Read about the original wizarding school in Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea Cycle: A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, etc. Those are the LeGuin books you’ll probably like the most, but I haven’t read anything of her’s that I didn’t enjoy immensely. There’s another one with space faring dwarves, elves, and knights that go questing on the backs of flying tigers; Rocannon’s World is set in another series of her’s, The Hainish cycle. That series looks like science fiction, but feels like high fantasy.
I’d ask first and foremost WHAT did you like about it and which part. Leaving my personal crazy theories out There is a HUGE tonal shift at the end of book 4. Did you like it more before that? After that? Did you like the magic? Did you prefer the sorta mysteries?
Did you love reading about those people growing and changing?
Personally i cannot recommend enough Superpowereds by Drew Hayes. 4 books and a few side stories, set in college and has that adventure and fantasy feel with a serious mystery woven through the whole series.
BUT i pretty much have never reread any of the HP books after 4 once the 7th came out.
If you liked the later books and the coming of age than Yes, Percy Jackson, the first few books at least capture a lot of that grim dark coming of age in a world that was messed up by the previous generation.
I would also recommend the Books of magic. The novels have no mystery but they “inspired” HP a lot.
Harry Potter was one of the earliest series I read. I also loved the Percy Jackson series, the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon), and His Dark Materials (Golden Compass).
The Bartimaeus trilogy was also one of my favorites.
I’m sure others will recommend proper books but if you care for it, I’d like to recommend Ever Upward on Archive of Our Own. It’s a beautiful fanfic of Harry Potter that takes a radically different approach to Harry’s life and reactions to characters around him. I’m really enjoying reading it.
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