No one is doing it quite like Studio Ghibli. Since 1985, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki have been melding their brilliant minds to create heartwarming, thematic, existential films created with painstaking attention to detail and immaculate quality. Their films are crafted in such a way that you can watch them as a child and become entranced in the story and absorbed by the world, and you can rewatch them as adults and be moved by the themes and obsessed with the subtlety.
For lovers of Studio Ghibli and newcomers alike, I’ve crafted a list of books to read if you’re looking to immerse yourself in worlds similar to the magic created by Ghibli.
Movie: Spirited Away
Sisters of the Lost Marsh by Lucy Strange
Six sisters have grown up isolated in the marshlands, united in their love for each other — and fear of their terrible father. When the sisters sneak out one night to watch the famous Shadow Man, an eccentric puppeteer, their oldest sister Grace goes missing. Willa, second eldest, must follow the Full Moon Fayre into the Lost Marsh, racing against time — and outrunning fate itself — if she wants to save both her sister and herself.
Movie: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
On a post-apocalyptic Earth ravaged by the Sixty Minute War, cities and towns have morphed from their positions on land into hulking, creaking, mechanical monstrosities that roam the Earth. With limited resources and growing populations, larger cities, like London, “eat” smaller ones to acquire their resources. When Tom and Hester are thrust into each other’s lives after being thrown overboard for their own reasons, they bounce between massive moving cities, making enemies, allies, and learning about the world they’ve been forced into by history — and about each other.
Movie: Grave of the Fireflies
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
This gut-wrenching novel follows four classmates, wandering, struggling, and deeply bonded with one another as they go through life. Their friendship deepens, despite their experiences, as they are forever tied to one another by their devotion to Jude — their brilliant, creative friend deeply scarred by indescribable childhood trauma. Addressing the depths of family bonds and the ways that pain and suffering cause us to form our own new families, this profoundly touching and intimate story speaks deeply.
Movie: The Wind Rises
I Love This Version of Myself That You Brought Out by Jaymen Chang
Love is beautiful, painful, profoundly moving. This collection speaks to the experience of heartbreak, letting go, and the bittersweet nature of loving and losing. Intwined with the journey of loving another is the journey of self-discovery; Chang offers comfort and wisdom in the midst of loss and shares possibilities on how to move forward. Told in a variety of forms, this collection poses the question: How do we move on when the person we must let go of is the one who taught us to love?
Movie: The Secret World of Arrietty
The Secret Garden by Frances Hogson Burnett
When spoiled, sickly, orphaned Mary Lennox is forced to move into her uncle’s estate, she’s certain it will be dreadful. But when she discovers a doorway into an abandoned, overgrown garden, she begins pouring herself into transforming it into her oasis. But Misselthwaite Manor is hiding more than just one secret, and Mary discovers that her cousin, Colin, has been shut up in a dark room in a forgotten corner of the house. He believes himself to be incurably ill, and his tantrums have been just as incurable. But as Mary introduces him to the secret garden, she hopes its magic will heal more than just his sour moods.
Movie: Howl’s Moving Castle
The Changeling Sea by Patricia A. McKillip
When Peri’s father’s fishing boat returns without him, Peri and her mother’s worlds are changed forever. Mourning his loss, her mother falls into a deep depression and spends all her time staring out towards the sea that stole her love. Peri, unable to keep a grip on her rage and sadness, uses the bit of magic she’s learned to hex the sea. That’s when the King’s sons suddenly appear in her life. Changelings — all wildly different — with unique connections to the kingdom under the sea, along with a mysterious magician, and, if she’s willing to open her heart, love.
Movie: Princess Mononoke
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang
No one believed Rin could pass the Keju, the all-encompassing military entrance examination containing more information than most people could learn in a lifetime. When she arrives at Sinegard, the most elite military academy in the country, she’s in for many surprises. Making quick enemies, and few friends, Rin also discovers that shamanism — and the gods it allows users to connect with — are very much alive. With a Third Poppy War looming, Rin fears that the god that has chosen her, the wrathful Phoenix, may be the only way to save her people. Being a savior may cost her everything, but at least she can choose it.
Movie: My Neighbor Totoro
The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl
For a year, Margaret Renkl carefully observed and recorded the lives of the plants and animals in her backyard. As the seasons change and the cycles of life continue, the beauty and grief of living on all scales blossoms into reality. Crows, bees, flowers that only bloom at night, and adult children returning home during the pandemic all embody different stories, yet beat to the same rhythm. Accompanied by beautiful artwork, this moving story captures the transience of — and the connections between — the microcosms of Earth in touching ways.
Movie: Ponyo
Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk
Crow is no stranger to solitude. Abandoned as an infant and growing up on an isolated island off the coast of Massachusetts, her only company is Osh, the man who saved and raised her, and Miss Maggie their fiery and affectionate neighbor. Crow has always had a burning curiousity about the world. But it’s not until a mysterious fire glows across the water that she begins to wonder about her own history. When unstoppable events are set into motion, Crow is set on a path of self discovery — and immense danger.
Movie: Castle in the Sky
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
Mina’s homeland has been victim to savage storms for generations. Villages are leveled, and survivors war over the remaining resources. Each year, in an attempt to appease the Sea God, her people sacrifice a beautiful maiden in the hopes that a bride will appease him. When her older brother’s beloved, Shim Cheong, is to be sacrificed, he follows her to the sea. She knows it means death, but in order to save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water instead.
When Mina arrives in the Spirit Realm, home of lesser gods and magical beasts, she finds the Sea God trapped in an enchanted sleep. Now she must muster her courage, find unlikely allies, and use her wits to wake the Sea God and save her people.
Movie: The Boy and the Heron
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
David keeps himself company with his books and his solitude as he mourns his mother’s death. But when his books begin to whisper to him, he and his anger find solace in his imagination, and fiction begins to blur with reality. As his family crumbles around him, David is launched into a fantasy world ravaged by monsters and heroes and a fading king. A king who has stored all his secrets in a book — The Book of Lost Things.
Movie: When Marnie Was There
The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
When Grace Winters, retired math teacher, is left a musty house in the Mediterranean by a friend she lost contact with long ago, she heads to Ibiza on a one-way flight. With no plan and no goal, she begins to look for answers about the end of her friend’s life, and all that has happened since they lost touch. What she finds is far wilder than she could have imagined. In order to come to terms with it, she must reconcile her own past with her present.
Movie: Whisper of the Heart
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
Theo is a mystery to all after he arrives in the city of Golden. When he randomly (or not so?) arrives one spring, he goes to a coffee shop that has 92 framed pencil-drawn portraits on display. He decides then to dive into the task of buying all the portraits one by one and quietly gifting them to their ‘rightful owners.’ On this journey, he hears stories, makes friends, and touches hearts as recipients — and his mission, take him through time.
Movie: Tales from Earthsea
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
When Hanalei goes from cherished daughter to exiled after her father steals the egg of a seadragon, she spends her time studying and learning from the magnificent seadragons of the Nominomi Sea. When a chance encounter gives her a shot at her deepest desire, she may have the opportunity to return to her home and right a wrong.
Samahtitamahenele, or Sam, will never take the throne of Tamarind. As the last prince in a matriarchal society, he is so close, but yet so far. With a sick mother and an aging grandmother, he must marry fast or find a cure. When his childhood friend returns, she brings with her a sliver of hope. However, the pair are not only up against enemies, but the thing they seek itself.
Just as film can never be literature, nothing can equate to the magnificence of Ghibli’s whimsy and creativity. But hopefully one of these books strikes your imagination in a similar way to masterpieces like Howl’s Moving Castle or The Wind Rises.
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