Below is the complete list of Tony Abbott’s The Secrets of Droon books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of The Secrets of Droon Books
Publication Order of The Secrets of Droon: Special Edition Books
About The Secrets of Droon
Tony Abbott’s The Secrets of Droon is a long-running children’s fantasy adventure centered on three friends—Eric Hinkle, Julie Rubin, and Neal Kroger—who discover a rainbow staircase hidden beneath Eric’s basement. The stairs lead to Droon, a magical world of wizards, princesses, flying carpets, enchanted creatures, lost cities, genies, and dangerous sorcerers. Beginning with The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet in 1999, the series gradually expands from short individual adventures into a surprisingly elaborate continuing fantasy saga.
Eric, Julie, and Neal initially enter Droon as ordinary children from the Upper World, but they soon become closely involved with Princess Keeah and the wizard Galen Longbeard. Keeah is already learning to use powerful magic when the children meet her, while Galen acts as one of Droon’s principal defenders and sources of knowledge. Lord Sparr provides the major threat during the early books, using sorcery and armies of Ninns in his attempts to extend his power across the realm.
The opening adventures have an accessible, episodic quality suited to younger readers, but Abbott steadily develops connections between them. Keeah’s missing mother, Queen Relna, becomes an important continuing mystery, while Sparr’s history is eventually linked to Galen, the powerful Queen Zara, and events reaching far into Droon’s past. The world has its own extensive history, including the rise of Emperor Ko, the Wizard Wars, and conflicts that occurred centuries before Eric and his friends first arrived.
One of the series’ strengths is how much the three children change without losing the personalities established at the beginning. Eric develops magical abilities and increasingly important responsibilities within Droon. Julie acquires extraordinary powers of her own, including flight, while Neal’s adventures eventually connect him strongly with Droon’s genies. Their growing abilities allow later books to increase the scale of the danger rather than simply repeating the pattern of three visitors helping experienced wizards solve problems.
The villains develop as well. Sparr begins as a straightforward enemy but becomes considerably more complicated as his family history and connection to Droon’s ancient conflicts emerge. Other threats eventually become more prominent, particularly Emperor Ko, the moon dragon Gethwing, and Salamandra, the mysterious Queen of Shadowthorn. Abbott frequently revises the reader’s understanding of characters who initially seem firmly aligned with good or evil, giving the later stages of the saga more moral and narrative complexity than the earliest adventures suggest.
Droon itself grows alongside the story. Jaffa City, the Dark Lands, Silversnow, Bangledorn Forest, the flying city of Ro, the Serpent Sea, Doobesh, and numerous other locations create a fantasy world much larger than the immediate area reached through Eric’s basement. The expanding geography is matched by deeper mythology involving magical objects such as the Moon Medallion and increasingly important connections between Droon and the Upper World.
The principal numbered sequence contains thirty-six books, supplemented by eight Special Editions that are woven into the larger storyline rather than functioning merely as optional side adventures. The final Special Edition, The Final Quest, concludes the saga in 2010.
What begins as the discovery of a secret doorway consequently develops into a generational fantasy conflict involving ancient history, changing loyalties, magical inheritance, and two worlds whose relationship becomes increasingly important. Eric, Julie, and Neal remain the emotional center throughout, but their simple trips downstairs ultimately place them inside a much older story whose secrets Abbott reveals gradually across the entire Droon adventure.