I’m a fantasy addict, I work with wild animals for return to native ecosystems, and my favourite place to be is in a forest! People mock all the hiking in Lord of the Rings. But how better to tune into an unfamiliar landscape than to turn over that mossy stone, to uncover that buried gem, to find mushrooms? I enjoy fairy rings on three levels. First, by knowing they’re a food source for malleefowl and bush turkeys. Second, by understanding that their structure stems from the radius travelled by the hyphae underground. Third, by imagining where I might be whisked off to if I only dared set foot inside.
This is a hauntingly gorgeous, heartening and yet cruel retelling of the brothers-transformed-into-swans fairy tale. In third grade, I gasped aloud in my school library at the imagined feel of nettles burning my hands, and wondered if I loved my own bratty brothers enough to make Sorcha’s sacrifice. This book reminded me of that. It punctured my chest and made me fall even deeper in love with Marillier’s work.
Sorcha, the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum, faces the difficult task of having to save her family from its enemies, who have bewitched her father and six older brothers while forcing her to choose between the life she has always known and a special love.
I can’t resist the combination of magic, music, and forests. Plus my mother grew up in Canada, and I’ve meandered along those berry- and bear-rich pebbly beaches. In this book, magic, fey-inhabited Wales crashes into modern Ottawa. De Lint’s setting and style seized my soul as a young adult reader. That yearning youngster is not only still part of me, but part of everyone, I hope.
Sara Kendall and Kieran Foy become trapped in the midst of the eternal battle between good and evil, in a tale of magic and romance that moves from ancient Wales to modern Canada.
Look. It’s not derivative if you read it *first*. And I read Magician almost a full decade before I read The Lord of the Rings! Two awesome forests to be found in Midkemia are Elvandar, ruled by the elf queen, and the Green Heart, hideout of the moredhel. Some of Tolkien’s bias carries over, here, since the bloodthirsty Brotherhood of the Dark Path has dark hair and eyes, while the eledhel are “fair”. Still, Feist’s worldbuilding allowed enough room at the margins for my brunette self to imagine being one of the Returned – a dark brother who turns good and is magically embraced by Elvandar. Or like Martin Longbow, elf-like enough – we first see him sparing the life of a deer – to be allowed into the forest’s embrace.
In the westernmost province of the Kingdom of the Isles, upon the world of Midkemia, an orphan kitchen boy named Pug was made apprentice to the magician Kulgan.
Here starts an adventure that will span lifetimes and worlds. Discover where the story begins.
The world had changed even before I discovered the foreign ship wrecked on the shore below Crydee Castle, but it was the harbinger of the chaos and death that was coming to our door.
War had come to the Kingdom of the Isles, and in the years that followed it would scatter my friends across the world.…
Warren’s work is darker, more complex, and more compelling than most, and I loved this book to pieces. It’s a coming-of-age quest to circumnavigate a giant island which is also a monstrous tree, each tribe a segment of the orange, or an hour on the clock, to be discovered, savoured, and potentially escaped from, with the tree itself a constant, anchoring presence in the world. Get it! Read it!
Botanica is an island, but almost all of the island is taken up by the Tree.
Little knowing how they came to be here, small communities live around the coast line. The Tree provides them shelter, kindling, medicine - and a place of legends, for there are ghosts within the trees who snatch children and the dying.
Lillah has come of age and is now ready to leave her community and walk the tree for five years, learning all Botanica has to teach her. Before setting off, Lillah is asked by the dying mother of a young boy to take…
Speaking of dark. Normally I like it better when the forest is an ally. Or at least neutral. Menacing forests, to me, are a hangover of colonisation, of unfamiliarity with stolen lands. But this forest has a secret. And these characters are just wonderful, they dragged me into the story without a care for my reservations, and the writing is lush and the pacing is brilliant. Seriously, Naomi Novik is a master. Holds up amazingly well after several re-reads.
A dark enchantment blights the land in the award-winning Uprooted - a enthralling fantasy inspired by fairy tales, by Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series.
Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel Winner of the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel Winner of the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel
Agnieszka loves her village, set deep in a peaceful valley. But the nearby enchanted forest casts a shadow over her home. Many have been lost to the Wood and none return unchanged. The villagers depend on an ageless wizard, the Dragon, to protect them from the forest's…
Enter a green world of reincarnated gods and living magic. Follow Unar, a young woman, through a labyrinthine forest city where a misstep can send the unwary, the unworthy, or the unfortunate plunging to an unremarked doom. At times self-serving, at times compassionate, Unar’s ferocious attempts to both rescue fallen children and seize personal power see her snared in a wider plot to turn society upside down.
Ever since my parents gave me a copy of Dorothy Aldis’ The Secret Place and Other Poems, I have enjoyed a lifelong love of poetry. Now, as a traditionally-published children’s author, I have had numerous books and poems published over the years, including books that began as poems, like Flashlight Night (Astra Young Readers, 2017) and Once Upon Another Time (Beaming Books, 2021). My poems can be found in various anthologies including The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry (N.G. Children’s Books, 2015) and Construction People (Wordsong, 2020) as well as Highlights for Children magazine.
What is the most important thing to remember about stargazing? When to do it, who to do it with, what to look for? It’s none of those! This picture book’s spare, lyrical text offers many suggestions for enjoying stargazing – but there’s really only ONE thing you need to remember, which is saved for the end.
Magical illustrations show kids and animals enjoying the night sky, and back matter about constellations completes this bedtime story with its underlying message of being in the moment.
What is the most important thing to remember about stargazing? When to do it, who to do it with, what to look for? It's none of those! This picture book's spare, lyrical text offers many possible ways to do stargazing: with a friend, with family or alone; on a moonless night, or with a full moon, or even with some clouds; on the beach, lying in the grass or standing on a snowy hill. There is only one rule of stargazing, which is saved for the end, and that is just to do it! Magical illustrations show polar bears, whales…
