Book picks similar to
Through the Mirror Door by Sarah Baker


middle-grade
fiction
historical-fiction
children-literature

Ghost Knight


Cornelia Funke - 2011
    Eleven-year-old Jon Whitcroft never expected to enjoy boarding school. Then again, he never expected to be confronted by a pack of vengeful ghosts, either. And then he meets Ella, a quirky new friend with a taste for adventure... Together, Jon and Ella must work to uncover the secrets of a centuries-old murder while being haunted by terrifying spirits, their bloodless faces set on revenge. So when Jon summons the ghost of the late knight Longspee for his protection, there's just one question: Can Longspee truly be trusted?

A Tale of Magic...


Chris Colfer - 2019
    Her only escape are books, but since it's illegal for women to read in her country, she has to find creative ways of acquiring them. Working as a maid at her local library gives her the perfect excuse to be near them and allows her to sneak a few titles home when no one is looking. But one day Brystal uncovers a secret section of the library and finds a book about magic that changes her life forever. Magic is despised and outlawed throughout the world--Brystal is well aware of the severe consequences the book may bring--but her curiosity gets the best of her. By reading some of the text aloud, strange phenomena begin to occur and Brystal discovers she is capable of magic! And the more she practices it, the harder it becomes to hide. After being caught and convicted, Brystal is saved by a mysterious woman named Madame Weatherberry. The woman takes Brystal to her Academy of Magic and teaches her to become a fairy. While Brystal studies magic and befriends the other students, Madame Weatherberry is suddenly called away on suspicious matters. When she doesn't return, Brystal and her friends work together to find and save their instructor. Along the way, the students discover Madame Weatherberry's true intentions for the academy are not what they seem, and they come face to face with a sinister plot that puts the fate of the world, and the fate of magic itself, in grave danger...

The Magnificent Monsters of Cedar Street


Lauren Oliver - 2020
    B. White Read-Aloud Honor Book Liesl & Po comes a timely and relevant adventure story about monsters of all kinds—and a girl brave enough to save them.Cordelia Clay loves the work she and her father do together: saving and healing the remarkable creatures around Boston at the end of the nineteenth century. Their home on Cedar Street is full to the brim with dragons, squelches, and diggles, and Cordelia loves every one of them.But their work must be kept secret—others aren’t welcoming to outsiders and immigrants, so what would the people of Boston do to the creatures they call “monsters”?One morning, Cordelia awakens to discover that her father has disappeared—along with nearly all the monsters.With only a handful of clues and a cryptic note to guide her, Cordelia must set off to find out what happened to her father, with the help of her new friend Gregory, Iggy the farting filch, a baby dragon, and a small zuppy (zombie puppy, that is).

Nightmares!


Jason Segel - 2014
    And now waking up is even worse!Charlie Laird has several problems:1. His dad married a woman he is sure moonlights as a witch.2. He had to move into her purple mansion, which is not a place you want to find yourself after dark.3. He can’t remember the last time sleeping wasn’t a nightmarish prospect. Like even a nap.What Charlie doesn’t know is that his problems are about to get a whole lot more real. Nightmares can ruin a good night’s sleep, but when they start slipping out of your dreams and into the waking world—that’s a line that should never be crossed. And when your worst nightmares start to come true . . . well, that’s something only Charlie can face. And he’s going to need all the help he can get, or it might just be lights-out for Charlie Laird. For good.[This is the first book in a trilogy.]

Archimancy


J.A. White - 2019
    A. White. Perfect for fans of Stranger Things, Neil Gaiman, and Adam Gidwitz.Cordelia Liu knew Shadow School was going to be different. Black gates and ivied walls. Long hallways lined with old paintings. A tower with a window that looks like an eye. Different she expected; different she could handle. Still, Cordelia can’t shake the feeling that something’s not right—and that she’s being carefully watched.The answer isn’t just in front of her eyes—it’s in her gym, next to the bulletin board, even in the cafeteria. The school grounds are filled with ghosts. Cordelia soon realizes she’s not the only one who can see them; her new friend Benji can too. Together with supersmart Agnes, the trio are determined to find out why the ghosts are there, and whether there’s a way to set them free. But the school was created with more sinister intentions, and someone is willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure that the ghosts remain trapped forever.

The Ghost Belonged to Me


Richard Peck - 1975
    Others lost, like me in the black water. Save them!"When Alexander first sees the eerie glow in the dormer window of the barn, it sets his heart pounding. And when he ventures into the barn in the dark of night, his breath catches in his throat. Suddenly Blossom Culp's words come back to him: "You can make contact with the Unseen...." Now there's a girl ghost standing right in front of him, telling him of great danger ahead. But is there time for Alexander to act on her warning?

Malamander


Thomas Taylor - 2019
    Especially not when darkness falls and the wind howls around Maw Rocks and the wreck of the battleship Leviathan, where even now some swear they have seen the unctuous malamander creep…Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, knows that returning lost things to their rightful owners is not easy – especially when the lost thing is not a thing at all, but a girl. No one knows what happened to Violet Parma’s parents twelve years ago, and when she engages Herbie to help her find them, the pair discover that their disappearance might have something to do with the legendary sea-monster, the Malamander. Eerie-on-Sea has always been a mysteriously chilling place, where strange stories seem to wash up. And it just got stranger...

Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch


Julie Abe - 2020
    If she doesn't, she'll lose her magic forever. For most young witches and wizards, it's a simple enough test:ONE: Help your town, do good all around.TWO: Live there for one moon, don't leave too soon.THREE: Fly home by broomstick, the easiest of tricks.The only problem? Eva only has a pinch of magic. She summons heads of cabbage instead of flowers and gets a sunburn instead of calling down rain. And to add insult to injury, whenever she overuses her magic, she falls asleep.When she lands on the tranquil coastal town of Auteri, the residents expect a powerful witch, not a semi-magical girl. So Eva comes up with a plan: set up a magical repair shop to aid Auteri and prove she's worthy. She may have more blood than magic, but her "semi-magical fixes" repair the lives of the townspeople in ways they never could have imagined. Only, Eva's bit of magic may not be enough when the biggest magical storm in history threatens the town she's grown to love. Eva must conjure up all of the magic, bravery, and cleverness she can muster or Auteri and her dreams of becoming a witch will wash away with the storm.

Ghost Squad


Claribel A. Ortega - 2020
    Shortly before Halloween, Lucely and her best friend, Syd, cast a spell that accidentally awakens malicious spirits, wreaking havoc throughout St. Augustine. Together, they must join forces with Syd's witch grandmother, Babette, and her tubby tabby, Chunk, to fight the haunting head-on and reverse the curse to save the town and Lucely's firefly spirits before it's too late. With the family dynamics of Coco and action-packed adventure of Ghostbusters, Claribel A. Ortega delivers both a thrillingly spooky and delightfully sweet debut novel.

The Portal


Kathryn Lasky - 2019
    But one night, she sees a strange light glowing from within it. She climbs a ladder to investigate . . . and finds herself transported back four hundred years to Hatfield Palace, where she becomes servant and confidante of the banished princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Henry VIII. Rose soon discovers something else surprising—a locket with two mysterious images inside it, both of them clues to her own past.Could her grandmother’s greenhouse portal offer answers to the mysteries of her family . . . and their secrets? And how will she ever unravel them all?

The Night Gardener


Jonathan Auxier - 2014
    But the house and its family are not quite what they seem. Soon the children are confronted by a mysterious spectre and an ancient curse that threatens their very lives. With Auxier’s exquisite command of language, The Night Gardener is a mesmerizing read and a classic in the making.

The Forbidden Library


Django Wexler - 2014
    Alice always thought fairy tales had happy endings. That--along with everything else--changed the day she met her first fairyWhen Alice's father goes down in a shipwreck, she is sent to live with her uncle Geryon--an uncle she's never heard of and knows nothing about. He lives in an enormous manor with a massive library that is off-limits to Alice. But then she meets a talking cat. And even for a rule-follower, when a talking cat sneaks you into a forbidden library and introduces you to an arrogant boy who dares you to open a book, it's hard to resist. Especially if you're a reader to begin with. Soon Alice finds herself INSIDE the book, and the only way out is to defeat the creature imprisoned within.It seems her uncle is more than he says he is. But then so is Alice.

The Time of the Fireflies


Kimberley Griffiths Little - 2014
    When Larissa Renaud starts receiving eerie phone calls on a disconnected old phone in her family's antique shop, she knows she's in for a strange summer. A series of clues leads her to the muddy river banks, where clouds of fireflies dance among the cypress knees and cattails each evening at twilight. The fireflies are beautiful and mysterious, and they take her on a magical journey through time, where Larissa learns secrets about her family's tragic past--deadly, curse-ridden secrets that could harm the future of her family as she knows it. It soon becomes clear that it is up to Larissa to prevent history from repeating itself and a fatal tragedy from striking the people she loves. With her signature lyricism, Kimberley Griffiths Little weaves a thrilling tale filled with family secrets, haunting mystery, and dangerous adventure.

The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy


Anne Ursu - 2021
    And that's because of what everyone knows: that Luka is destined to become a sorcerer.The Lupus might be from a small village far from the capital city of Illyria, but that doesn't matter. Every young boy born in in the kingdom holds the potential for the rare ability to wield magic, to protect the country from the terrifying force known only as the Dread.For all the hopes the family has for Luka, no one has any for Marya, who can never seem to do anything right. But even so, no one is prepared for the day that the sorcerers finally arrive to test Luka for magical ability, and Marya makes a terrible mistake. Nor the day after, when the Lupus receive a letter from a place called Dragomir Academy--a mysterious school for wayward young girls. Girls like Marya.Soon she is a hundred miles from home, in a strange and unfamiliar place, surrounded by girls she's never met. Dragomir Academy promises Marya and her classmates a chance to make something of themselves in service to one of the country's powerful sorcerers. But as they learn how to fit into a world with no place for them, they begin to discover things about the magic the men of their country wield, as well as the Dread itself--things that threaten the precarious balance upon which Illyria is built.

The Jumbies


Tracey Baptiste - 2015
    Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They're just tricksters parents make up to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest. Those shining yellow eyes that followed her to the edge of the trees, they couldn't belong to a jumbie. Or could they?When Corinne spots a beautiful stranger speaking to the town witch at the market the next day, she knows something unexpected is about to happen. And when this same beauty, called Severine, turns up at Corinne's house, cooking dinner for Corinne's father, Corinne is sure that danger is in the air. She soon finds out that bewitching her father, Pierre, is only the first step in Severine's plan to claim the entire island for the jumbies. Corinne must call on her courage and her friends and learn to use ancient magic she didn't know she possessed to stop Severine and save her island home.With its able and gutsy heroine, lyrical narration, and inventive twist on the classic Haitian folktale "The Magic Orange Tree," The Jumbies will be a favorite of fans of Breadcrumbs, A Tale Dark and Grimm, and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.