Children's book recommendations
What follows is a rather eccentric, partially annotated list of books that I recommend for children and young adults. And adults. I still read them all myself.
Collett recommendations: **great, *good. Also, H=most likely to appeal to someone who loves the Harry Potter books.
**Adams, Richard. Watership Down. Heroic rabbits find a new home, battle other rabbits.
H *Aiken, Joan. Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Black Hearts in Battersea, Dido and Pa, etc. In this Victorian-seeming alternate England, orphans and others contend with a wicked headmistress, plots against the king, etc.
H **Alexander, Lloyd. Chronicles of Prydain series. Alexander draws on Welsh legend to create his series centering on Taran, an assistant pig-keeper who wants to be a hero.
The Book of Three
The Black Cauldron
The Castle of Llyr
Taran Wanderer
The High King
*David Almond. Skellig, Kit’s Wilderness-excellent, odd books
**Beagle, Peter. The Last Unicorn. A bumbling magician, a feisty woman, and a young girl investigate why the unicorns are missing.
Franny Billingsley. The Folk Keeper-Corinna, masquerading as a boy for several years, keeps the dark Folk from souring the milk, spoiling the crops, and worse. Now she will keep the folk at the Orkney island manor, for the Lady Alicia, her son who wants to be a shipbuilder, not a land-owner, and their fastidious steward.
**Boston, L.M. "Green Knowe" books, which blend fantasy with history and "historical" reality. The Children of Green Knowe, etc.
Lois McMaster Bujold**. Miles Vorkosigan series-addictive, really fun science fiction:
Shards of Honor, (Captain Cordelia Naismith becomes a prisoner of war of Aral Vorkosigan, the supposed “Butcher of Komarr”; they come to admire each other through various escapes, dealings with traitors, etc.),
Barrayar (during troubles over the regency, a would-be assassin attacks Cordelia and Aral (now regent and foster-father of the young Emperor) with a toxin that damages their unborn son),
Warrior’s Apprentice, The Vor Game, Borders of Infinity, Cetaganda, Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance, Memory, Komarr, A Civil Campaign (Miles Vorkosigan overcomes his brittle bones and stunted growth, legacy of the prenatal attack, with his hyperactive genius for getting into and out of trouble, to command a mercenary fleet, run diplomatic missions, solve problems for the Emperor, and look for love).
Curse of Chalion fantasy; Cazaril, who has been a captain, a courier, and a courtier, was betrayed onto a Raknari galley and barely escaped with his life and sanity intact. Now he is tutor to the Royesse Iselle, and sees dark forces, including those who betrayed him, threatening Iselle and all of Chalion. He is driven to appeal to Chalion's ambiguous fifth god, the Bastard, for help.
Paladin of Souls-Ista, freed from fear when the curse was lifted from her daughter Iselle, but smothered by well-meaning care, doesn’t want to have anything more to do with the gods. The gods have other ideas.
Joy Chant* Red Moon, Black Mountain
*Charnas, Suzy McKee. The Bronze King. When Valentine starts noticing odd things are vanishing from NYC, she unknowingly summons a wizard from Sorcery Hall. He enlists her help in fighting against the dreaded Monster of Darkness. Sequels: The Silver Glove, The Golden Thread.
H **Cooper, Susan. The Dark is Rising series. The first one, Over Sea, Under Stone, is okay, but not nearly as good as the rest-The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree. Also King of Shadows, about an American boy going to play a part in a reconstruction of Shakespeare’s theatre, who finds himself back in Shakespeare’s time.
**Curry, Jane Louise. Beneath the Hill, etc. have as their basic premise the idea that one ship of fair folk/elves sailing for Tir na nOg missed their way and ended up in America, where they've been living in Appalachian caves ever since, where modern children stumble across signs of them. Some of the books involve pre-Columbian civilizations as well, or instead.
**Dean, Pamela. The Secret Country, The Hidden Land, The Whim of the Dragon. Five children (cousins) find themselves in the imaginary country the history of which they have spent summers enacting for years (at least they thought it was imaginary ...). Involves missing royal children, a dear friend planning treachery, a misguided king, prophetic unicorns.
**Dickinson, Peter. The Blue Hawk Fantasy set in ancient Egypt (more or less). The Seventh Raven Not fantasy--Central American terrorists take hostage an English church full of opera-rehearsing children, including the son of the Central American country's ambassador. The Weathermonger (end and explanation), The Devil’s Children (beginning), and Heartsease (middle) all deal with the Changes, when suddenly almost everyone in modern England turns against all machinery.
H **Duane, Diane. So You Want to be a Wizard. Nita and Kit have to cross into a dark version of Manhattan to save the world. Sequels: Deep Wizardry, High Wizardry, A Wizard Abroad, Book of Night with Moon
Wizard’s Dilemma
A Wizard Alone
Wizard’s Holiday
H *Eager, Edward. Half Magic, Knight's Castle, Magic by the Lake, Magic or Not?, Seven Day Magic and The Time Garden. Many of the children in these books love E. Nesbit’s books.
**Engdahl, Sylvia Louise. Enchantress from the Stars, The Far Side of Evil. The main character connects these two, but they take place on different planets-they are science fiction, but the first uses fairy-tale elements (from the point of view of the native of the planet, what they are living is a traditional fairy tale). Even better: This Star Shall Abide, Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains, The Doors of the Universe. This wonderful trilogy is set on a planet without enough metal to support an advanced civilization. In the first volume, which begins like a fairy tale, the young hero protests the injustice of their society but gradually learns the plans of the founders. The trilogy gets into some very thoughtful, complicated ideas; new truths keep unfolding. It was recently reprinted as Children of the Star.
*Enright, Elizabeth (non-fantasy). The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, etc.
Fisher, Dorothy Canfield (non-fantasy). Understood Betsy. Elizabeth Ann has to leave her doting aunts to stay in Vermont with the Putney cousins, who are so cruel as to give children chores.
**Forest, Antonia [non-fantasy]. Books follow the English Marlow family, Nicola and her twin, Lawrie, and their four sisters and two brothers. Some books are set at their girls' school, some at home with their neighbor Patrick Merrick and such delights as role-playing in Gondal (the imaginary land that the Brontës invented) or skirmishing with the local hoodlums (are they or aren't they smuggling drugs by pigeon?) or taking care of Patrick's and Nicola's hawks. All are thoughtful, well-written, and exciting. Autumn Term Nicola and Lawrie (~9) go to boarding school for the first time. The Marlows and the Traitor With their brother Peter at the sea-side. Falconer's Lure Patrick and Nicola hawking. End of Term The school's Christmas play. Peter's Room Playing Gondal during Christmas holidays. The Thuggery Affair Pigeons and thugs. The Readymade Family Nicola is dubious when her oldest sister, Karen, marries a widower; then one of his children is missing. The Cricket Term at school The Attic Term Nicola's sister Ginty gets herself and Nicola and their friend Patrick in London in trouble at school. Run Away Home Brother Giles, home from the navy for the Christmas holidays while their mother is away, helps a runaway. The Players' Boy and The Players and the Rebels are about Elizabethan Marlows (Nicola's ancestors, not Kit) and Shakespeare's company.
**Furlong, Monica. Wise Child, Juniper. An arrogant Celtic girl is raised by a woman known locally as a witch; the story of the witch’s childhood.
H **Garner, Alan. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Elidor, The Owl Service, The Moon of Gomrath. Elements of Norse and Celtic myth impinge on children of our own world, imposing quests that they don’t fully understand: often quite scary.
Kenneth Grahame* The Reluctant Dragon
*Gray, Nicolas Stuart. Grimbold's Other World. An orphaned boy found in a hen's nest meets a clever cat with entry into the Night world. Together they help the creatures from the magical world when they get entangled with our world.
Cynthia Harnett The Woolpack Historical
Geraldine Harris* Seven Citadels
Rosemary Harris The Moon in the Clouds, etc.
Robert Heinlein Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, etc.
H.M. Hoover The Lost Star, The Rains of Eridan, etc. Thoughtful, rather poignant science fiction, often dealing with human beings first interactions with life forms on other planets who might be sentient or might not.
H **Jones, Diana Wynne. Howl's Moving Castle. Sophie, as the eldest daughter, knows that her adventures are bound to fail. Also, Archer's Goon, Castle in the Air, Charmed Life, The Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona, The Ogre Downstairs and A Tale of Time City
H ** Witch Week. A school for witches’ orphans.
**Fire and Hemlock (buried in this story about a British teenager is a retelling of Tam Lin),
**Cart and Cwidder, Drowned Ammet, Spellcoats (set in Dalemark, where ancient legends may have power to move mountains)
**Dogsbody (the powerful being Sirius is wrongly condemned to life as a dog, and almost drowns as a puppy, but Kathleen rescues him and loves him in spite of her aunt’s displeasure.),
**Homeward Bounders (a boy is torn from his home and condemned to be flung from world to world at the whim of those who play the Game),
**Time of the Ghost (very unsettling book where the main character isn’t sure who she is, or whether she’s a ghost haunting her sisters’ childhood), Power of Three, etc.
Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth.
**Kendall, Carol. The Gammage Cup. While everyone else is concerned with tidying these non-conformists out of the village so that they can win the Cup, Muggles, Walter the Earl, Gummy, and the others defend their little land from the horrible Mushroom people.
**Langton, Jane. The Diamond in the Window_, _The Swing in the Summerhouse_, _The Astonishing Stereoscope_, _the Fledgling_ and _The Fragile Flag. In Concord, two children follow a strange, transcendental treasure hunt that their aunt and uncle followed thirty years before-and disappeared.
H **LeGuin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore and Tehanu (written much later-recommended for adults)
**L'Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters. The Murry children have many adventures across space, time, and spirit. Also (non-fantasy) Meet the Austins, The Moon By Night, The Young Unicorns, Ring of Endless Light.
H *Levine, Gail. Ella Enchanted.
**Lewis, C.S. - Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew, The Last Battle
*Lively, Penelope. Wild Hunt of Hagsworthy, etc.
H **Lovett, Margaret. The Great and Terrible Quest_. This comes close to being the perfect fantasy.
*MacDonald, George. The two "Curdie" books: The Princess and the Goblins,
The Princess and Curdie
*Mahy, Margaret. The Changeover. YA Girl becomes witch to help little brother escape curse by evil storekeeper.
*Masefield, John. The Box of Delights and The Midnight Folk A boy coming home from school for the holidays gets involved with a Punch-and-Judy man who may be more than he seems, ex-pirates who scrobble the bishop, Herne the Hunter, and others.
**Mayne, William. Earthfasts, Cradlefast Two boys discover fragments of the past breaking into their English village, including a drummer boy who walked into the underground passage on a dare an hour-or two hundred years-ago.
Geraldine McCaughrean. The Stones are Hatching-all the old bogeys of folklore are reappearing on the English landscape; Phelim denies that he’s the one to stop the Stoor Worm from waking itself and them. Good. YA
**McKinley, Robin. The Blue Sword. Harry, an officer’s sister, is kidnapped by the King of the Damarians, and comes reluctantly to realize that they possess the same mysterious powers. See also: The Hero and the Crown-Newbery award-winning story about Damar’s past, legends in Harry’s day; Beauty-a wonderful retelling of Beauty and the Beast; Rose Daughter --another retelling of Beauty and the Beast; different, also very good; Spindle’s End--retelling of Sleeping Beauty
Sunshine-Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossed with McKinley’s Beauty, with a touch of Charles de Lint. Very good.
*Nesbit, E. Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Story of the Amulet.
*Nix, Garth. Sabriel is really dark and cold: Sabriel has to leave her boarding school and travel through the Old Kingdom and in and out of Death, pursued by Dead creatures but helped by Mogget, a fierce Free Magic creature held in the shape of a cat, to try to rescue her father, the Abhorsen, who has been trapped in Death. She goes from one dark, cold, desperate situation to another. Lirael is not quite as dark, but the beginning is a bit like many Mercedes Lackeys-a bit too much teenaged angst in both Lirael, who wants to have the Sight like the rest of the Clayr, and Prince Sameth, who can’t bear to do his duty as Abhorsen-in-waiting and read the Book of the Dead. But it develops nicely, with plenty of desperate situations, the return of Mogget, and the addition of the Disreputable Dog. It leaves off in the middle, though-and I’ve ordered its completion, Abhorsen, which was published three days ago.
Abhorsen--really good completion of the story!
**North, Joan. The Cloud Forest
*O'Shea, Pat. The Hounds of the Morrigan.
H *Pierce, Tamora. The Song of the Lioness series: Alanna: the First Adventure, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who RIdes Like a Man, and Lioness Rampant.
________. The Immortals series: Wild Magic, etc.
________. The Circle of Magic series.
*Pratchett, Terry. Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and the Dead, Johnny and the Bomb, Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, etc. Very funny, very good.
**Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife. The first two in a trilogy. Really, really good. Somewhat reminiscent of Aiken (same sort of gritty Victorian-seeming England), but more depth, more fully-realized fantasy--each human being has a daemon in animal form inextricably linked with them.
Count Karlstein YA Transylvanian setting for mysterious happenings.
**Ransome, Arthur. The Swallows and Amazons series [non-fantasy]: Swallows and Amazon, Swallowdale, Peter Duck, Winter Holiday, Coot Club, We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Pigeon Post, The Big Six, Secret Water, Missee Lee, The Picts and the Martyrs, Great Northern?_ Children go on sailing adventures in the Lake District and on the Broads in England before the second world war.
*Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, ... and the Prisoner of Azkaban, … and the Order of the Phoenix. Etc.
H *Smith, Sherwood. Wren to the Rescue, Wren’s Quest, Wren’s War; Crown Duel.
*Snyder, Zilpha Keatley. Below the Root, And All Between and Until the Celebration
**Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Lord of the Rings, Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major
*Verney, John. Odd, British non-fantasy.
*White, T.H. The Sword in the Stone
H **Wrede, Patricia. The Enchanted Forest series: Talking With Dragons, Dealing With Dragons, Searching For Dragons, and Calling On Dragons. Princess Cimorene turns fairy-tale conventions on their heads. Mairelon the Magician Regency England with magic.
**Wrede and Stevermer, Sorcery & Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, being the correspondence of two Young Ladies of Quality regarding various Magical Scandals in London and the Country. Sequel: The Grand Tour, or The Purloined Coronation Regalia, being a revelation of matters of High Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, including extracts from the intimate diary of a Noblewoman and the sworn testimony of a Lady of Quality. The Mislaid Magician, or Ten Years After
*Wrightson, Patricia. Australian fantasy
Collett recommendations: **great, *good. Also, H=most likely to appeal to someone who loves the Harry Potter books.
**Adams, Richard. Watership Down. Heroic rabbits find a new home, battle other rabbits.
H *Aiken, Joan. Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Black Hearts in Battersea, Dido and Pa, etc. In this Victorian-seeming alternate England, orphans and others contend with a wicked headmistress, plots against the king, etc.
H **Alexander, Lloyd. Chronicles of Prydain series. Alexander draws on Welsh legend to create his series centering on Taran, an assistant pig-keeper who wants to be a hero.
The Book of Three
The Black Cauldron
The Castle of Llyr
Taran Wanderer
The High King
*David Almond. Skellig, Kit’s Wilderness-excellent, odd books
**Beagle, Peter. The Last Unicorn. A bumbling magician, a feisty woman, and a young girl investigate why the unicorns are missing.
Franny Billingsley. The Folk Keeper-Corinna, masquerading as a boy for several years, keeps the dark Folk from souring the milk, spoiling the crops, and worse. Now she will keep the folk at the Orkney island manor, for the Lady Alicia, her son who wants to be a shipbuilder, not a land-owner, and their fastidious steward.
**Boston, L.M. "Green Knowe" books, which blend fantasy with history and "historical" reality. The Children of Green Knowe, etc.
Lois McMaster Bujold**. Miles Vorkosigan series-addictive, really fun science fiction:
Shards of Honor, (Captain Cordelia Naismith becomes a prisoner of war of Aral Vorkosigan, the supposed “Butcher of Komarr”; they come to admire each other through various escapes, dealings with traitors, etc.),
Barrayar (during troubles over the regency, a would-be assassin attacks Cordelia and Aral (now regent and foster-father of the young Emperor) with a toxin that damages their unborn son),
Warrior’s Apprentice, The Vor Game, Borders of Infinity, Cetaganda, Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance, Memory, Komarr, A Civil Campaign (Miles Vorkosigan overcomes his brittle bones and stunted growth, legacy of the prenatal attack, with his hyperactive genius for getting into and out of trouble, to command a mercenary fleet, run diplomatic missions, solve problems for the Emperor, and look for love).
Curse of Chalion fantasy; Cazaril, who has been a captain, a courier, and a courtier, was betrayed onto a Raknari galley and barely escaped with his life and sanity intact. Now he is tutor to the Royesse Iselle, and sees dark forces, including those who betrayed him, threatening Iselle and all of Chalion. He is driven to appeal to Chalion's ambiguous fifth god, the Bastard, for help.
Paladin of Souls-Ista, freed from fear when the curse was lifted from her daughter Iselle, but smothered by well-meaning care, doesn’t want to have anything more to do with the gods. The gods have other ideas.
Joy Chant* Red Moon, Black Mountain
*Charnas, Suzy McKee. The Bronze King. When Valentine starts noticing odd things are vanishing from NYC, she unknowingly summons a wizard from Sorcery Hall. He enlists her help in fighting against the dreaded Monster of Darkness. Sequels: The Silver Glove, The Golden Thread.
H **Cooper, Susan. The Dark is Rising series. The first one, Over Sea, Under Stone, is okay, but not nearly as good as the rest-The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree. Also King of Shadows, about an American boy going to play a part in a reconstruction of Shakespeare’s theatre, who finds himself back in Shakespeare’s time.
**Curry, Jane Louise. Beneath the Hill, etc. have as their basic premise the idea that one ship of fair folk/elves sailing for Tir na nOg missed their way and ended up in America, where they've been living in Appalachian caves ever since, where modern children stumble across signs of them. Some of the books involve pre-Columbian civilizations as well, or instead.
**Dean, Pamela. The Secret Country, The Hidden Land, The Whim of the Dragon. Five children (cousins) find themselves in the imaginary country the history of which they have spent summers enacting for years (at least they thought it was imaginary ...). Involves missing royal children, a dear friend planning treachery, a misguided king, prophetic unicorns.
**Dickinson, Peter. The Blue Hawk Fantasy set in ancient Egypt (more or less). The Seventh Raven Not fantasy--Central American terrorists take hostage an English church full of opera-rehearsing children, including the son of the Central American country's ambassador. The Weathermonger (end and explanation), The Devil’s Children (beginning), and Heartsease (middle) all deal with the Changes, when suddenly almost everyone in modern England turns against all machinery.
H **Duane, Diane. So You Want to be a Wizard. Nita and Kit have to cross into a dark version of Manhattan to save the world. Sequels: Deep Wizardry, High Wizardry, A Wizard Abroad, Book of Night with Moon
Wizard’s Dilemma
A Wizard Alone
Wizard’s Holiday
H *Eager, Edward. Half Magic, Knight's Castle, Magic by the Lake, Magic or Not?, Seven Day Magic and The Time Garden. Many of the children in these books love E. Nesbit’s books.
**Engdahl, Sylvia Louise. Enchantress from the Stars, The Far Side of Evil. The main character connects these two, but they take place on different planets-they are science fiction, but the first uses fairy-tale elements (from the point of view of the native of the planet, what they are living is a traditional fairy tale). Even better: This Star Shall Abide, Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains, The Doors of the Universe. This wonderful trilogy is set on a planet without enough metal to support an advanced civilization. In the first volume, which begins like a fairy tale, the young hero protests the injustice of their society but gradually learns the plans of the founders. The trilogy gets into some very thoughtful, complicated ideas; new truths keep unfolding. It was recently reprinted as Children of the Star.
*Enright, Elizabeth (non-fantasy). The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, etc.
Fisher, Dorothy Canfield (non-fantasy). Understood Betsy. Elizabeth Ann has to leave her doting aunts to stay in Vermont with the Putney cousins, who are so cruel as to give children chores.
**Forest, Antonia [non-fantasy]. Books follow the English Marlow family, Nicola and her twin, Lawrie, and their four sisters and two brothers. Some books are set at their girls' school, some at home with their neighbor Patrick Merrick and such delights as role-playing in Gondal (the imaginary land that the Brontës invented) or skirmishing with the local hoodlums (are they or aren't they smuggling drugs by pigeon?) or taking care of Patrick's and Nicola's hawks. All are thoughtful, well-written, and exciting. Autumn Term Nicola and Lawrie (~9) go to boarding school for the first time. The Marlows and the Traitor With their brother Peter at the sea-side. Falconer's Lure Patrick and Nicola hawking. End of Term The school's Christmas play. Peter's Room Playing Gondal during Christmas holidays. The Thuggery Affair Pigeons and thugs. The Readymade Family Nicola is dubious when her oldest sister, Karen, marries a widower; then one of his children is missing. The Cricket Term at school The Attic Term Nicola's sister Ginty gets herself and Nicola and their friend Patrick in London in trouble at school. Run Away Home Brother Giles, home from the navy for the Christmas holidays while their mother is away, helps a runaway. The Players' Boy and The Players and the Rebels are about Elizabethan Marlows (Nicola's ancestors, not Kit) and Shakespeare's company.
**Furlong, Monica. Wise Child, Juniper. An arrogant Celtic girl is raised by a woman known locally as a witch; the story of the witch’s childhood.
H **Garner, Alan. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Elidor, The Owl Service, The Moon of Gomrath. Elements of Norse and Celtic myth impinge on children of our own world, imposing quests that they don’t fully understand: often quite scary.
Kenneth Grahame* The Reluctant Dragon
*Gray, Nicolas Stuart. Grimbold's Other World. An orphaned boy found in a hen's nest meets a clever cat with entry into the Night world. Together they help the creatures from the magical world when they get entangled with our world.
Cynthia Harnett The Woolpack Historical
Geraldine Harris* Seven Citadels
Rosemary Harris The Moon in the Clouds, etc.
Robert Heinlein Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, etc.
H.M. Hoover The Lost Star, The Rains of Eridan, etc. Thoughtful, rather poignant science fiction, often dealing with human beings first interactions with life forms on other planets who might be sentient or might not.
H **Jones, Diana Wynne. Howl's Moving Castle. Sophie, as the eldest daughter, knows that her adventures are bound to fail. Also, Archer's Goon, Castle in the Air, Charmed Life, The Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona, The Ogre Downstairs and A Tale of Time City
H ** Witch Week. A school for witches’ orphans.
**Fire and Hemlock (buried in this story about a British teenager is a retelling of Tam Lin),
**Cart and Cwidder, Drowned Ammet, Spellcoats (set in Dalemark, where ancient legends may have power to move mountains)
**Dogsbody (the powerful being Sirius is wrongly condemned to life as a dog, and almost drowns as a puppy, but Kathleen rescues him and loves him in spite of her aunt’s displeasure.),
**Homeward Bounders (a boy is torn from his home and condemned to be flung from world to world at the whim of those who play the Game),
**Time of the Ghost (very unsettling book where the main character isn’t sure who she is, or whether she’s a ghost haunting her sisters’ childhood), Power of Three, etc.
Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth.
**Kendall, Carol. The Gammage Cup. While everyone else is concerned with tidying these non-conformists out of the village so that they can win the Cup, Muggles, Walter the Earl, Gummy, and the others defend their little land from the horrible Mushroom people.
**Langton, Jane. The Diamond in the Window_, _The Swing in the Summerhouse_, _The Astonishing Stereoscope_, _the Fledgling_ and _The Fragile Flag. In Concord, two children follow a strange, transcendental treasure hunt that their aunt and uncle followed thirty years before-and disappeared.
H **LeGuin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore and Tehanu (written much later-recommended for adults)
**L'Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters. The Murry children have many adventures across space, time, and spirit. Also (non-fantasy) Meet the Austins, The Moon By Night, The Young Unicorns, Ring of Endless Light.
H *Levine, Gail. Ella Enchanted.
**Lewis, C.S. - Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew, The Last Battle
*Lively, Penelope. Wild Hunt of Hagsworthy, etc.
H **Lovett, Margaret. The Great and Terrible Quest_. This comes close to being the perfect fantasy.
*MacDonald, George. The two "Curdie" books: The Princess and the Goblins,
The Princess and Curdie
*Mahy, Margaret. The Changeover. YA Girl becomes witch to help little brother escape curse by evil storekeeper.
*Masefield, John. The Box of Delights and The Midnight Folk A boy coming home from school for the holidays gets involved with a Punch-and-Judy man who may be more than he seems, ex-pirates who scrobble the bishop, Herne the Hunter, and others.
**Mayne, William. Earthfasts, Cradlefast Two boys discover fragments of the past breaking into their English village, including a drummer boy who walked into the underground passage on a dare an hour-or two hundred years-ago.
Geraldine McCaughrean. The Stones are Hatching-all the old bogeys of folklore are reappearing on the English landscape; Phelim denies that he’s the one to stop the Stoor Worm from waking itself and them. Good. YA
**McKinley, Robin. The Blue Sword. Harry, an officer’s sister, is kidnapped by the King of the Damarians, and comes reluctantly to realize that they possess the same mysterious powers. See also: The Hero and the Crown-Newbery award-winning story about Damar’s past, legends in Harry’s day; Beauty-a wonderful retelling of Beauty and the Beast; Rose Daughter --another retelling of Beauty and the Beast; different, also very good; Spindle’s End--retelling of Sleeping Beauty
Sunshine-Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossed with McKinley’s Beauty, with a touch of Charles de Lint. Very good.
*Nesbit, E. Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Story of the Amulet.
*Nix, Garth. Sabriel is really dark and cold: Sabriel has to leave her boarding school and travel through the Old Kingdom and in and out of Death, pursued by Dead creatures but helped by Mogget, a fierce Free Magic creature held in the shape of a cat, to try to rescue her father, the Abhorsen, who has been trapped in Death. She goes from one dark, cold, desperate situation to another. Lirael is not quite as dark, but the beginning is a bit like many Mercedes Lackeys-a bit too much teenaged angst in both Lirael, who wants to have the Sight like the rest of the Clayr, and Prince Sameth, who can’t bear to do his duty as Abhorsen-in-waiting and read the Book of the Dead. But it develops nicely, with plenty of desperate situations, the return of Mogget, and the addition of the Disreputable Dog. It leaves off in the middle, though-and I’ve ordered its completion, Abhorsen, which was published three days ago.
Abhorsen--really good completion of the story!
**North, Joan. The Cloud Forest
*O'Shea, Pat. The Hounds of the Morrigan.
H *Pierce, Tamora. The Song of the Lioness series: Alanna: the First Adventure, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who RIdes Like a Man, and Lioness Rampant.
________. The Immortals series: Wild Magic, etc.
________. The Circle of Magic series.
*Pratchett, Terry. Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and the Dead, Johnny and the Bomb, Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, etc. Very funny, very good.
**Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife. The first two in a trilogy. Really, really good. Somewhat reminiscent of Aiken (same sort of gritty Victorian-seeming England), but more depth, more fully-realized fantasy--each human being has a daemon in animal form inextricably linked with them.
Count Karlstein YA Transylvanian setting for mysterious happenings.
**Ransome, Arthur. The Swallows and Amazons series [non-fantasy]: Swallows and Amazon, Swallowdale, Peter Duck, Winter Holiday, Coot Club, We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Pigeon Post, The Big Six, Secret Water, Missee Lee, The Picts and the Martyrs, Great Northern?_ Children go on sailing adventures in the Lake District and on the Broads in England before the second world war.
*Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, ... and the Prisoner of Azkaban, … and the Order of the Phoenix. Etc.
H *Smith, Sherwood. Wren to the Rescue, Wren’s Quest, Wren’s War; Crown Duel.
*Snyder, Zilpha Keatley. Below the Root, And All Between and Until the Celebration
**Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Lord of the Rings, Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major
*Verney, John. Odd, British non-fantasy.
*White, T.H. The Sword in the Stone
H **Wrede, Patricia. The Enchanted Forest series: Talking With Dragons, Dealing With Dragons, Searching For Dragons, and Calling On Dragons. Princess Cimorene turns fairy-tale conventions on their heads. Mairelon the Magician Regency England with magic.
**Wrede and Stevermer, Sorcery & Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, being the correspondence of two Young Ladies of Quality regarding various Magical Scandals in London and the Country. Sequel: The Grand Tour, or The Purloined Coronation Regalia, being a revelation of matters of High Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, including extracts from the intimate diary of a Noblewoman and the sworn testimony of a Lady of Quality. The Mislaid Magician, or Ten Years After
*Wrightson, Patricia. Australian fantasy