Fantasy Genre Favorites

Grade 5 is starting a literacy unit focused on the fantasy genre. Nowadays, the fantasy genre can mean many different things, from talking animals to Harry Potter to the punny Xanth series. I am an unabashed lover of classic fantasy, sometimes called high fantasy. That's where you have fantastical races like dwarves, elves and goblins, where magic is a commodity like data is in the real world, and where the author creates a world with its own history and cultures. There's often a young orphan surviving through his/her wits in the underbelly of a medieval-like town. He or she may resort to thievery to stay alive, but his or her heart is always noble. There's often a quest through which the characters develop as people and/or a battle between the forces of good and evil. Many fantasy books are part of a series, which is great for readers who long to experience heroic magic and thrilling adventures and explore a richly imagined world.

We have hundreds of great fantasy novels in the ES library. I "booktalked" several of them to a fifth grade class today, and I'd thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you.

	Midnight for Charlie Bone, by Jenny Nimmo Like the famous Harry Potter, Charlie Bone is fatherless, has great magical potential, lives with relatives who hate him and is enrolled in a magical school. Charlie Bone's school, however, is more like a prison with most of the teachers resembling Professor Snape. Delores Umbridge would be right at home here.
	The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis This is the grade level read-aloud for this unit. It is a classic novel of four siblings who discover a magical world hidden behind the back of a closet. When one of the children is kidnapped by the Snow Queen, it's up to the other three to rescue him and the magical land of Narnia from her evil clutches.
	Sandry's Book, by Tamora Pierce Anything by Tamora Pierce is excellent, and this first book of a quartet is no exception. Four young students at a magic academy learn to control their unique gifts and learn that yes, with great power comes great responsibility. Each of the four books revolves around a different student.
	The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien Today a trilogy movie, The Hobbit started out life as a series of letters from J.R.R. Tolkien to his son Christopher when Tolkien was away at war. Some of the book is clearly written to appeal to a child, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." Most of the book, however, reflects the misery of war that Tolkien was experiencing: the brainless and mean trolls, the horrors of hidden traps and the savagery of the orcs.
	The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman Another epic trilogy. In the world of The Golden Compass, all humans have a "daemon" an animal that represents the soul. Lyra uses her magical understanding of a golden compass to save her kidnapped best friend and other children from being used in horrible experiments in the Far North. There's a Hollywood movie based on the book, but this is certainly an occasion where the book is better than the movie.