Pages & Co. Books in Order

Pages & Co. is a middle-grade fantasy series built around a very good wish for any book-loving child: what if you could step inside a story? Its central character, Tilly Pages, lives above her grandparents' bookshop, Pages & Co., where books are more than stock on the shelves. They are possible doorways.

Tilly is a bookwanderer, someone able to enter books and meet the characters inside them. At first, that means visits with figures from familiar classics, including Anne Shirley and Alice. But bookwandering has rules, risks, and a complicated history. Tilly's discoveries are also tied to the mystery of her mother, who disappeared when Tilly was young.

The early books pair Tilly with her best friend, Oskar, as they investigate trouble in Story. They travel through fairy tales, hunt for answers in hidden libraries, and learn that stories can be damaged when powerful people try to control who gets access to them. The real world matters just as much as the fictional one, with bookshops, libraries, family secrets, and friendships all part of the adventure.

Then the series opens out.

Later books bring Milo Bolt into the foreground. Milo lives aboard the Sesquipedalian, or Quip, a magical train powered by imagination that can travel through both the real world and stories. Alongside Tilly, Oskar, and the resourceful Alessia, he becomes caught in a growing conflict around rare books, a dangerous figure called the Alchemist, and the future of bookwandering itself.

Each installment has its own journey, whether that means a wintry trip to Paris, a search through the Library of Congress, a ride toward the Emerald City, or a visit to a treehouse library. The final stretch draws on myths and Arthurian legend as the friends try to understand where bookwandering began and what imagination is worth protecting.

The tone is warm, curious, and adventurous, with plenty of peril when the story calls for it. Readers who enjoy books about books will find lots of nods to classics, but you don't need to know every reference to follow along. The best way to read Pages & Co. is in order, starting with The Bookwanderers, because the characters, family mysteries, and rules of Story build from one book to the next.