Your Study Guide to Light Academia

Many 19th century classics are considered Light academia, despite not taking place within the four walls of a schoolhouse. Alcott’s original Little Women ( and its subsequent adaptations and retellings) fit nicely into the warmth and friendship-focused Light Academia. The March sisters spend time in various types of schooling, from homeschooling, to strict school houses with a bustling lime trade, to working as a private tutor. As girls, the sisters enhance their education by acting out the part of English Gentlemen of the Pickwick Club, and participating in charity work. As adults, the girls’ education supports their specific interests — Meg with her homemaking, Jo with her writing, and Amy with her art. Little Women remains a staple of both American literature and the Light Academia aesthetic because of its enduring coziness and individual approach to education.

This Pride and Prejudice retelling set in present-day Pakistan features Alys, an English teacher, a messy rumor, a massive wedding celebration, and a rude jerk named Valentine. When Alys’s older sister Jena is certain that she can catch the eye of rich bachelor Fahad Bingla, at a wedding, Alys is dragged along as Jena’s companion. Of course, Fahad’s friend Valentine has something negative to say about Alys’s family before Jena can land the proposal. Kamal takes Austen’s signature wit and twists it with Alys’s fierce personality and charm, and hilarious hijinks. Jane Austen’s works, including Emma and Pride and Prejudice are often included in Light Academia aesthetic posts. For more contemporary Austen adaptations, try Recipe for Persuasion, or Ayesha at Last.

Akko Kagari has always dreamed of being a real witch, but since she comes from a non-magical family, her dream was always too far away! When Akko is accepted into Luna Nova Witchcraft Academy, she can hardly believe it! Even though all the other students are magical geniuses, Akko is determined to try her best, learn magic, and make friends. This manga series has all the bright, warm friendship feels, like Anne of Green Gables, plus magic!

This nostalgic British classic is set in the mid 20th century, following the life of Charles Ryder, an undergraduate student. Ryder finds himself swept up into the charmed world of the British aristocracy, with the Catholic Flyte family of Brideshead. Charles becomes like a family member, until a desperate falling out as the second World War looms closer. A Dark Academia approach to the same characters and plot, would focus more on Charles’s misery, class dynamics, and greed for power. The highs and lows of Charles’s life instead culminate in longing, sentimentality, homoromantic undertones, and the joy of remembering days spent on the lawn with friends.

Quiet and unassuming, this eerie dystopian novel toes the thematic line between Dark and Light Academia. Three children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are raised side by side at rural boarding school, Hailsham. Their adolescence is peppered with jealousies, petty disagreements, and rebellions. When Ruth and Tommy begin to seek a life outside of their prescribed path, Kathy refuses to stray. Chilling and heartbreaking, this book might still have you nostalgic for your nonexistent days at English boarding school.