Books like The Chronicles of Narnia
What should you read after C. S. Lewis’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- C. S. Lewis
- 1950
- 768 pages
- Children's fantasy
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after The Chronicles of Narnia
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchHis Dark Materials
Philip Pullman
Narnia's argument with itself: children crossing between worlds, a church that is the villain rather than the point, and a talking animal you will not get over. Lewis would have hated it, which is rather the recommendation.
- A door in the back of a wardrobe
- Talking animals with real dignity
- Christian allegory under the adventure
- Written against Lewis, not with him
Best for the child-hero adventurePercy Jackson and the Olympians
Rick Riordan
Same deal, different pantheon: an ordinary kid discovers the myths are real and he is in them. Riordan is the writer children move on to when they finish Narnia and want jokes.
- Children who become kings
- A voice that reads aloud beautifully
- Contemporary, wisecracking voice
Great matchAlice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
The original English child-falls-into-another-place book, and the one Lewis was writing in the shadow of. All doorway, no allegory.
- A door in the back of a wardrobe
- A voice that reads aloud beautifully
- Talking animals with real dignity
- Nonsense rather than narrative
Best for the doorway itselfThe Neverending Story
Michael Ende
A boy reads a book and finds himself inside it — the crossing-over sensation of the wardrobe, made literal and then interrogated.
- A door in the back of a wardrobe
- Children who become kings
- A voice that reads aloud beautifully
- Second half turns philosophical
Best for the myth under the surfaceThe Dark is Rising Sequence
Susan Cooper
English children discover an ancient war between Light and Dark running beneath ordinary village life. The closest anyone has come to Lewis's mixture of the domestic and the cosmic.
- The White Witch's endless winter
- Christian allegory under the adventure
- Wartime England as the doorway
- Colder, less warm-hearted
Worth a look — with a warningThe Land of Stories
Chris Colfer
Twins fall through a book into fairy-tale country. It is Narnia's premise handed to a modern children's writer with a much lighter touch.
- A door in the back of a wardrobe
- Children who become kings
- Aimed squarely at 8-11 year olds
Best for the talking animalsRedwall
Brian Jacques
Mice, badgers and hares defending an abbey against rats, with feasts described at indecent length. If Reepicheep was your favourite Narnian, start here.
- Talking animals with real dignity
- A voice that reads aloud beautifully
- Children who become kings
- No humans, no portal
Great matchThe Wizard of Oz
L. Frank Baum
A girl blown out of her world into a brighter one, collecting companions and confronting a ruler who is not what he claims. The template Lewis inherited.
- A door in the back of a wardrobe
- Talking animals with real dignity
- American brightness, not English hush
Great matchThe Golden Compass
Where His Dark Materials begins, and the single volume most often handed to Narnia readers: a girl, a lie, a north full of witches and one enormous bear.
- A door in the back of a wardrobe
- Talking animals with real dignity
- Christian allegory under the adventure
- Publisher data incomplete for this edition
Great matchInkheart
Cornelia Funke
Characters read out of books and into our world — the wardrobe running the other direction, with a bookish family at the centre.
- A door in the back of a wardrobe
- A voice that reads aloud beautifully
- Slower, more domestic
Best for the spiritual undertowA Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L'Engle
Children travel to fight a darkness that flattens everything into sameness, and the fight is explicitly a moral one. Lewis's theology, rewired for physics.
- Christian allegory under the adventure
- Children who become kings
- A lion who is not safe
- Science-fiction furniture throughout
Great matchThe Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien
Lewis's friend writing for the same children on the same afternoons — a small person, a long road, and a narrator leaning down to tell you about it.
- A voice that reads aloud beautifully
- Talking animals with real dignity
- Children who become kings
- No child protagonists
Worth a look — with a warningThe Spiderwick Chronicles
Holly Black
Siblings find a field guide and the faeries in the hedges turn out to be real and unfriendly. Narnia's discovery thrill, shrunk to house-and-garden scale.
- A door in the back of a wardrobe
- Talking animals with real dignity
- Very short books, slight plots
What should you read after The Chronicles of Narnia?
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman — narnia's argument with itself: children crossing between worlds, a church that is the villain rather than the point, and a talking animal you will not get over. Lewis would have hated it, which is rather the recommendation.
If what stayed with you was children who become kings, read Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan instead: same deal, different pantheon: an ordinary kid discovers the myths are real and he is in them. Riordan is the writer children move on to when they finish Narnia and want jokes. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is the other strong option — the original English child-falls-into-another-place book, and the one Lewis was writing in the shadow of. All doorway, no allegory.
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