If You Like Harry Potter... (Favorite Kids' Fantasy)

In My Humble Opinion
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Another book recommendation/discussion thread. This one’s dedicated to children’s fantasy authors along the line of J. K. Rowling.

The Silver Crown by Robert C. O’Brien. One of my favorite books. O’Brien is the one who wrote Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, but I think Silver Crown is better. It’s a dark, fast-paced adventure about a girl who, on the morning of her tenth birthday, finds a silver crown on her pillow and then has her house burn down. Superlative story; highly recommended. (It’s out of print, but you should be able to get it through Bibliofind.

Diana Wynne Jones. I love this author. British, her books are sometimes reminiscent of a gentler Roald Dahl or a more technically accomplished Ruth Chew. She provides wonderful twists on the standard archetypal fare of ordinary kids discovering extraordinary things. Both her protagonists and her writing is extremely intelligent. I never got into the Dalemark series, and for some reason hated Hexwood, but all of her other books are fantastic–especially Archer’s Goon and The Ogre Downstairs.

Edward Eager. Heh. Classic. His books date from the forties and fifties, and they all explore the same basic theme: precocious children find magical object and go adventuring. The emphasis is on the children more than the magic, and the characters are really well-drawn. His books–of which Half Magic is perhaps the most well-known–may be better suited to kids rather than their parents, but they’re sparkling examples of good-natured, smart fantasy.

E. Nesbit. Edward Eager’s inspiration and literary precursor. Edith Nesbit’s stories are a century old, but they’re still more in tune with kids than most children’s literature today. These books are genuinely witty, and a hell of a lot of fun to read. Nesbit herself was a fascinating character who belonged to England’s Fabian Society and kept company with George Bernard Shaw. Her most famous books are probably The Enchanted Castle, Five Children and It, and The Railway Children. I recommend any of her work. Great stuff.

Diane Duane. I just finished reading the first three books of her Wizardry series. I liked them a lot; really nice plotting and characterization. More archetypes done in such a way as to appear fresh and clever–her books are a bit darker than Jones, Eager, or Nesbit. At least, the Wizardry books are; I don’t know much about any of her others.

Watership Down by Richard Adams and the Oz series by L. Frank Baum et. al. 'Nuff said.
I know I’m missing some here…help me out, people. Recommendations and opinions appreciated. :slight_smile:

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My niece likes the Harry Potter books. For her birthday I bought her the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

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We can’t leave out J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which I think is not a much more difficult read than the Potter books. I read it first when I was ten, but the Lord of the Rings had to wait until I was 13 and the Silmarillion had to wait until I was 17.

A book I enjoyed immensely when I was 9 was called Urshurak. I haven’t read it since, but I suspect I wouldn’t like it so much now.

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Susan Cooper: Silver on the Tree/The Grey King/Greenwitch/The Dark Is Rising/Over Sea, Under Stone. Great stuff.

“When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back,
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.”

Jane Yolen: any of her mythic-type books; she’s America’s premiere modern mythmaker, better even than Orson Scott Card IMHO. “The Wild Hunt” was a delightfully subversive take on a traditional hero’s quest, and I love the world she created with the Pit Dragon series. Always does a great job creating a convincing world, like Ursula LeGuin.

Madeline L’Engle: The Wrinkle in Time series. Didn’t like them as much past the first three, but those first ones were spooky, enthralling and convincing.

C. S. Lewis: The Narnia Series. Even if he is trying to push Christianity, the sneaky little bugger.

Anne McCaffery: The Dragonsong, Dragonsinger and Dragondrums books are “light” enough for young children (i.e., no sex). I desperately wanted a fire-lizard of my own. :wink:

Lloyd Alexander: The Prydain Chronicals. Epic story of a struggle to defeat the forces of Evil. Kind of like a Celtic version of The Fellowship of the Ring, but shorter and a bit easier going.

Techically not exactly what you asked for, but: any of D’Aulaires’ books of mythology. Great yet simple retellings of all the classic mythos, and the pastel illustrations are flamin’ amazing.

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I second, third, and fourth Susan Cooper.

I would also recommend Philip Pullman. I inhaled The Golden Compass a few weeks ago. It is a fine work of literature for children and adults.

MR

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I agree about Philip Pullman; I was considering adding him to the list, but decided that I’d stick with authors whose books were more specifically geared towards kids. The Golden Compass and its sequel, The Subtle Knife, are a lot of fun to read; I’ve got the third in the series, The Amber Spyglass, on reserve at the library. And I eagerly await the fourth book, entitled Article Adjective Noun.* :slight_smile:

Thanks for the tip about Susan Cooper, Gaudere; I’ve seen her around before, and I’ll check that series out. I’m most fond of those fantasy books whose protagonists are of our own world; again, the ordinary kid archetype. Don’t know why…maybe it’s 'cause I like a frame of reference when I start to read. Plus it’s always fun when characters are sharing the discovery of the reader.

[sub]*It promises to be almost as good as the Carolyn Keene/Franklin Dixon oeuvre, each one of which was named Article Object Prepositional Phrase Adjective Noun.[/sub]

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John Christopher, Andre Norton and Jan Mark. I really like the Pullman books too. Oh hell I like all the books mentioned so far.

I am reading Isobelle Carmody, an Australian writer. Is she available in the US yet? I’m undecided as to whether or not to persevere with her.

Does anyone like Francesca Lia Block? I started her Weetzie Bat series recently after reading enthusiastic recommendations but I gotta say that the mannered style left me cold.

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Norman Juster: The Phantom Tollbooth. Wonderfully funny and one of the best books ever to read aloud.

L. Frank Baum: Most of the the first 6 or so OZ books.
The (Wonderful) Wizard of Oz
The (Marvelous) Land of Oz
Ozma of Oz
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
The Road to Oz
NOTThe Emerald City of Oz. Especially avoid this one if you have diabetics in the family. Bleagch.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
and, skipping ahead
Rinkitink in Oz which isn’t an Oz book at all, except that the publisher forced him to cram Dorothy et al into the last few chapters.

Also by Baum:
My favorite of his books:
Queen Zixi of Ix wherein a bunch of fairies make a wishing cloak and what happens after.

and his only “Science Fiction” (sort of…kinda…well, if you stretch your definition to include ‘Spirits of Electricity’)novel The Master Key, which is one of the best “Boy’s Adventure” books I’ve ever read.

If you’re going to get a Baum book or two, let me recommend the BOOKS OF WONDER editions. BOOKS OF WONDER have done exact replica editions of a bunch of the Oz books. They’re works of art, as well as literature (They even managed to reproduce the metallic green ink used in the color plates in The Emerald City of Oz, the only reason to buy that particular book). The original format of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had line drawings behind the text on every page, along with the color plates. It’s amazing.

Someone upthread mentioned Edward Eager. Let me second that, and particularly recommend Half Magic. Some kids in the 1920s get ahold of a coin that grants you exactly half of what you wish for. It takes some effort for the kids to figure out what’s going on. The scene where the cat “half talks” is hilarious.

Also mentioned upthread was Susan Cooper. The Dark is Rising is one of the all time great evocative books ever. Unfortunately, I don’t think the rest of the series is as perfectly good as The Dark Is Rising. But the atmosphere of The Dark Is Rising makes it a must-read (especially around Christmastime).

One last author for now (I know I’m going to think of a bunch more as soon as I end this post, but…)Robert Heinlein. His juveniles are some of the best, most addictive ways to get young readers hooked on SF. I’d certainly recommend Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Red Planet, Tunnel in the Sky, The Star Beast and Citizen of the Galaxy as good ones to start with.

Being far too long winded,

Fenris

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I, obviously, was either a precocious child, or my mother made a damn good effort to get me good books. I’ve either read all the series, or a portion of each, by almost every author mentioned hear.

Damn, I rule.

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Great post, Fenris. What’s your opinion of those Oz books which were written after Baum’s death, but (I believe) sanctioned by his estate?

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I like Francesca Lia Block, although I have no good reason why. I usually hate magical realism type stuff, but I like Weetzie and company. The ones I enjoyed the most were Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys and Missing Angel Juan.

Other favorites:

The Green Knowe series, by L. M. Boston. For slightly younger readers, set in an English manor house, pleasantly haunted by the children from various generations of the family. Not much happens, it’s more of a mood piece.

Court of the Stone Children and the Mushroom Planet series, by Eleanor Cameron. I love her! The Mushroom books are very unsophisticated science fiction, but the characters are so winsome it doesn’t really matter.

The Sherwood Ring and The Perilous Gardby Elizabeth Marie Pope. Fantasy plus a little romance thrown in for good measure.

Lizard Music and Alan Mendelssohn, the Boy from Mars or anything else by Daniel Pinkwater

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. This is like a kid’s book for grown-ups, I think. Dating, dorms, intellectual curiosity, and the supernatural at a fictional liberal arts college (although it’s based on Carleton College).

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. I’m not sure this is fantasy, I’m actually not sure WHAT it is, but it’s dark, dark humor.

I once had a book, now long lost, about a family of children who found a mysterious underground world called Og. Does this ring any bells with anyone? I don’t know the author, and I’m not sure on the title, which makes seaching on bibliofind et al a little difficult.

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Damn, how’d I forget that one? A definite must-read. We used to read it aloud during car trips. Visiting the Doldrums, The Car That Goes Without Saying, The Senses Taker, having to literally eat your own words, The “Which” Faintly Macabre…lots of fun.

Another good series: Below the Root, Until the Celebration, And All Between by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Crumbling, once-great society up in the trees; outcasts have created another society “below the root”. Each society is distrusted and pseudo-legendary to the other, but the child protagonists meet and bring them back together.

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Good thing I posted when I did. I haven’t heard of anything since.

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This may need to be moved to the BBQ Pit or Great Debates, after I’m done, as Oz fans tend to be passionate about this subject. :wink: Please insert the phrase IMHO as appropriate.

<long-winded mode: ON>

Ok, there are 40 “cannonical” Oz books and about a billion published (legally, after copyright expired or illegally before, or after using characters who’re still under copyright) elsewhere. The first 14 (not 15, The Royal Book of Oz had nothing to do with Baum, despite what the introduction and some editions say) were by Baum, the next 20 some were by Ruth Plumly Thompson, a few (horrible) ones were by John R.R. Neill, the brilliant illustrator who did the art for the entire series, except for the first book to that point, number 30-something, the next few were by Jack Snow, which I liked a lot (I’m in the minority of Oz fans here) and a few other authors who were one or two shots.

The Oz books fall into two catagories: Travelogues and Adventures. The stories I like best are the Adventure stories: Ozma of Oz, for example or The Magic of 0z. The main thing that the Adventure stories have that the travelogues don’t is villians. Without a villian to move the plot, the characters tend to just wander around looking for plot-coupons (“You have found the next ingredient to the magic potion: please proceed to the next segment”). While this sort of plot can be ok if handled well (The Patchwork Girl of Oz) they tend to be repetivive and cutesy.

The Oz books I don’t like are the cutesy travelogues. Baum did one or two: The Emerald City of Oz is one such. Dorothy (finally) decides to invite Aunt Em and Uncle Henry to come to live in Oz (with Ozma’s permission) and half the book is Dorothy et al showing Uncle Henry and Aunt Em around some of the strange (read: cutesy) corners of Oz. Bunnybury, where everone’s a rabbit. Bunbury where everyone is animate baked pastery, Utensila, where everyone is an eating utensil (salad fork, for example). There’s a backstory about the Nome King planning an invasion, but the ending of that sub-plot could be in the dictionary next to the phrase “Anti-climax”.

Most of Ruth Plumly Thompson’s books tend towards the cutesy-Travelogue type. Characters wander around finding the next wacky city/land/people. She also did some serious damage to the characters: in a pathetic effort to “explain” why The Scarecrow, of all the scarecrows in Oz came to life, she decided that the Scarecrow’s pole went all the way through the Earth to China and that the soul of a Oriental king (named something like Ding Wing Woe)travelled through the pole and “possessed” the scarecrow that was at the other end of the pole. Yuck. Blech. Phooey. (The Oriental thing was, I believe an attempt to be trendy. I think that there was an oriental fad at the time.)

The vast majority of Thompson’s books fall into the “Introduce new, cutely named character, have them look all over Oz for plot coupons in new, wacky cities” (Handy-Mandy in Oz, Captain Salt in Oz, Kabumpo in Oz. Sense a trend? Compare that to Baum’s Lost Princess of Oz, Magic of Oz or Glinda of Oz all of which feature (primarily) the main characters only and have wonderfully menacing bad-guys.

Thompson also kept insisting on “correcting” the spelling of Baum’s best villian, the Nome King (Thompson spelled it Gnome, despite Baum having made a point that it was spelled Nome). All-in-all, I don’t like Thompson’s stuff at all.

Of the non-cannon stuff, there’s too much to discuss, but one author who stands out as being easily as good as Baum is Eric Shanower who did 5 or so graphic novels (magazine-sized comic books) that are wonderful beyond belief. (The Blue Witch of Oz, The Ice-King of Oz, etc)
They perfectly capture the charm and flavor of the best elements of Baum’s work with a style and fluidity that’s both clear and appealing.

The Oz books seem to be tricky to write. Baum himself had trouble balancing out the too-scary bits from the cutesy bits, but to me, Thompson didn’t even try to keep that balance.

The newest Oz book I’ve gotten is A Paradox in Oz with stunning art by Shanower and a so-so plot by…some guy who’s name escapes me. The author has a major problem with the pacing of the book, and the transitions from the darker stuff to the lighter stuff are akwardly handled, but overall he makes a pretty good first effort.

Terry Pratchett, speaking about his DISKWORLD series said something like “The thing that makes light fantasy work is the introduction of Tragic Relief to all the lighthearted romping about” (paraphrase). Most of the later Oz books seemed to lose sight of that fact.
<long-winded mode: OFF>

Fenris

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I third and fourth “The Phantom Tollbooth”.

One I haven’t seen mentioned is Holes, by Louis Sachar. I picked it up after I finished GoF and was looking for some more of the same vein - very well written, relatively intricately plotted for a juvenile book, and lots of fun.

I also enjoyed both Alice books (Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass), as well as The Hunting of the Snark (by Lewis Carroll, of course).

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Another vote here for The Phantom Tollbooth. I would also add The Chronicles of Narnia, and some of the books by Roald Dahl, particularly Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. Loved Wrinkle in Time, but never got around to reading the other ones by L’Engle. I haven’t re-read Wrinkle in Time as an adult for fear that it wouldn’t hold up for me…any grownups read it here recently that might answer this one for me?

I didn’t read a lot of fantasy as a kid…I tended to favor science fiction. However, in the sixth grade, I read The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende. The movie made from it was OK, but the source material, the book, was far superior. They left so much out in the movie. Too bad, really. The best parts were never made into a movie, either.

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Ummm…it’s Norton Juster, and I must agree. The Phantom Tollbooth is one of my absolute favorite books.

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Yeeeesh! Only one passing allusion to Ursula K. LeGuin? The Wizard of Earthsea is a must for any kid hitting puberty. The rest of the trilogy (The Farthest Shore and The Tombs of Atuan with the final volume, Tehanu: the Last Book of Earthsea might be better suited to older kids and adults (she explores some depressing themes as Ged ages and wearies), but the first book is a gem for early teens.

She also has a delightful pair of books that are suitable for younger kids, Catwings and its sequel, Catwings Return.

Another strong vote, here, for Lloyd Alexander. I loved the Chronicles of Prydain (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, and The High King). (Don’t be put off by the silly cartoon of The Black Cauldron, that is not the book that Alexander wrote.)
What I especially enjoyed about the series was that the protagonist is allowed to learn and grow. Rather than making the same stupid mistake every time a “new” but similar situation arises until he finally gets the lesson beat into his head in the final climax, he learns with each new experience and builds on his knowledge.

Similarly, in his trilogy Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen, Alexander has characters who need to make difficult choices and learn and grow from the experience.

Sadly, I do not share others’ love of Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising. I found her universe of people who simply “choose” Good or “choose” Bad to be rather flat. She also uses (on several occasions) the cop-out of having a character participate in truly world-shaking events, then having their memories wiped away because they are not among the “elect.” I do not fault her prose or her overall plotting in any way, but I found the books very unsatisfying.

I loved Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, but if we’re talking kids books, here, I would not include it. There are themes and events in it that are fine for high school, but a bit much for an 11-year-old.

The Secret World of Og, Pierre Berton, Paperback - March 1984)
Our Price: $1.95 + $3.35 special surcharge (from Amazon)
First published in 1962, reprinted most recently in 1984. I suspect the surcharge is for tracking down out-of-print titles. It was first published in hardcover by Little, Brown.

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Just wanted to pop in and add a vote for Lloyd Alexander. Haven’t thought of those books in years. They were great. You don’t know what fun is until you have a bunch of kids trying to pronounce Fflewdder Fflam’s name phoenetically. (Fuh-flew-duh-der Fuh-flam, if you were wondering)

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the John Belairs series- listed as horror, they really are fantasy. The best are those whith the young chubby boy, living with his uncle who is a very minor wizard.

The “Enchanted Forest Chronicles” by Patricia Wrede- 4 or so books, usually seen in one volume.

The “Gammage Cup” or something like that- about some odd folks who live by a river- and conformity. There is a 2nd, but it is not as good.

A new one- Hounds of The Morrigan, by O’Shea. Too bad there is only the one book.

I agree mostly with everyone elses votes.