Here are juvenile and young adult “contemporary” fantasy books that I really like. Some of them are better classified as beast-tales, but I’ll leave them here, anyway.
Brandon Sanderson (also found in adult fantasy and YA sci fi). Sanderson excels in world-building, magic systems, and good characters. His contemporary YA fantasy is the Alcatraz series. I love how the “bad” talents are actually good ones. The humor is nice, too.
Rick Riordan writes “what if Greek/Roman/Norse/Egyptian mythology was real” books. I’m sure you’ve heard of Percy Jackson, but he goes so much farther than that. As is nearly always the case, the books are better than the movies.
Sarah Rees Brennan’s Demon Lexicon series is a masterpiece of 20/20 hindsight. She leaves all the clues in plain sight, so well camouflaged in the story that you don’t even see them until later. The Lynburn Legacy is also very good. (Content warning for younger readers for both series.)
George Selden. You might have heard of The Cricket in Times Square, but there’s actually a whole series of very cute beast-tales from Selden, starring a cricket, a mouse, and a cat who become friends.
Susan Cooper. The Dark is Rising series is about the last of the Old Ones and the battle against the Dark. It has a movie to go with it (in which they skipped to book two *confused face*), but I’d skip the movie and read the much better books instead.
Gregor series, by Suzanne Collins. I know, she’s much more famous for Hunger Games (which I don’t like), but I prefer Gregor the Overlander. In fact, except for the lame ending, I love the series. Giant bugs and rodents living underground, questionable prophecies, a two-year-old sidekick, and unwilling allies. Great stuff.
Diana Wynne Jones has a ton of really good books. You can pick up any of them for a good read, but my favorite is Dogsbody. A star is betrayed and sent to Earth as a dog for punishment of a crime he didn’t commit. Making friends with a girl is only the start of his journey. (I wish this book had a sequel, but it doesn’t and never will. Sigh.)
Bethany Wiggins’ Shifting is a modern-day shapeshifter book where enemies can be hard to identify and the full moon is only the start of the MC’s trouble.
Shannon Messenger is still working on her massive Keeper of the Lost Cities series. There’s a hidden world on Earth, where elves, ogres, and other races live away from humans. But a genetically-engineered elf, hidden among the humans until recently, is about to turn both worlds on their heads.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Another sweet beast-tale. There’s a series, but the first one is best. I like the movie, but the book is much better. The book doesn’t have the magic that’s in the movie, but the rats are better and the characterization is better. Be prepared, though, because the book is also sadder.
I hope something sounded interesting to you. 🙂
Happy reading,
Marty C Lee
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