Adaptations of classics are staples of young adult literature. Many readers will already be familiar with the storylines from school assignments, film adaptations, or pleasure reading, allowing them to appreciate contemporary twists and delight in spotting allusions. Others will be motivated to seek out the originals that inspired the new works. When you look past differences in social conventions and language, classics can offer enduring insights into human nature that transcend time and place. These recent and upcoming releases are enjoyable whether you’re already enamored of the novels that inspired them or take them on their own merits, without any other frame of reference.

Rosewood: A Midsummer Meet Cute by Sayantani DasGupta (Scholastic, March 7): “It is a truth universally acknowledged that whatever happens at Regency Camp stays at Regency Camp.” Following on Debating Darcy (2022), DasGupta pens another delightful tribute to Jane Austen in this loose take on Sense and Sensibility filled with romantic hijinks and lively sibling dynamics. The setting: a Regency-themed camp run by the producers of period detective drama Rosewood. The Das sisters: practical activist Eila and fashion-conscious, TikTok-obsessed Mallika. The love interests: dashing and slightly naughty Rahul Lee (for Eila) and bubbly, creative Annie Park (for Mallika).

Midnight at the Houdini by Delilah S. Dawson (Delacorte, Sept. 5): Do you believe in magic? Teens Anna and Max each answer that question very differently in this intoxicating fantasy in which the topsy-turvy world of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland smeets the mysterious drama of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Anna is her family’s “backbone”—the logical, organized one—in contrast to her sweet, flighty older sister. A torrential storm drives Anna to shelter in the Houdini, a mysterious hotel where she meets a white rabbit, falls through a hole into an opulent world, meets a cute boy called Max, and discovers that leaving isn’t so easy.

Into the Bright Open: A Secret Garden Remix by Cherie Dimaline (Feiwel & Friends, Sept. 5): This entry in the Remixed Classics series, each title offering a different author’s interpretation of a well-known work, takes Frances Hodgson Burnett’s haunting 1911 novel and transports it from the Yorkshire moors to Georgian Bay, Ontario. Newly orphaned teenager Mary Craven struggles to adapt to the rural wilderness home of an uncle she’s never met after leaving her pampered but lonely city life. She delves into family secrets, falls for a charmingly free-spirited Métis girl named Sophie, and confronts the prejudices she was raised with.

Emmett by L.C. Rosen (Little, Brown, Nov. 7): Rosen’s latest takes Jane Austen’s oh-so-humanly flawed protagonist from Emma and reimagines her as skittish, somewhat self-aware, Stanford-bound senior Emmett Woodhouse, an out gay boy who always strives to be nice (“I’m blessed, and blessed people have to give back”). The wealthy Southern California teen is happy setting up his friends but has vowed not to become emotionally attached until he’s 25; ever since learning about the unfinished state of the adolescent prefrontal cortex, he’s “felt a relationship before your brain is developed is silly.” But Emmett’s resolve is tested in this clever, effervescent, and romantic story.

Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.