If you loved Wendy, John, and Michael soaring out the nursery window to Neverland, you’ll adore how September is whisked from Omaha into Fairyland, where rules are as slippery as Peter’s shadow. Like the mermaids’ lagoon and the Lost Boys’ hideout, Fairyland brims with playful perils and oddball friends—September teams up with a bookish wyverary named A-through-L and a djinn who counts time. The tale’s whimsical narrator winks at you the way Barrie does, and the tyrannical Marquess makes for a wonderfully theatrical foil, much as Captain Hook does for Peter.

If Tinker Bell’s pixie dust, Peter’s recalcitrant shadow, and that ticking crocodile’s uncanny timing charmed you, the prankish enchantments in Howl’s Moving Castle will feel like coming home. Sophie is cursed into old age by the Witch of the Waste, stumbles into a wandering castle powered by the fire demon Calcifer, and spars with the vain, magnetic wizard Howl—magic here is as cheeky and surprising as the pranks in the Lost Boys’ camp. The tone stays buoyant and sparkling even when the spells get sticky, much like the Darling children’s airborne escapades.

If Barrie’s playful narrator, tongue-in-cheek asides, and theatrical swordplay—think Peter’s duels with Captain Hook—made you grin, The Princess Bride doubles down on that charm. You’ll get Inigo Montoya’s impeccably courteous fencing, the Dread Pirate Roberts’ audacity on the high seas, and Miracle Max’s snappy one-liners. The story balances romance, rescue missions, and comic villainy with the same breezy, conspiratorial wink that makes the Darling children’s escapades feel like a bedtime story told just for you.

If the wonders of Neverland—the mermaids’ lagoon, the Jolly Roger, the secret home under the trees—filled you with awe, The Neverending Story opens an even vaster toy box. Bastian reads himself into Fantastica, where Atreyu rides the luckdragon Falkor against the encroaching Nothing, and each chapter uncovers delights and dangers to rival crocodiles that tick and fairies that sulk. Like Barrie’s tale, it’s a celebration of imagination’s boundlessness, constantly revealing fresh corners of a world that feels like it’s inventing itself as you turn the page.

If Peter’s refusal to grow up and Wendy’s final choice to leave Neverland moved you—the acorn ‘kiss,’ the bittersweet goodbyes—Tuck Everlasting beautifully explores that same ache. When Winnie Foster meets the immortal Tuck family and learns the secret spring’s price, she must decide between a forever-childhood and the natural flow of life. It echoes the moment Wendy realizes bedtime stories and real families have claims stronger than pirate adventures, wrapping the theme in gentle wonder and quiet poignancy.