina is acting very strangely about it. So they set out to find who’s behind it.
For the child who reads Isadora for the magic and the friendships, this is a bit softer and a longer series. There are heaps of them, which buys you weeks of bedtimes.
Lottie Luna and the Fang Fairy (Vivian French)
Lottie Luna and the Fang Fairy
Lottie Luna is a werewolf. She’s super-fast, super-strong and has X-ray vision, and she’d quite like everyone to stop noticing.
All she really wants is to be like her friends. But on a camping trip, those powers might be the only way to get to the bottom of the fang fairy mystery.
Same feel as Isadora. A girl who’s secretly magical and mostly just wants to fit in. Short chapters, with black-and-white drawings the whole way through.
Bella Broomstick (Lou Kuenzler)
Bella Broomstick
Bella is a hopeless witch. So hopeless that her horrible Aunt Hemlock banishes her to Person World and bans her from doing magic ever again.
She gets along fine, right up until she spots a kitten in trouble and a spell is the only way to save it. And where there’s magic, there’s trouble close behind.
Doodly pictures, a likeable girl who keeps getting things slightly wrong, and that warm fitting-in theme Isadora fans know by heart.
When the Isadora Moon books run out
It’s a small panic, hitting the last book in a series your child loves. Especially when they’re still little and you’ve finally found something they’ll read by themselves.
Hopefully there’s a new name or two here to try next. And you can read all of them for free on Little Reads.
Worth saying before you download. Little Reads is built for children who already love books. If yours is still learning to read, an app with phonics and reading levels will serve you better. We’re a library, not a classroom.
But if you’ve got a little one who tears through a series and asks for the next one straight away, that’s who we’re for. Little Reads is a digital library of 3,000+ hand-picked books for children who love to read. Start them on Kitty and the Moonlight Rescue or Aziza’s Secret Fairy Door and see who they fall for. £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
If you enjoyed this, you might also like books like The Worst Witch and short chapter books for bedtime.