In Colin Meloy’s Wildwood, illustrated by Carson Ellis, a flock of crows carries Prue McKeel’s baby brother into the Impassable Wilderness. The forest is close enough to be part of Portland, yet crossing into it means entering a place with its own inhabitants, loyalties and conflicts. The best part of that setup is how it changes the familiar. You can imagine taking the same walk every day and never knowing what’s on the other side of the trees.
If you want the closest match to Wildwood, start with Pari Thomson’s Greenwild. If you mainly miss the talking animals, try Redwall. And if you want another hidden society with its own customs and rivalries, go straight to Nevermoor. Whether you came from the novel or the film, these seven picks are spoiler-free.
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1. Greenwild: The World Behind the Door by Pari Thomson
Read it for a family rescue and a world shaped by plants.
When Daisy Thistledown’s mother disappears, the eleven-year-old slips through a hidden doorway in London and discovers the Greenwild, where plants have powers and people know how to work with them. Her search for her mother brings her into the company of a botanical prodigy, a boy who can speak with animals and a cat.
This is the closest match because Daisy and Prue both cross a boundary to find someone they love. They have a reason to keep going even when the new world gives them every reason to turn back. Thomson puts more emphasis on what people can do with plants, so this is the pick if you wanted the forest itself to have even more say in the adventure.
Explore the paperback edition of Greenwild.
2. Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
Read it for a secret city with traditions worth learning.
Morrigan Crow has been blamed for every kind of misfortune in her hometown. On the night she’s supposed to die, a man named Jupiter North whisks her away to Nevermoor. There she enters a series of trials for a place in the Wundrous Society, despite having no idea what talent she could possibly offer.
Nevermoor trades the woods for city streets and the rescue quest for a competition. The pleasure of arriving is similar. Every person Morrigan meets seems to know a rule she hasn’t learned yet, and figuring out who gets to belong gives the city its own tension.
Find Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow on Amazon.
3. Redwall by Brian Jacques
Read it for talking animals with a home worth defending.
When Cluny the Scourge and his army of rats threaten Redwall Abbey, a young mouse named Matthias looks for the sword of Martin the Warrior. The abbey’s inhabitants have meals, routines and stories of their own before danger arrives, which makes the prospect of losing their home feel personal.
There’s no human visitor to ask how it all works. You learn the abbey from the inside, alongside animals who have grown up with its legends. Pick this one if you would happily have spent another chapter in Wildwood listening to its inhabitants talk among themselves.
Find Brian Jacques’s Redwall on Amazon.
4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
Read it for snowy woods, talking animals and siblings on opposite sides of a conflict.
Lucy Pevensie steps through a wardrobe into Narnia, where she meets a faun under a lamppost. When her siblings follow, they find a land held in winter by the White Witch. The children have to decide whom to trust, and they don’t all reach the same answer at the same time.
The first meeting under the lamppost is the reason I’d pair this with Wildwood. It takes one familiar object in a place where it has no business being to make the landscape feel stranger than a grand tour ever could. The sibling tensions give the larger adventure a personal stake.
Find The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on Amazon.
5. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Read it for an illustrated journey across a wonderfully odd map.
Milo is bored until a mysterious tollbooth appears in his room. He drives through in a toy car and winds up in a land where words and numbers are serious business. With a watchdog named Tock, he travels through places that turn everyday figures of speech into actual problems.
Jules Feiffer’s illustrations give the world a visual personality of its own, much as Carson Ellis’s art does in Wildwood. The humor here is more prominent, and part of the fun is guessing which perfectly ordinary phrase will turn into a place Milo has to get through.
Find the Jules Feiffer–illustrated Phantom Tollbooth on Amazon.
6. The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
Read it for a secret that changes the map.
Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow live in a city lit by electric lamps that are beginning to fail. When Lina finds part of an old message, the two try to decipher it before the city goes dark. Every missing piece matters because they have so little idea what lies beyond the streets they know.
The geography works in reverse. Prue enters a place she’s been warned away from, while Lina and Doon have to imagine leaving the only place they’ve ever known. If the question you liked best in Wildwood was what the adults knew about the boundary, try this one.
Find The City of Ember on Amazon.
7. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Read it for the eeriest door on this list.
Behind a door in her new home, Coraline discovers a version of her own surroundings with a second set of parents. The other mother is eager to make her feel welcome, and the button eyes are an early clue to how much that welcome might cost.
Where Wildwood makes a nearby place feel bigger than you imagined, Coraline makes an ordinary home feel smaller and harder to escape. This is the most unsettling trip on the list. Save it for a reader who likes the moment when curiosity turns into dread.
If you came to the book through the stop-motion film, read our coverage of LAIKA’s Wildwood adaptation.
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