If the Whether Man’s quips, the Spelling Bee’s literal-mindedness, and the pun-drunk bustle of Dictionopolis made you grin, you’ll love the Golux in The Thirteen Clocks. Thurber’s narrator spins riddles and nonsense with the same gleeful precision that turned Milo’s visit to the Word Market into a riot of language. The wicked Duke is hilariously ghastly, the tasks are delightfully impossible, and every sentence feels like a sly wink—much like Milo’s banter with Tock and the Humbug on the road to rescue Rhyme and Reason.

As Milo drives through a tollbooth from a dull afternoon into the Kingdom of Wisdom, Haroun rides a mechanical Hoopoe with Iff the Water Genie to the Ocean of the Streams of Story. If you loved piling into the car with Tock and the Humbug to restore Rhyme and Reason, you’ll be right at home as Haroun battles Khattam-Shud to un-plug the sea of stories. Haroun and the Sea of Stories blends buoyant wordplay, witty companions, and a rescue mission that makes the ordinary world feel brighter when you return.

Milo’s talks with Alec Bings about perspective and his discovery that time’s value depends on how you use it echo through The Little Prince. Like Milo’s meetings with King Azaz and the Mathemagician—each a playful lesson hidden in a character—the prince visits a lamplighter, a businessman, and a fox whose “taming” offers a gentle, unforgettable philosophy. If rescuing Rhyme and Reason opened Milo’s eyes to meaning, the prince’s journey will nudge you to see with your heart as well as your head.

Milo starts out yawning at everything and ends up scaling the Mountains of Ignorance to set Rhyme and Reason free. September’s arc is just as sweeping: whisked from her kitchen to Fairyland, she befriends A-Through-L (a wyverary), barters cleverly like Milo at the Word Market, and faces the Marquess in choices that test her courage. If watching Milo learn to care, question, and act was your favorite part, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland delivers that same tender, sparkling growth.

If passing from Dictionopolis to Digitopolis to the Mountains of Ignorance filled you with awe, The Neverending Story will feel like discovering a tollbooth inside a tollbooth. As Bastian reads himself into Fantastica, he and Atreyu traverse dazzling realms—the Silver City of Amarganth, Yor’s caverns, even the Old Man of Wandering Mountain—in a cascade of revelations that mirrors Milo’s expanding map of the Kingdom of Wisdom. It’s the same heady sense that the next page might open an entirely new world.