After finishing a great book, sometimes it's hard to know where to turn
next. Let us help. Each of our "further recommendations" pages provides
knowledgeable suggestions, hand-picked by our staff, to satisfy your hunger
for more great reading.
AFTER
YOU'VE READ...
MAKE
YOUR NEXT BOOK ONE OF THE FOLLOWING...
The
Golden Compass by Philip
Pullman
Philip Pullman's magical prose weaves a story full of intrigue and high
adventure in this modern fantasy classic. The plot revolves around a girl
named Lyra, one of the most interesting and complex heroines in children's
literature, and her adventures in a world very different from our own.
Talking
armored bears, personal "daemons" that take on characteristics like the owner's
own personality, flying witches, and a dark secret involving something known
as "the golden compass" are only the beginning of this thrilling ride. The
story twists and turns as Lyra learns the secrets brewing around her, and
the reader is swept up in the cliffhanger plot right along with her.
The Golden Compass is the first volume in a trilogy called "His Dark
Materials," so be warned: you won't want to leave these characters after
just one book. Volume Two,
The
Subtle Knife, picks up the story in grand
fashion and will keep readers clamoring for more. Now
The Amber Spyglass,
the third and final volume, is finally out – and it's great, too. But
wait, I'm getting carried away. Back to The Golden Compass: simply
put, this is the finest kid's fantasy book I have ever read.
Recommended by
Colleen
James
and the Giant Peach by Roald
Dahl
Magic green pills spill, accidentally, into the ground beneath a peach
tree. A peach appears overnight, the only fruit the tree has ever produced;
by morning, it's swollen to the size of a houseboat, and soon enough James
Henry Trotter is climbing aboard for the ride of his life. If John Lennon
had written a full-length children's story instead of "Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds," this would be it. Even the ending is true: The English orphan boy
finds happiness in a home near his magical friends in New York's Central Park.
I love this book: the story, the drawings, the characters, and most of all
the adventure. Recommended by Dave
A
Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine
L'Engle
The magic, mysticism, science and mystery of Madeleine L'Engle's
A Wrinkle in Time have long held the interest of young readers.
Though few, if any, books have caused a stir equal to that of the Potter
series, L'Engle's Time quartet (including A
Wind in the Door, A
Swiftly Tilting Planet and Many
Waters) has certainly become a standard on many bookshelves. In
it, Meg Murry and her small brother Charles Wallace take an extraordinary
journey to find their missing physicist father. Aided by the sage and
eccentric beings, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, the children
and their friend also discover the presence of good and evil.
The
Redwall Series by Brian
Jacques
Before Harry Potter, Brian Jacques's books set the standard for successful
fantasy series for young adults. Wit, wisdom, humor, and adventure are all
elements of the Redwall books. In the first installment, Matthias,
a young novice at besieged Redwall Abbey, is determined to find the sword
Martin the Warrior to protect the inhabitants from the attack of Cluny, the
evil one-eyed rat. The Redwall adventures grab their readers with grand
quests and heroic archetypes and have been a staple for imaginative young
readers since the first book was released in 1986.
J.
K. Rowling's British Predecessors
Though the mind-boggling success of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series
may be without precedent (since the first "British
Invasion," of course), her richly imaginative, witty, and sophisticated
stories, as enjoyable to adults as they are to children, are not. Rowling
must give due to her many great British predecessors, including:
Alice
in Wonderland & Through
the Looking Glass by Lewis
Carroll
What needs to be said about the great works of Lewis Carroll? Their unique
blend of childlike imagination, subtle wit, and keen insight into our ridiculous
human nature have made them a touchstone of western literature since they
were first published in Victorian England.
The
Hobbit & The
Lord of the Rings by J.
R. R. Tolkien
The parents of today's young Harry Potter fans understand perfectly their
child's obsessive fascination with Harry Potter. They remember using that
flashlight-under-the-covers trick themselves when they first discovered J.
R. R. Tolkein. Countless writers have tried to create a world as thoroughly
imagined as Tolkein's. Nonetheless, his work remains the high water mark of
fantasy literature, the literary genre he, for all intents and purposes, invented.
The
Chronicles of Narnia by C.
S. Lewis
Again, what book-loving contemporary adult didn't go through a Narnia phase
as a child? Like the others mentioned here, these books operate on many levels.
They are at once serious morality tales, gripping adventure stories, and,
at times, high satire. The Narnia books are also one of the best examples
of the peculiarly British ability to write at once for the imagination of
a child and the intellect of an Oxford don.
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