notes from attempting to crowdsource recommendations for harry potter alternatives.
why not harry potter:
- there’s zero queer representation
- one of the very few non-white characters is an asian character with a stereotype name
- there’s no prominent black characters
- goblins are an antisemitic racial stereotype
- house-elves are a creepy justification of slavery
- but way out in front, obviously, is that its author is an aggressively transphobic billionaire
Earthsea is really good but has the problem of being impossible for hollywood to adapt right since basically none of the cast in the setting are white. Although a new adaptation keeps getting floated around as an idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthsea
at 5 years? maybe The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy? (jkr took larger parts of these books iirc)
(addition: there were multiple Worst Witch adoptions, I found it myself through the most recent BBC/ARD co-production iirc, the books are short (~100 pages) and in bigger print. I could name more if asked for the YA group though)
The Secret of NIMH
oh!! ohhhh!!! the Tiffany Aching book series by Terry Pratchett!! set in the Discworld!!
they’re so full of love and emotion and you get to follow a young witch as she grows into her skills and becomes an adult!! there are some beautiful parts that made me cry just reading them!!
https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/the-tiffany-aching-gift-edition-set/
bonus points is that it’s got some ACTUALLY GOOD life lessons AND your kids will get to read other Discworld books
all the birds in the sky by charlie jane anders
its just a book rn however sadly
I remember The Last Dragon Chronicles books being good, the first one definitely affected me as a kid in a good way
Movies: Little Witch Academia. It’s a really cute animated movie about a witch school.
TV: Little Witch Academia also has a short TV series!
But also check out The Worst Witch. It follows all the same tropes but is based on the Tim Curry movie that JKR ripped off to make Harry Potter in the first place.
I haven’t watched The Worst Witch TV series all the way through but what I saw was cute. It’s a BBC production so it’s very british.
I haven’t seen the movie since I was little so I don’t know if it holds up.
His Dark Materials series are great books and now an HBO series
I always recommend these two authors/ series (they predate jkr and are infinitely more fun and inventive): Dianne Wynne Jones (everything, really, but her Chrestomanci series is about magic and many-lived enchanters) and Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch books (a young reader series about a clumsy witch at a magic school, which actually has a companion tv series now).