The most recommended mythology books

This book is a romp! In the upside-down, quirky version of Shanghai that is Hell, a half-vampire half-fox spirit with a saucy disposition is tasked with escorting a human through hell.

The problem is that everything in hell kind of wants to eat him. Not to mention that there’s more going on than meets the eye. This book is fast-paced, irreverent, hilariously funny, and creative as hell. 

I was fascinated by yokai, the weird and wonderful creatures of Japanese folklore, well before they became a thing on social media and in global pop culture. Of all the books designed to introduce yokai to Western audiences, Michael Dylan Foster's is by far the best at explaining how the Japanese understand these legendary creatures and their roles in Japanese culture throughout history.

His stories of kappa and oni and monstrous umbrellas with arms and legs are hilarious, creepy, unforgettable, instructive, and revealing. If I have one gripe about this book, it is that Foster dismisses Godzilla and other kaiju as not being yokai. He’s wrong, but everyone deserves one mistake, especially in an otherwise excellent book.

Effie, an outcast in her Yorkshire village, rescues a baby from the ocean wrapped in a sealskin and takes it home for safekeeping.

From the beginning, the author shows Effie’s simple existence, her isolation from others, the hardships of her life, and climate, all wrapped up in an aura of magical prose. When Lachlan, a mariner, enters the story, there is a wildness about his interactions with Effie, and you feel the pull of the sea and the girl that Effie rescued.

There is a magnetism that wraps around you, as secure as the sealskin around the baby girl. I fell in love with his romantic fantasy and stayed mesmerized until the last page.

I first read this book over 40 years ago when I was struggling to learn how to write fantasy for young readers. I loved it so much that it became a foundational text for me. Lloyd Alexander's gift for building characters that fairly leap off the page, characters that made me laugh but then broke my heart as they were forced to deal with painful decisions, gave me something to aspire to in my own writing.

The series grows in depth and complexity, and the final book makes me weep every time I read it. It provided one of my greatest joys as an elementary school teacher when I used all five volumes as a year-long reading text with a group of gifted fourth graders.

I enjoy discovering fantasy based on cultures other than medieval.

In Spinning Silver, the protagonist’s family feel like Polish Jews living where they’re neither accepted nor openly persecuted.

Miryam’s character is compelling. She harbors a bitter delight in prying gold from her neighbor’s closed fists, money her father lent them and was too cowardly to insist they repay, and greed is a sore temptation. Throughout the story, she teeters between kindness and coldheartedness, slowly becoming more and more like the Staryk ice people everyone fears.

I was actually afraid to finish the book because I was worried she would topple over to the dark side. I’d grown to love her, so I didn’t want to see her become a terror! But Miryam’s story ended up being more satisfying and redemptive than I could’ve imagined.

In this short story collection, SFWA Grand Master Nalo Hopkinson gives us heaps of imagery to roll around in with delight and horror. Calling a snowflake “six-clawed” or relating a tree’s memory of how it “felt to unfurl your leaves to the bright taste of the sun” all add to the mood-heavy stories of a teenager overcome by her desires after swallowing a cherry pit, children who must survive their parents’ frightening transformations, and more. Through all the tales, humanity shines through, our rough edges and our beautiful scars. And the characters themselves play with language to pass the time.

Fairy-tale retellings are my favorite subgenre, and this book hit every right note for me. I loved the incorporation of stories, known and unknown to me, with art so beautiful there are days I pick this book up just to marvel at it.

The last one brought tears to my eyes, a feat that doesn’t happen often, superseded only by the end of the novel. I cannot recommend it enough.    

I randomly picked this book up in a rush out of the library and was pleasantly surprised. I’m a big fan of YA literature, but it’s often a challenge to find one with a female protagonist that doesn’t involve romance. Instead, this story is about loyalty to our family and fighting for something greater than ourselves. 

Biddy is a fantastic protagonist—resourceful, honest, and curious but also self-conscious, insecure, and stubborn. She’s grown up completely isolated on a hidden island raised by a reclusive magician named Rowan and his familiar, a rabbit named Hutchincroft. (sidenote: Hutchincroft was my favorite character in this story and one of my favorite animal characters of all time—he is unintentionally witty and naturally wise). 

Biddy supposedly washed up on the island as a baby. She’s not a mage but is surrounded by magic that is mostly whimsical but can turn menacing. When… show more.

This is a sweet book that focuses on the essential idea of Shabbat: rest and refraining from work.

It also teaches an idea that is part of the ancient lesson of the Sabbath—everyone rests on the Sabbath including work animals. I like this book—and its lovely illustrations—because it takes a difficult idea that is culled from rabbinic sources. 

Once the first page has been turned, Judge Whedbee’s book (much like Roberts’ and Wellman’s) cannot be put down. His lively tales of shipwrecks, pirates, murders, and ghostly occurrences, are a must-read when visiting a North Carolina beach. In his book you will learn about ships like the Crissie Wright that sank near Beaufort, North Carolina, and a ghost ship that sails the waters of Ocracoke. After my first read of the book, I visited the common grave of the Crissie Wright victims inside Beaufort’s Old Burying Ground and it was there that Whedbee’s words—and my imagination—truly brought the story to life. I can’t imagine going to a North Carolina beach and not being aware of these intriguing tales.