Butterbeer. The Hogwarts Express. Quidditch. Hedwig. Privet Drive. Honestly, even just typing those words has set off a wave of childhood nostalgia.
I’m of the age where we queued outside WHSmith for the next book. I’d dodge certain people at school so I didn’t catch a spoiler. And I’d get the most FOMO when my friends were comparing notes the next morning, before I’d had a chance to read it.
Watching the first film is now a completely non-negotiable part of getting in the spirit of Christmas.
If you’re reading this, you probably know exactly the nostalgia I’m on about. You might even have your own dog-eared copies stashed in a loft box somewhere. And now you get to do the whole thing again, but this time through your little one’s eyes, which is even better.
So let’s talk about what to read after Harry Potter for kids who’ve devoured the lot and don’t know where to go next.
What Harry Potter does so well (and why it’s such a hard act to follow)
The thing that hooks them, I think, is the world itself. Hogwarts feels solid. The food, the timetables, the lessons, the houses (I’m a Ravenclaw, FYI). It’s a place you could imagine actually living in.
Then there’s the trio. Three kids and three big personalities.
And Harry who goes from cupboard-under-the-stairs to chosen one. In my experience, this is a bit of a secret sauce in children’s fiction.
Because children love an arc that whispers, “you matter, even if no one’s worked it out yet.”
The boarding school setting doesn’t hurt either. Meals, lessons, dormitories, common rooms… The whole castle is a contained universe, which means the reader always knows where they are even when the plot is doing somersaults.
(My students used to compare house notes over break and lunch. I refereed several heated debates about whether Hufflepuff was secretly the best one.)
What really hit me when I got to teach Philosopher’s Stone was how the books grow with the reader. The struggles, the fallouts, the anxieties… they’re a half-step ahead of wherever the reader is at.
Which is also why the later books tip firmly into YA territory by the time you hit Half-Blood Prince.
Why your child might not be ready for adult fantasy…yet
Finishing a series like this leaves a hole. Almost a mourning for a world you’ve been living in for weeks, months, sometimes years.
The obvious move is to hand them something thick from the adult fantasy shelf and hope it does the same job.
But it usually doesn’t.
Adult fantasy tends to go harder on violence, romance and political ambiguity. Tolkien? Fine for a confident reader. Game of Thrones? Obviously not. Your eleven-year-old does not need to be facing the Others.
The sweet spot is something that *feels* more grown-up (proper quests, real danger, characters you fall for) but where the emotional weight stays age-appropriate.
They’ve earned the next stage. They just don’t have to leap off a cliff to get to it.
If you’re worried this counts as holding them back, it really doesn’t. You’re handing them a step up, not a sudden drop.
And for what it’s worth, the parents who pay attention to this stuff are usually the ones raising lifelong readers.
Five books that hit the same notes
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Inkheart
For the Matilda kids. The ones who’d happily move into a library and only come out for snacks.
And if your child fell hardest for the *coming-alive* feeling of Harry Potter (that thing where the words seem to lift off the page), this is the one to reach for.
Meggie’s dad, Mo, has a gift. When he reads aloud, characters slip out of the book and into the real world. Which is glorious, until something properly nasty slips out too.
The story turns into a rescue mission across Europe with Meggie right at the heart of it.
It’s the kind of book that reminds you what it felt like at ten, so deep inside a story you didn’t hear someone calling you for tea.
It’s not a friendship trio. It’s family. But the warmth, the stakes, that sense of a wider world humming behind the page? All there.
And if they finish it and want more, Inkspell and Inkdeath are waiting on the other side.
A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison
A Pinch of Magic
If your house quotes Hocus Pocus around Halloween, you already know the Sanderson Sisters energy.
The Widdershins girls in A Pinch of Magic are sisters cut from the same cloth. Less spooky, less Bette Midler, but the same trio of personalities pulling in three different directions.
Betty, Fliss and Charlie have a family curse to break and three magical objects to help them do it.
A travelling carpet bag. A mirror that shows the wrong people. A set of nesting dolls that hide.
Magic with rules. The system feels as solid as wands, houses and Horcruxes.
It goes dark in places, which is part of the appeal. But never the kind of dark that leaves you flat. They bicker, they take care of each other, and you’re rooting for all three of them by about chapter two.
The closest match in this list for the child who came back to Harry Potter for Harry, Ron and Hermione, more than the wand-waving.
The Girl of Ink & Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
The Girl of Ink & Stars
This one’s for the child who studies the map at the front of a book before they read a single word.
If your little one’s reading muscles have grown into Rowling’s longer chapters and they’re ready for prose with a bit more to it, this is the one. Kiran Millwood Hargrave writes like she’s drawing with the words.
Isabella lives on Joya, a half-mythical island where her father makes maps.
When her best friend goes missing in the forbidden territory, Isabella sets off across the unmapped half of the island, with her own family’s legends alongside her.
It’s quieter than Harry Potter. Stranger. The same stakes-and-jeopardy as Harry Potter, just dialled away from wand-waving and into something quieter and stranger.
A nice step up in sentence-level without ever becoming hard work.
The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell
The Wizards of Once
How to Train Your Dragon on loop in your house? This is the natural next move.
Same author (Cressida Cowell), same playful, slightly bonkers narrator who basically becomes your child’s friend by chapter three. Just with a touch more bite.
Xar is a wizard boy. Wish is a warrior girl. Their tribes hate each other. They meet anyway.
The trio energy here is a duo plus a small, talking, mildly furious creature… and it works.
The chapters are short and brisk, which is a real kindness if your little one’s just slogged through the 600 pages of Order of the Phoenix and wants something they can devour in a sitting.
And it’s a series, so if they love book one, there are four more queued up behind it.
A Far Away Magic by Amy Wilson
A Far Away Magic
This is the most grown-up of the five. The one for the eleven-year-old who’s just finished Deathly Hallows and isn’t ready to leave the moodier corners of Harry Potter behind.
Angel arrives at a new school, in a strange house, where Bavar (quiet, awkward, far too tall) is hiding the fact that monsters travel through a portal in his attic.
The school itself is its own magical world. There are echoes of Hogwarts in the corridors, but the mood is moodier and the stakes more personal.
There’s grief in it, and a friendship to fight for. The book takes both seriously. It might give you a lump in your throat, but no serious sobfests.
If they’re ready for something a bit harder
Think of these less as tougher reads and more as natural bridges. Harry Potter trained them up. These two are where the wider fantasy shelf opens up.
The Golden Compass (Northern Lights) by Philip Pullman
The Golden Compass
For the child who got properly attached to Hedwig and Crookshanks.
Lyra walks around with her soul in animal form, called a daemon, trotting at her side. So does every other human in the book.
Once your child has worked out what their own daemon would be, they’re inside the book for days.
His Dark Materials is quite possibly the closest thing to Harry Potter for atmosphere alone. Same era, same Oxford vibe, but a much wilder world.
When children start disappearing, Lyra heads north, into a story that quietly grows up across three books. The themes deepen. The questions about authority, faith and what makes a person ‘a person’ land harder by the third volume.
If your eleven-year-old has the appetite, it’s a real gift of a book to hand them. Just know it does get heavy by The Amber Spyglass.
Heaven Eyes by David Almond
Heaven Eyes
If your child loved Skellig, this is by the same author.
Same strange, hushed, slightly otherworldly feel. But on a homemade raft drifting down a river instead of in a garage.
Three children (January, Mouse and Erin) escape the children’s home on a homemade raft and drift down the river, washing up among the disused factories on the other side.
They meet an odd old man and a girl called Heaven Eyes, who has webbed fingers and her own soft, half-mythical way of speaking.
It’s about loss, belonging, and the families we make when the one we were given falls short. There’s grief in it, and a death you’ll need to sit with.
Good for the reader who fell for the emotional core of HP more than the world-building.
Where to find them all
Right. Your little one’s been sorted (Ravenclaw or riot, in this house), picked their wand, and worked out what they want to read next.
But, books are a bit like ice cream flavours. Some you love, some you really don’t (RIP, rum and raisin).
And it’s tough handing over £8.99 for a hardback your child finishes in a minute. Or worse… joining the library waitlist at number 15.
That’s exactly why we built Little Reads. Every book in this article is on the app, plus 3,000+ other hand-picked titles waiting to be tried.
It’s £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial, and you can cancel anytime. No hard feelings.
If your child loves Harry Potter, the next great read is in there somewhere. It might just be worth a poke around.
One honest note: Little Reads is built for children who already love books. If your little one is still finding their feet with reading, there are better-suited apps out there with phonics tools and reading levels. We’d rather tell you that than sell you something that doesn’t fit.