Magical Middle Grade Books

One of the great things about fiction is that anything can happen. Magic can be real. It’s not just potions and wands–the representations of magic in stories are as varied as the minds of the authors.

Magic can be beautiful, frightening, funny, or dangerous. It can be subtle, flashy, and all points in between. Sometimes it’s rooted in the real world, or one much like our own. Other times the setting is entirely fantastical, often built around or carved out by magic.

It can be used for good or evil (and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.) Or it can be used for everyday tasks.

Here are some wonderful magical books for middle grade readers. They represent a wide array of ideas about magic and how it could be used.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to Xan, the witch who lives in the forest. Xan rescues the abandoned children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey. One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. You can also check out this title as eAudio on Overdrive/Libby, as eBook on Overdrive/Libby or as eBook on Hoopla.


Night Gardener

Irish orphans Molly, fourteen, and Kip, ten, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and secrets of the cursed house. 

This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby, in eAudio on Libby, as an eBook on Hoopla, and in eAudio on Hoopla. 



The Iron Trial

Warned away from magic all of his life, Callum endeavors to fail the trials that would admit him to the Magisterium only to be drawn into its ranks against his will and forced to confront dark elements from his past. You can also check out this title as eBook on OverDrive/Libby or as eAudio on OverDrive/Libby.