Books like Took
Took by Mary Downing Hahn reads as eerie, suspenseful. These 12 books share its genome — matched by how they actually read, not just their shelf label.
What Took is like to read
A brisk, unsettling middle-grade horror where an old Appalachian legend of a child-stealing witch becomes terrifyingly real, told with escalating dread as siblings race to undo the curse. Best for: young readers who like folklore-based scares with real stakes for a sibling relationship.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Kelly Barnhill · 2016
A fairy-tale-cadenced middle-grade fantasy told in lyrical, braided POVs — gentle and warm on the surface, with real grief and moral weight underneath.
The Bear and the Nightingale
Katherine Arden · 2017
An atmospheric folkloric fantasy steeped in Russian winter, following a wild-hearted girl who alone senses the old spirits as darkness gathers at her village's edge.
Coraline
P. Craig Russell · 2008
An uncanny portal-horror tale for younger readers, rendered in vivid comics panels where a too-perfect other-house curdles into menace.
When the Sea Turned to Silver
Grace Lin · 2016
A gentle yet perilous folk-tale quest in which a determined girl braves a tyrant's realm to rescue her storytelling grandmother, woven through with interlocking Chinese myths.
20th Century Ghosts
Joe Hill · 2007
Both explore family
Into the Grey
Celine Kiernan · 2011
A teenage boy races against time to wrest his twin brother back from a possessing ghost — a supernatural family drama with sibling bonds at its core.
When you trap a tiger
Tae Keller · 2020
A tender middle-grade quest that braids Korean folktales into a family's reckoning with a grandmother's illness — magical but grounded, gentle but emotionally weighty.
Library of Souls (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #3)
Ransom Riggs · 2015
A propulsive series-closing rescue quest through a war-torn peculiar underworld, punctuated by Riggs's signature vintage photographs.
Over the Garden Wall
Pat McHale · 2016
Both explore fear & folklore
A Monster Calls
Patrick Ness · 2011
A grief-soaked story of a boy facing his mother's terminal illness, with a monster arriving where no human comfort can reach.
Clay
David Almond · 2005
Same ya feel
Empire of Wild
Cherie Dimaline · 2019
A quiet rural mystery shot through with Métis folklore, following a woman's search for her vanished husband as old traditions and ancient enemies resurface in her community.
About Took — what the genome says
Is Took a complete story or a cliffhanger?
The main arc resolves, with wider series threads left open.
How scary is Took?
Genuinely frightening — the genome rates its fear intensity high.
Who is Took for?
It's written for middle-grade readers (roughly ages 8-12).
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