Or, "this was what I read as a kid, have you read it, teenagers? o_o" I know we have book recs already; this is specifically "this feels obvious because it was my ENTIRE CHILDHOOD, but I never hear about it anymore". The War for the Oaks (Emma Bull) - Trope codifier for a lot of urban fantasy. Seelie and Unseelie Courts in the Twin Cities are having a war, bring in human musician as bard to lend her mortality to the fairies so they can actually fight and die. Bordertown series - It's a 1990s urban fantasy series, mostly short stories, about fairyland and magic coming back. So there's a big city that's a border between fairyland and the human world, where magic works sometimes and technology works sometimes, and runaways and musicians and artists build a society there in the middle. It's kind of a precursor to post-apocalyptic + urban fantasy, but generally pretty up-beat. Swordspoint (Ellen Kushner) - Canon gays! Swordfighting! Class conflict! Manners! Newford series (Charles de Lint) - Urban fantasy, a lot of focus on arts/music scene, a lot of focus on animal spirits and the idea that reality is in large part what you believe it is. Deryni series (Katherine Kurtz) - Medieval low fantasy, written by a medieval historian. Some people are basically X-Men mutants/psychics, and this has major religious and political repercussions. Hella nerdy. Chrestomanci series (Dianna Wynne Jones) - Fantasy multiverse, and the magicians who take care of it. Lots of magic and worldhopping. Usually cute and funny. Running Out of Time (Margaret Peterson Haddix) - Science fiction, about a girl growing up in an 1840 frontier village... who has to leave town, and finds out it's actually 1996, and she's been lied to all her life. Leaving Fishers (escaping a cult) and Turnabout (unaging!) may also be relevant to folks' interests. Please add to list, of course. -chinhands-
Frigging Gordon Koreman, especially the Bruno and Boots books. The Bruno and Boots ones are young teen boys at a boarding school and all the shenanigans they get into (fundraising to buy a pool because their rival school has one, attempting to drive out the schoolboard advisor, the time Hollywood films a movie there) with the aid of the girl's finishing school across the street. Tamora Pierce's Tortall books. Girl-focused YA medieval fantasy with magic and swords. The worldbuilding gets more developed as the books go on, and I think the Protector of the Small quartet is my favourite. Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books - more medieval fantasy, magical talking horses, a secret tribe of people with magical talking raptors bonded to them, telepathy, all that good stuff. I was already obsessed with birds when I stumbled across these books and it just got worse from there.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0380777606/ref=tmm_mmp_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1478033266&sr=8-1 https://www.google.com/search?ie=UT...-us&source=android-browser&q=demon+of+undoing
Aside from the warriors series and anything by darren shan, i used to be obsessed with the three investigators. I never got in to nancy drew or the hardy boys, so this was my mystery group. Its really good, and reminded me a lot of scooby doo with a lot less silliness
I read chrestomanci, running out of time, and tortall stuffs also Nancy Drew annnnnnnd agatha christie mysteries XD
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Setting where fairy-tale plots are such a thing that the standard princess education has lessons in the correct style and volume to scream if you're being carried away by various monsters. The main character, Cimorene, is a princess who decides she doesn't particularly want to do proper princessy things or marry some prince, and walks off to the mountains to volunteer to be a dragon's captive princess. She proceeds to cook, clean, translate, and organize up a storm while telling princes who come to rescue her to shove off. #life goals
I'll see this and raise you Tamora Pierce's Emelan books, which are about a found family of misfit kid mages in a vaguely Mediterranean fantasy setting.
I personally like Diana Wynne Jones's non-Chrestomanci books better, for the most part - Archer's Goon, Ogre Downstairs, Dogsbody, the Dalemark quartet, and Homeward Bounders were my faves growing up. I also remember really liking many of Jane Louise Curry's books, especially The Wolves of Aam and Shadow Dancers. Also, if you can find The Wicked Enchantment by Margot Benary-Isbert, that's a great one! Girl acquires Wicked Stepmother, runs away to live with her aunts disguised as a boy, gets tangled up in local folklore come to life!
My mom kept trying to get me to read Dalemark but it never really hooked me. I loved most of her other stuff though. Found Dogsbody at the library at summer camp and read the whole thing in like a day.
Part of why i grew my hair out as soon as i was allowed to pick my own hairstyle was so that i could comb it over my face and peek out from behind it like Helen Haras-Uquara.
@albedo Swordspoint is actually Ellen Kushner! (I've read and loved the first three on your list, I'll have to check out the rest). Also, for anyone who likes Swordspoint or The Privilege of the Sword, Serial Box is currently running Tremontaine in the same world, a generation before Swordspoint. I've really liked it so far. I loved Watership Down by Richard Adams as a teenager - it's rabbits on an epic quest. The Princess Bride novel is ridiculously funny. I've read a few of the Wrinkle in Time books, mainly the first one and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I've read Robin McKinley's Damar series so many times, and her urban fantasy vampire novel Sunshine almost as many .
Oh, yes, The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword were staples for me as well, I have no idea how I forgot them!
Whoops! My brain is FAIL APPARENTLY. :D Sounds awesome! I'll have to look it up. And yesssss, Watership Down and the Wrinkle In Time books are awesome. And I'm quite fond of Sunshine.
I read Watership Down for AP Lit class in high school, so I wouldn't have thought of that under "books for smols," but yes, excellent book. I remember those, but only barely. Oh yeah, another one: Ella Enchanted. Cinderella retelling where the MC is cursed at birth by a well-meaning but clueless fairy to always obey orders. I read it over and over as a kid. There's a movie but it sucks.
Michael Ende - I must have read the Neverending Story a hundred times, and Momo as often as I could borrow from the library. Elyne Mitchell's Silver Brumby series was also borrowed a lot. A ton of Elinor M Brent Dyer's school stuff, because WWII era boarding school in the Alps and escaping from Nazis? Surprisingly enjoyable. The Tripods series by John Christopher, especially The City of Gold and Lead - dated in some ways (written in the 1960s) but I loved them.
I spent most of the Artemis Fowl books after the first one being disappointed, but yes. And who didn't read a ton of Redwall as a kid. Oh, also: The Abhorsen/Old Kingdom books. I discovered them late, but I had a friend who was reading them in third grade.
My parents read it to us in the car on long trips, although I do remember being surprised at some of the gorier bits the first time I read it on my own, so I think some judicious censoring was going on until I hit 10 or so - I'm surprised but happy some people read it older, because it's kind of the defining book of my childhood. Oh! The Witches is my favorite Roald Dahl book - I liked them all that I've read, but that was my absolute favorite. I also liked Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson.
