Alternatives to Harry Potter1
ALTERNATIVES TO HARRY POTTER1
If you like the Harry Potter books, you may well enjoy these titles as well. And if you dislike Harry, you might think that many of these books are much, MUCH better!
BOOKS THAT CREATE AN ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE
J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit (1937)*
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) The Two Towers (1954) The Return of the King (1955)
C. S. Lewis
The Chronicles of Narnia The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950)* Prince Caspian (1951) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952) The Silver Chair (1953) The Horse and His Boy (1954) The Magician’s Nephew (1955) The Last Battle (1956)
Ursula Le Guin
The Earthsea Trilogy A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) The Tombs of Atuan (1971) The Farthest Shore (1972)
Nancy Farmer
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (1994) The House of the Scorpion (2002)*
1 Stars (***) = My favorites!
Philip Pullman
His Dark Materials Trilogy*** The Golden Compass (1995) The Subtle Knife (1997) The Amber Spyglass (2000)
William Nicholson
The Wind on Fire Trilogy The Wind Singer (2000) Slaves of the Mastery (2001) Firesong (2002)
BOOKS THAT MIX FANTASY & REALITY
L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) Ozma of Oz (1907)** Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908) The Emerald City of Oz (1910) The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913) Etc! But don’t be fooled by the ones by other authors, like Ruth Plumley Thompson, which are not as good as the Baum titles.
Alan Garner
Tales of Alderley The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960) The Moon of Gomrath (1963)
The Owl Service (1967)*
The Stone Book Quartet (1976-8)
Madeleine L’Engle
The Time Quartet* A Wrinkle in Time (1962) A Wind in the Door (1973) A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)
Susan Cooper
“The Dark is Rising” Sequence*** Over Sea, Under Stone (1965) The Dark is Rising (1973) Greenwitch (1974) The Grey King (1975) Silver on the Tree (1977)
Diana Wynne Jones
The Power of Three (1976)
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci* Charmed Life (1977) The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988) The Magicians of Caprona (1980) Witch Week (1982)
Orson Scott Card
The “Ender” books** Ender’s Game (1985) Speaker for the Dead (1986) Xenocide (1991) Children of the Mind (1996)
BOOKS THAT MIX FANTASY & REALITY— AND ARE FUNNY!
E. Nesbit
Five Children and It (1902)*** The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904)** The Story of the Amulet (1906)*
Edward Eager
Half Magic (1954)** Knight’s Castle (1956)*** Magic By the Lake (1957) The Time Garden (1958)*
Mary Rodgers
Freaky Friday (1972)
Ellen Raskin
The Westing Game (1978)***
Louis Sachar
Holes (1998)***
Eva Ibbotson
The Secret of Platform 13 (1999) Which Witch? (2000) Island of the Aunts (2001)
Lemony Snicket
A Series of Unfortunate Events The Bad Beginning: Book the First (1999) The Reptile Room: Book the Second (1999) The Wide Window: Book the Third (2000) And so on!
ARTICLES ABOUT HARRY POTTER
• “Harry Potter’s Girl Trouble” by Christine Schoefer. On Salon.com (13 Jan. 2000): http://www.cnn.com/2000/books/news/01/13/Harry.potter.salon/ • “Harry Potter: Pampered Jock, Patsy, Fraud” by Chris Suellentrop, available online at http://slate.msn.com/?id=2073627 • Jessy Randall, "Wizard Words: The Literary, Latin, and Lexical Origins of Harry Potter's Vocabulary." Verbatim: The Language Quarterly 26.2 (Spring 2001): 1, 3-7