What Is The Full Land Of Stories Book Series In Order?

The boxed sets they sell always contain the main six in order. That's the publisher telling you, "This is the story." If you buy a boxed set, you're golden. The companion books are never included in those sets, which tells you everything about their necessity to the core narrative. Buy the set, read left to right. Done.

Some series have prequels or interquels that complicate reading order, but 'The Land of Stories' is blessedly simple. It's a straight shot from Book 1 to Book 6. No alternate timelines, no spin-offs required for the main plot. Enjoy the simplicity while it lasts!

Okay, real talk: the 'Treasury of Classic Fairy Tales' is mostly the original Grimm/Perrault stories. It fits at the beginning of everything, even before Book 1, as cultural context. If you or your kid don't know the classic tales, starting here makes the twists in 'The Wishing Spell' way more surprising and fun. It's a prequel of a different kind.

The sheer creativity in 'Beyond the Kingdoms' and 'An Author's Odyssey,' where the twins travel into literary worlds, is why I love this series. It's a celebration of stories themselves. That meta-quality makes the later pivot to a prequel about the system behind the stories so clever. The order shows a progression: first, you see the wonder of the stories, then you see the machinery that makes them work. If you read the prequels first, you see the machinery first, which is less magical for a newcomer.

Why overcomplicate it? The books are numbered on the spines for a reason. Look at the little roman numeral or number near the title on the cover. Volume I, Volume II, etc. That's your foolproof guide. Some editions even have a series list right on the first few pages. Trust the physical (or digital) book's own labeling over any fan-made list that might accidentally include spin-offs.

Honestly, figuring out the order for 'The Land of Stories' is pretty straightforward since it's a linear series, but there are a couple of side books that can trip you up. The main six novels go in numerical order: 'The Wishing Spell', 'The Enchantress Returns', 'A Grimm Warning', 'Beyond the Kingdoms', 'An Author's Odyssey', and then 'Worlds Collide'. That's the core journey of Alex and Conner Bailey. Where people get confused is with 'A Treasury of Classics' and 'The Mother Goose Diaries'. Those are companion books—collections of fairy tales and diary entries—and you can read them whenever, though I'd slot 'The Mother Goose Diaries' in after book four or five since it fleshes out a character who becomes more prominent later. I made the mistake of trying to read 'An Author's Odyssey' before 'Beyond the Kingdoms' once because the library had a weird shelving order, and it was a mess. Characters referenced events I hadn't read about yet, and a major villain's motivation was completely lost on me. So stick to the numbers. After you finish 'Worlds Collide', there's 'The Land of Stories: The Ultimate Book Hugger's Guide', which is a fun behind-the-scenes scrapbook, but it's pure bonus material with no new narrative. The series doesn't have prequels or a convoluted timeline, which is refreshing compared to some other fantasy sagas that require a flowchart.

It's interesting to see which tales Colfer included and which he left out. The Treasury gives you insight into his personal canon—the versions that most influenced his world-building. Reading it after the series lets you play a fun game: can you guess why he included 'The Shoemaker and the Elves' but not, say, 'The Princess and the Pea'? It becomes a meta-puzzle about the author's creative mind. That's a unique angle for superfans.

Start with 'The Wishing Spell'. That's the one that introduces the twins, Alex and Conner, and their whole adventure through the classic fairy tale kingdoms. The chronological order for the main six books is: 1. 'The Wishing Spell', 2. 'The Enchantress Returns', 3. 'A Grimm Warning', 4. 'Beyond the Kingdoms', 5. 'An Author's Odyssey', and 6. 'Worlds Collide'. After that, there's a prequel novel called 'The Mother Goose Diaries' and a companion book, 'A Treasury of Classic Fairy Tales'. Reading the prequel later is fine; it gives fun backstory but isn't essential for the main plot progression. Stick to that sequence to follow the character arcs and the overarching villain's story properly.

It makes the world feel inconsistent and poorly built. Magic systems, political alliances, and character abilities evolve across the series. If you read a later book first, you see a powerful version of a character or an established rule, then go back to an earlier book where they're weaker or the rule isn't yet defined. It can make the earlier writing seem flawed or retconned, when in reality it's just showing growth and discovery. The order preserves the logical in-world development of rules and power, making the world feel solid and real.