BooksForKidsBlog

Monday, January 15, 2007

While You're Waiting for Harry Potter...


While you're waiting for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, you might want to look at the wizardry series by Diane Duane, beginning with So You Want to Be a Wizard. There are quite a few books in the Young Wizards Series and with girl and boy characters as self-taught apprentice wizards and a vast conspiracy of evil out to quash them, there's plenty of fast-paced, well-written action.

If Harry Potter afficionados hanker for that dreary English atmosphere, a new book, Endymion Spring, brings together the quest theme with a dark and evil wizardly force which American kids Blake and Duck encounter while their mom is doing research in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Blake and Duck's quest is interwoven with the story of Gutenberg's printer's devil, Endymion Spring, as they seek his lost book revealing all of human knowledge.

Another worthy alternative is Cornelia Funke's popular two-book series which includes Inkheart and Inkspell. In these books the main character Meggie deals with the consequences of her father's mysterious ability to "read" ominous characters into the real world from the books Inkheart and Inkspell.

For those Harry Potter fans who seek the "chills and thrills" factor in J. K. Rowlings' books, author John Bellairs has written three semi-related series which are highly popular with those readers who love a damp crypt or spooky old mansion in the mix. Bellairs and his first illustrator Edward Gorey are considered the masters of the juvenile Gothic genre.

The Louis Barnevelt series begins with the deliciously scary The House with a Clock in Its Walls. Louis goes to live with his eccentric and wizardly Uncle Jonathan in his appropriately Gothic old mansion and discovers that an evil wizard has planted a clock in its walls which is ticking down to doomsday. Louis and Uncle Jonathan continue to fight this nameless evil in many sequels, including The Figure in the Shadows, The Letter, The Witch, and the Ring, and Vengeance of the Witch Finder.

Bellair's second hero, Johnny Dixon, and his mentor Professor Childermass likewise take on many manifestations of evil in books such as Trolley to Yesterday, Curse of the Blue Figurine, Chessmen of Doom, and The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull.

Bellairs' third series involves a young teenager named Anthony Monday, whose mentor is Miss Eells, a librarian in a Gothic-style town library. Anthony is introduced in the mystery The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, and his ventures with the eccentric Eells' sisters continue in The Lamp from the Warlock's Tomb and The Mansion in the Mist, as well as many others.

Bellairs' books are pleasantly but darkly scary and yet somehow have a comfy, reassuring ambience because of the closeness of the young heroes with their crusty but trustworthy mentors. Perfect for reading under the covers late at night!

After all, it's a long time until the rumored release of Rowling's seventh book in the Harry Potter series, symbolically awaited on July 7, 2007, (Book 7 on 7-7-07), and dedicated fantasy fans need to exercise those page-turning muscles until that fateful day!

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10 Comments:

  • Although they shared a very similar gothic style, Charles Addams, not Edward Gorey, created the Addams Family. Both men's creations are delightful - with Addams' being ever-so-slightly more child-friendly.

    Wikipedia has a good article on Addams and his Family.

    This interview with Edward Gorey indicates that he was quite used to the confusion between him and Addams, and that they were friendly, sharing the same literary agent.

    By Blogger Brian Erst, at 11:09 AM  

  • You should also try Terry Pratchett's teen novels which focus on the character of Tiffany Aching:

    The Wee Free Men
    A Hat Full of Sky
    Wintersmith

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:09 AM  

  • My daughter's discovered the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. That'll do, she says, until July 21st. Meanwhile, I've promised her a date to go our local bookseller for whatever publication parties they might have.

    By Blogger Pete, at 8:20 AM  

  • Regarding the Young Wizards series, I like to say that while they are juvies, suitable for young teens, they're also proof that "juvie" doesn't have to mean "watered down" or "simplistic" or "badly written." Especially not badly written. Diane Duane is an extremely good writer, and she poured all the best of her skill into the Young Wizard books. The second one, Deep Wizardry, is among the best fantasy I've read for any age group.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:42 AM  

  • You should also try books authored by Diana Wynne Jones. I especially liked "Charmed Life", the first book in the "Chrestomanci" series.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:26 AM  

  • Hmmm.

    The RedWall series is good for the first 5 or so books. After that it becomes horribly repetitive.

    IMHO anyways.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:33 AM  

  • Tamora Pierce writes some very good medieval fantasies with young wizards with her The Circle Forms, Opening the Circle series.

    Its enjoyable to read the handcrafting mixed in with the magic as she uses craft wizards as her heroes rather than wand and spell wizards. So you have wizards of thread, and glass, gardening, and dancing....which gives a lot of interesting variety in the magic, and the small bits about ancient crafts interspersed within are fun as well.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:55 PM  

  • The "MYTH" series by Robert Asprin is a great read also.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:39 PM  

  • You should also consider the Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimmo. Great books!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:55 PM  

  • These books are all evil and promote paganistic satanic witchcraft! You should all be ashamed of yourselfs letting children read these!

    Please pray our gov bans these awful books soon before the liberals take over or we'll all be reading heathenistic books!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:13 AM  

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