Which Way to Anywhere Books in Order

The Which Way to Anywhere books take Cressida Cowell’s love of maps and push it out into the galaxy. The series is set in a version of our own world where magic is supposed to have disappeared centuries ago. In an ordinary looking house at the Crossing of the Ways lives the blended O’Hero Smith family, who are keeping a very unordinary secret, some of them still have Magical Gifts.

K2 O’Hero is quiet, anxious, and regarded as hopeless at almost everything, especially by his bold twin sister Izzabird and their confident step siblings Theo and Mabel. What none of them know at first is that K2 can draw maps of places he has never seen, worlds with burning rivers, jungles that hunt by smell, and skies full of moons. These sketches are not just daydreams, they are accurate charts of real planets that can be reached through ancient paths called the Which Ways.

In Which Way to Anywhere the family’s carefully hidden magical history crashes into their ordinary school lives when baby Annipeck is kidnapped. To rescue her, the four older children must work together, follow K2’s impossible maps, and slip through a crossing point into another world. The story feels like a road trip that keeps changing roads, with bickering siblings, sarcastic footnotes, and an undercurrent of real danger.

Which Way Around the Galaxy sends the O’Hero Smiths back into the Which Ways when a tiny lost creature named Bug turns up on Earth. Returning Bug to a planet of fire and ice would be tricky enough without venomous snowsnakes, robot fighters, and the interest of a ruthless Universal Government. In Which Way to the Future, new Gifts surface, a witch, Bounty Hunters, and three perilous tasks push the children to their limits, and questions about who controls magic and who gets to use it become harder to ignore.

Across the series, Cowell balances big, science fiction scale ideas with down to earth family feelings. The children are dealing with divorce, new step parents, and clashing personalities as much as they are dealing with curses and space travel. Arguments at the kitchen table sit next to chases through collapsing star systems, and the books often pause to wonder what counts as home when you can step between many worlds.

The writing is lively and full of small doodles, side notes, and handwritten comments that invite readers to look closely at the pages. Chapters are short, the font is designed to be friendly for readers who find dense text hard work, and there is always a joke or an odd detail on the next spread. Together the books suit readers who like fantasy but do not mind rockets with their magic, or anyone who has stared at a map and wondered what might happen if the lines and arrows suddenly came to life.