If Tom’s underwater journey and lessons from Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid spoke to you, you’ll love how the little prince wanders from asteroid B-612 to deserts and fox-filled fields, learning gentle but piercing truths. Like Tom’s trials after escaping Grimes, the prince’s meetings with the king, the drunkard, and the fox unfold as bright fables that reveal how to love, see clearly, and grow.

Kingsley’s playful digs at faddish scientists and reformers — the way Tom’s adventures lampoon Victorian certainties — find a sharp companion in Gulliver’s stops in Lilliput, Brobdingnag, and the Academy of Lagado. As Tom meets moralizing sprites and sea-creatures, Gulliver confronts tiny politicians, giant moralists, and crackpot inventors, all skewered with wit you’ll recognize from Tom’s topsy-turvy education.

If Tom’s metamorphosis into a water-baby and his guided reckonings with Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby felt powerfully restorative, Scrooge’s night with the spirits will resonate. Dickens’s ghosts lead him through visions as eye-opening as Tom’s trials away from Grimes and toward kindness, ending in a heartfelt change that echoes Tom’s hard-won compassion for Ellie and others.

Like Tom passing into the river-world and learning from strange guides, Mossy and Tangle follow a rainbow to a realm of shadows, air-fish, and wise old men. Their journey is as tender and transformative as Tom’s, trading on wonder and quiet courage rather than rule-bound magic, and ending with the same luminous sense of having grown up through mystery.

If you delighted in Tom’s surreal swims among salmon, caddis-worms, and moralizing fairies, Alice’s tumble after the White Rabbit will hit the same sweet spot. The Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, and the Queen of Hearts preside over scenes as absurdly instructive as Tom’s encounters under the sea, with whimsy and wordplay standing in for Kingsley’s watery wonders.