When I was a child, I searched for books that resonated with me. Fantasy was escapist fun but bore little relevance to my life. Realistic fiction often did but lacked the imagination I craved. When I read a book about a boy who wins a magic ticket to a chocolate factory and enters a whimsical yet shockingly dangerous world, I was hooked. Magical realism books take place in the real world but have an extraordinary element that drives the story. They shake up the mundane to expose the fantastic lurking within. This is where I turned to write my stories.
12-year-old Jake has been suppressing his heartbreak over the loss of his mother for the past four years. But his emotions have a way of haunting his dreams and bubbling to the surface when he least expects it. When Jake learns how to take control in his dreams, he becomes a lucid dreamer, and that’s when the battle really heats up.
As someone who has experienced the loss of a parent as a child, I wanted to portray the simmering anger that swells when you suppress your emotions. I used magical realism to describe that inner struggle in an active and exciting way for both young and adult readers.
Shepherd is readers supported. When you buy through links on our website, we may earn an affiliate commission. This is how we fund this project for readers and authors (learn more).
When 11-year-old Jackson faces recurrent anxiety after his life is disrupted by financial hardship, his old imaginary friend, a giant purple cat named Crenshaw, reappears. Within the fantasy, Applegate addresses serious issues including homelessness, food insecurity, and disability.
Children turning to their imagination to find inner strength is a theme I found relatable. Empathy oozes into your fingertips with every page.
A middle-aged man, adrift in life, returns to his childhood home to center himself and reminisce about the strange events once encountered by his 7-year-old self. The story takes place in an isolated English countryside rife with the gentle melancholy of nostalgia. But within its depths lies absolute terror.
“Oh, monsters are scared," said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters.”
Initially written as a short story, it expanded into a novella, as stories are wont to do when they have so much more to say. Gaiman is a master at using magical realism to balance fantasy and horror.
12-year-old Jerome, a Black boy shot by a White police officer, tells his story in alternating sections before and after his death. Jerome finds his purpose as a Ghost Boy after he realizes the only living person he can communicate with is Sarah, the daughter of the cop who shot him.
Rhodes uses magical realism to create a connection and explore a conversation that would otherwise be impossible. She tackles the controversial topic with moderation appropriate for young readers while still packing a powerful emotional punch.
12-year-old Miranda receives notes from an inscrutable person from the future trying to save one of her friends. This is both a beautifully written time travel mystery and a starkly realistic novel set in 1979 New York City, tackling topics as diverse as prison reform, single mothers, and racism.
That the story can be both things, seamlessly and without contradiction, makes the novel an elegant example of magical realism.
Life is bleak for James, an orphaned boy trapped with unloving aunts, until he comes across an old man with a bag of crocodile tongues. This leads to a journey across the Atlantic inside a giant peach.
I especially love this book because it was Dahl’s first, written after he completed his stint as a British spy in America during WWII and before he emerged as a celebrated children’s author. The many absurd poems recited by human-sized Centipede reflect the (much bawdier) poems Dahl exchanged with friends during the war.
“I’ve eaten many strange and scrumptious dishes in my time / Like jellied gnats and dandyprats and earwigs cooked in slime”
Dahl’s whimsical exuberance has inspired me and generations of children and adults alike.
5,309 authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about magicical realism, Illinois, and cats.
We think you will like The Woman Warrior, Piranesi, and Get in Trouble if you like this list.
From Jessica's list on the best memoirs with an unconventional structure.
Kingston’s classic opens with one of the best first lines of all time: “You must not tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you.” When I teach this book in my memoir writing classes, my students and I spend a long time discussing the implication of this first sentence—what it means for Kingston’s work, but also what it means for us, as memoirists, to tell stories we’ve been forbidden, in some way, to tell. The beating heart of this memoir is the idea that making art—literary or otherwise—is the process of saving your own life.
From Ryan's list on the best portal fantasy novels that will take you to hidden worlds.
Clarke’s debut, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, is grand storytelling on the scale of Tolstoy or Dumas. In contrast, Piranesi, Clarke’s second novel, is under 300 pages and has a small cast. Yet in many ways, the mysterious and deeply allegorical Piranesi is just as big as its predecessor. In Piranesi, the title character chronicles the exploration of an infinite house, filled with crumbling statues, artifacts from past inhabitants, and even an entire ocean that occasionally swells from the bottom floor and into the halls and rooms above. I get the sense that Piranesi rewards readers who explore its pages a second time, and I look forward to digging back in.
From S.G.'s list on the best genre-bending literary short story collections.
I love reading novels and stories that make me wish I’d written them, and this collection by Kelly Link made me wish that time and time again. This book also introduced me to the concept of fabulism, a form of magical realism where elements of the fantastic occur in everyday settings, which is something I find compelling both as a reader and as a writer. Link combines humor, fantasy, magical realism, and more than a touch of horror to create a collection of stories that is unique, weird, and wonderful.