A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books

Cashore, Kristin Graceling Fire Bitterblue

Cashore's novels are complex. since her protagonists must reconcile themselves their undesired powers and the responsibilities their skills impose. Graceling focuses on a young woman, Katsa, whose special talent, or "grace," makes her almnost undefeatable in combat. All "graced" persons must serve the king, and Katsa, from childhood, has been groomed as her royal uncle's personal assassin. She slowly realizes that she can use her skill to protect Bitterblue, the daughter of a neighboring kingdom's sadistic king, Leck. The second novel--the most intensely- realized of the three--focuses on Fire, a woman of the kingdom where Leck was born, who must come to terms with her inherited power of irresistible attraction and to discern the threat the child Leck presents to her country. Bitterblue continues the story of the rescued princess.

Collins, Suzanne The Hunger Games Catching Fire Mockingjay

The "Hunger Games" series, for which she is best known, is set in a dystopic North America in which political discipline is maintained the twelve (official) districts by annual gladiatorial competitions to the death among young people chosen by lot. The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, must use her survival skills and struggle between ruthlessness and her humane instincts to become an active exemplar of a movement for social change. Collins is unrelentingly honest in her depictions of decadence and oppressive powers.

Cooper, Susan Dawn of Fear Over Sea, Under Stone* The Dark is Rising* Greenwitch* The Grey King* Silver on the Tree* Jethro and the Jumbie The Boggart The Boggart and the Monster King of Shadows

Cooper is one of the most accomplished contemporary writers of fantasy. The first book is autobiographical, describing the experience of English children during the Blitz of WWII. Her sequence, "The Dark is Rising"* has won several awards, including the Newbery award for The Grey King. Jethro and the Jumbie is notable for her use of Carribean folklore and local dialect. A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books--2

Croggon, Alison The Naming The Riddle The Crow The Singing

A fantasy series focusing on the attempt of gifted persons, "Bards," to preserve a richly-varied civilization from forces called the Dark. The overly-simplistic scheme, strongly reminiscent of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, is transcended in the second and subsequent volumes, which focus on a complex young woman, Maerad, enslaved in childhood, who struggles to control her personal powers that are at first more destructive than helpful.

Funke, Cornelia The Thief Lord Inkheart Inkspell Inkdeath Dragon Rider

In The Thief Lord, two German orphans escape an oppressive foster home to hide among a group of homeless children in Venice. They discover that the children are an organized gang of thieves managed by "The Thief Lord." Learning the latter's identity leads to a series of mysterious encounters and the uncovering of several families' secrets. In Inkheart, the first trilogy, book- loving Meggie does not understand why her father, Mortimer ("Mo"), a master bookbinder and preservationist, adamantly refuses to read stories aloud to her. Escaping with Mo and the enigmatic carnival fire-eater Dustfinger, she learns not only the reason, but also encounters an enclave of people who may not be of this world. The stories of Meggie and her family are continued and completed in the next two books. Dragon Rider, one of Funke's earlier works, is the story of an orphaned boy who sets out to find a refuge for the last dragons in Europe with the aid of a young dragon and a brownie girl.

Hearn, Lian The "Otori" series Across the Nightingale Floor Grass for his Pillow Brilliance of the Moon The Harsh Cry of the Heron Heaven's Gate is Wide

Tale of Shikanoko Series The Emperor of the Eight Islands Autunm Princess, Dragon Child Lord of the Darkwood Tengu's Game of Go A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books--3

Hearn's "Otori" series is set in an imaginary Japan, and is deeply informed with bushido, the ethical system of the samurai class, although she never uses the term. This secondary world is fully realized, grounded in Hearn's research. The story begins when the newly-orphaned Tomasu, is rescued by Otori Shigeru, a nobleman at odds with his relatives and an inimal overlord. Shigeru adopts the boy, who is renamed Otori Takeo. Takeo must balance his new loyalties with those of the Tribe, a close-knit group of fighters-for-hire and business operators, whose heritage he shares. The story moves between Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede, a noblewoman who must learn to rule her clan, and make real her bond with Takeo. The fifth book is actually the prelude to the series: the story of Otori Shigeru.

Hearn's world is harsh and she depicts its violence without voyeurism, but it is also an engaging tale of two capable, if difficult, young people.

The "Shikanoko" series, released between April and September of 2016, is set two hundred years before the events of the "Otori" books; it is also more explicitly fantastic, using characters from Japanese folklore as well as human characters with overtly fantastic powers. The protagonist is a young prince, Kazumaru, who is betrayed by his uncle and rescued by a stag and a shaman who endow him with shamanic powers residing in a mask made from the skull of the stag; his name, Shikanoko, means "Son of the Stag." The remaining books focus on his struggles to regain both his own fiefdom but also to restore the young emperor, betrayed in a feud between powerful clans.

Hearn mines Japanese medieval epics such as The Tale of the Heike, compressing the latter's expansive style, but employing the rapid pacing and vivid depictions.

Ibbotson, Eva Dial-a-Ghost The Great Ghost Rescue Not Just a Witch Island of the Aunts Journey to the River Sea The Secret of Platform 13 Which Witch The Star of Kazzan

Ibbotson's stories are fairy tales with protagonists who maintain their curiosity and altruism despite alienation and neglect. Her antagonists are greedy wastrels depicted with occasionally heavy-handed satire. Her plots range from fantastic whimsy, as in Dial-a-Ghost, Which Witch or the environmental fantasy Island of the Aunts (the aunts "borrow" two neglected children to train them as the future stewards of their animal refuge), to more mimetic narratives that depend on creative problem-solving and convenient but believable coincidences.

Jones, Diana Wynne Fire and Hemlock The Chrestomanci Quartet Charmed Life A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books--4

Witch Week The Magicians of Caprona The Lives of Christopher Chant The Dalemark Quartet Cart and Cwidder Drowned Ammet The Spellcoats The Crown of Dalemark Dark Lord of Derkholm Year of the Griffin Hexwood The Homeward Bounders Aunt Maria The Merlin Conspiracy Howl's Moving Castle Castle in the Air* The House of Many Ways (Completes a trilogy with the previous two books) The Pinhoe Egg (a Chrestomanci book) and many more...

Wynne Jones's fantasies often deal with the difficulties of "managing" magic; being gifted in magic tends to create as many problems as it solves. Some of her works are comic, e.g., the "Chrestomanci" series, others, such as the "Dalemark" books are more serious in tone. Fire and Hemlock is perhaps her most impressive work, combining the faery lore of "Thomas Rhymer" and "Tam Lin" with the life of a young girl with unsettled family relations.

Le Guin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea The Tombs of Atuan The Farthest Shore Tehanu Tales of Earthsea The Other Wind The Beginning Place Far Away from Any Place Else Gifts Voices Powers

The first three books are a trilogy set on a world, Earthsea, where magic is the equivalent of our science. They are the tales of the coming of age and later adventures of the wizard Ged (the third volume won the National Book Award for children's literature). The "Earthsea" cycle is completed in the next two books; Tehanu, especially deals with the gender-based injustices left unexamined in the earlier volumes. The last three books represent Le Guin's final work--a stories about young people who must come to terms both with their own impressive gifts and with the oppressive power structures--from family to enslavement--that constrain their lives. A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books--5

McKinley, Robin Beauty: A Retelling of the Tale of Beauty and the Beast The Door in the Hedge The Blue Sword The Hero and the Crown Rose Daughter Spindle's End Dragonhaven Chalice Pegasus

The first two books are retellings of various familiar fairy tales, including "The Princess and the Frog." The other books are the first two volumes of a trilogy of adventures set in the legendary kingdom of Damar, each with a heroine who finds her place, often painfully, in her realm.

Miéville, China Un Lun Dun Railsea

Although Miéville is best known for his adult science fiction, his two young adult novels demonstrate his skill in presenting complex social concerns, e.g., environmental preservation and economic justice to younger audiences as well as his delight in Carrollian word-play. Un Lun Dun, influenced, like his novel Kraken, by Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, builds on the idea of an "under-city" than reflects, and comments on, the "everyday" world with which it exists in complex tension. Railsea is a more straightforward Bildungsroman and includes a quest by the protagonist's obsessive captain for a legendary white "mouldiwarp." Both novels present protagonists who are not members of the dominant culture of their worlds

Napoli, Donna Jo Zel Sirena Beast The Magic Circle The Prince of the Pond Spinners

Napoli specializes in retelling traditional stories, primarily fairy tales (Sirena is based on the Trojan War), from perspectives other than that of the conventional omniscient narrator. The Magic Circle presents the "Hansel and Gretel" story from the witch's perspective; Zel moves between the personae of Rapunzel, the prince, and the surrogate mother. In Beast, the "Beauty and the Beast" tale is narrated from the point of view, primarily, of the Persian prince cursed to become the Beast after a serious error in a religious ritual sacrifice. Napoli's implied audience is the contemporary young adult; she deals effectively and sometimes movingly with inchoate sexuality. A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books--6

Nimmo, Jenny The Snow Spider Emlyn'sMoon The Chestnut Soldier The "Charlie Bone" series (a bit light-weight)

The first three books are a series set in contemporary Wales in a village of farmers and workers, and grounded in folk magic. The third volume derives its power from a blend of one of the grimmer tales in the medieval Mabinogi and the story of a damaged young man mustered out of a regiment serving in northern Ireland.

Nix, Garth Sabriel Lirael Abhorsen Clariel Goldenhand

Nix's series is set in a world in which special skills are required to preserve the boundaries between the living and the dead--work that is both uncanny and grim (vampire fantasy minus vampires). All magic is governed by the "Charter," primordial power that is bound, but accessible, to those gifted and trained as "Charter mages." Skills vary, but those called to the tasks of the Abhorsen maintain the crucial boundaries and combat necromancers who would exploit the dead for the sake of power; one such is Sabriel. In Lirael, another mage reared among clairvoyants, must seek her real talent when her "inborn" skill does not manifest; she joins with Sabriel and others in the third novel in a struggle against the primordial Destroyer . Goldenhand continues the adventures of Lirael.

Novik, Naomi His Majesty's Dragon (first book in the "Temeraire" series) Uprooted Spinning Silver

The "Temeraire" books are set in an imaginary England in which dragons form part of the armed forces of Europe during the Napoleonic wars. Naval captain Will Laurence is chosen by a newly-hatched dragon, which he names Temeraire, and finds himself in a new service and bonded with a brilliant--and difficult--young fighting dragon (imagine Anne McCaffrey+C. S. Forester+Patrick O'Brian). The humans are mostly adults but the series has a great young-adult appeal.

In Uprooted, Novik turns to traditional fairy tales and her ancestral Polish folklore. In a village menaced by a sentient, deadly Forest, the protagonist, Agnieszka (Ag-NYESH-ska) is chosen as the next in the series of young girls selected to serve the local wizard, called the Dragon, for ten years. At the end of their service, the young women are released, unharmed, well-educated, and with a generous dowry; they almost never remain in the village, and the practice is a matter of dread. Agnieszka must learn the tasks assigned by her exacting, self-centered master, as well as A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books--7 coming to terms with her own magical gifts that, although he does not realize it, complement his own in protecting the village. Novik's latest novel the constructed Eastern European country of Spinning Silver, young Miriam takes over her family's money-changing business, negotiating the difficulties of managing loans while not incurring the latent anti-Semitism of her clients. Her skills draw the attention of the king of a parallel elf-world; his insatiable desire for silver involves Miriam in even more dangers than those of the fairy tale on which the novel is based. Novik is admirably honest about the social tensions faced by a "useful" minority culture.

Pierce, Tamora Sandry's Book (Circle of Magic Series #1 Tris's Book (Circle of Magic Series #2) Daja's Book (Circle of Magic Series #3) Briar's Book (Circle of Magic Series #4)

Magic Steps (Circle Opens Series #1) Street Magic (Circle Opens Series #2) Cold Fire (Circle Opens Series #3) Shatterglass (Circle Opens Series #4)

The Will of the Empress (The Circle Reforged Series #1) Melting Stones Battle Magic

Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness Series #1) In the Hand of the Goddess (Song of the Lionness Series #2) The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (Song of the Lioness Series #3) Lioness Rampant (Song of the Lioness Series #4)

First Test (Protector of the Small Series #1) Page (Protector of the Small Series #2) Squire (Protector of the Small Series #3) Lady Knight (Protector of the Small Series #4)

Trickster's Choice (Daughter of the Lioness #1) Trickster's Queen (Daughter of the Lioness #2)

Wild Magic (The Immortals Series #1) Wolf-Speaker (The Immortals Series #2) Emperor Mage (The Immortals Series #3) Realms of the Gods (The Immortals Series #4)

Pierce favors short novels in series, and focuses on children and young adults learning to control magical powers, either "elemental magic," as in the "Circle of Magic" books, or learned magic, as in the Alanna or "Lioness" serie; Daine, of the "immortals"series possesses a unique "wild" magic. All of her characters must deal not only with their personal flaws and inhibitions but also with social customs and prejudices that oppose them either because of their ages, or, in the case A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books--8 of the first and second female knights, Alanna and Keladry, the Protector of the Small, because of their sex. Pierce has begun a third series set a a period 2000 years prior to the "Lioness" books.

Pratchett, Terry

Wyrd Sisters Witches Abroad Lords and Ladies Masquerade Carpe Jugulum Guards! Guards! Men At Arms Feet of Clay Jingo The Fifth Elephant Thud Night Watch Going Postal Making Money The Wee Free Men A Hat Full of Sky Wintersmith I Shall Wear Midnight The Shepherd's Crown and many more...

Pratchett specialized in fantasies that are usually classed as "comic," but all contain strong elements of serious social critique. All of the novels (over thirty to date) are set in the Discworld, a circular flat planet resting on four elephants carried by a giant space turtle. The peculiar physics of this imaginary world create concentrations of physics-defying magic. The first five novels form his "Ramtop" series and feature the adventures of witches who guide a stubbornly-independent populace away from various disasters (mostly eldritch); The other novels are Pratchett's version of police-procedurals, with a team of city guards who balance the complex dynamics of controlled crime and rough, but serious, justice.

The last four novels focus on a young apprentice witch, Tiffany Aching; The Shepherd's Crown is the final novel by Pratchett, who died in 2015.

Pullman, Philip The Ruby in the Smoke Shadow in the North The Tiger in the Well The Broken Bridge His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (in the UK as Northern Lights) A Selection of Children's and YA Fantasy Books--9

The Subtle Knife The Amber Spyglass Lyra's Oxford

Spring-Heeled Jack I Was a Rat! Count Karlstein The Firework-Maker's Daughter The Scarecrow and his Servant

The first three books are cast as Victorian thrillers. Lyra's Oxford is a beautifully-produced short sequel to Pullman's award-winning fantasy sequence His Dark Materials, a work that combines a rescripting of Milton's Pradise Lost among humans accompanied by animal-formed daemons (their inspiriting principles) in a secondary world of multiple universes, witches, armored bears, zeppelins, Calabi-Yau spaces, and angels. The Book of Dust is the first novel of a projected trilogy focused on Lyra's early childhood, beginning with the attempts of her father, Lord Asriel, to protect her from groups that see her either as a "promise" or as a threat. The last four books are shorter, comic novels.

Professor Amelia A. Rutledge (last updated November 30, 2018)