FANTASY SHORT STORIES
The Best of Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury “Collects top adaptations of the popular science-fiction author's works, in a fan's compendium that includes "Come Into My Cellar," "The Golden Apples of the Sun," and "A Sound of Thunder."
The Magician’s Circle. Various “A collection of fourteen short stories about wizards and magic by authors ranging from Charles Dickens and Jacqueline Wilson to Ursula Le Guin and Philip Pullman.”
Water. Robin McKinley “Presents six short stories about the mythical creatures associated with the element of water.”
Firebirds. Various “Sixteen original stories showcase some of the genre's most admired authors, including multiple award-winners Diana Wynne Jones, Garth Nix, Lloyd Alexander, Nancy Farmer, and Meredith Ann Pierce.”
Unexpected Magic. Diana Wynne Jones “A collection of sixteen stories including "The Plague of Peacocks," "Aunt Bea's Day Out," "The Fat Wizard," "No One," and "Everard's Ride." All of the selections have characters that are both appealing and realistically flawed, and the worlds they inhabit are brought to life through detail and humor.”
Waters Luminous and Deep. Meredith Ann Pierce “Provides young adult readers with a collection of eight short stories from the author of the Firebringer trilogy. Water figures in all of the stories as demon, obstacle, or savior.”
Waifs and Strays. Charles de Lint “A collection of stories first published between 1986 and 2001 features tales about teenagers encountering change, growth, and magic in Ottawa, in the imaginary city of Newford, in Bordertown, and in the Otherworlds.”
BIOGRAPHIES
J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Fantasy. David R.Collins “A biography of the author of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit describes the writer’s birth in South Africa, his early years of writing, and his eventual success and fame.”
Steven Spielberg: A Biography. Joseph McBride “A definitive portrait of one of Hollywood’s most famous directors is based on extensive interviews with friends, family, and colleagues and explores the man behind some of the most popular movies of all time, including E.T. and Jurassic Park.”
NONFICTION
The Book of Think. Marilyn Burns “Compilation of puzzles, exercises and brain teasers requiring the use of problem-solving skills.”
The Book of Where. Neill Bell “Text, illustrations, and suggested activities outline such basic concepts of geography as scale, maps, the globe, continental plates, and oceans.”
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Alberto Manguel “A guide to more than 1,200 cities, islands, countries, and continents invented by writers and storytellers from Homer’s day to the present. Over 250 black-and-white illustrations.”
NEWBERY AWARD WINNERS
The Blue Sword. Robin McKinley (1983) “Harry, bored with her sheltered life in the remote orange-growing colony of Daria, discovers magic in herself when she is kidnapped by a Hillfolk king with mysterious powers.”
Ella Enchanted. Gail Carson Levine (1998) “In this novel based on the story of Cinderella, Ella struggles against the childhood curse that forces her to obey any order given to her.”
Tale of Despereaux. Kate DiCamillo (2004) “The adventures of Desperaux Tilling, a small mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin.”
FICTION
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. J.K. Rowling Book six of the Harry Potter series will be released on July 16^th.
Trickster’s Choice. Tamora Pierce “Alianne must call forth her mother's courage and her father's wit in order to survive on the Copper Isles in a royal court rife with political intrigue and murderous conspiracy.”
Trickster’s Queen. Tamora Pierce “Aly fails to foresee the dangers that await as she uses her magic to safeguard Dove and her younger siblings, despite knowing that her thirteen-year-old charge might be queen of the Copper Isles when the colonial rulers are defeated.”
Eldest. Christopher Paolini “The sequel to Eragon will be released on August 23, 2005.Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to Ellesmera, land of the elves, for further training in the skills of the Dragon Rider: magic and swordsmanship. Soon he is on the journey of a lifetime; his eyes open to awe-inspiring new places and people, his days filled with fresh adventure. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and nothing is what it seems. Before long, Eragon doesn’t know whom he can trust.”
Waterstone. Rebecca Rupp “Twelve-year-old Tad, finding that he holds an ancient wisdom and the power to draw beings together, embarks on a quest to seek a powerful crystal which, when retrieved from the evil Nixie, will restore balance to the world.”
Briar Rose. Jane Yolen * “Becca's grandmother tells her that she is a princess, and after her death, Becca investigates her grandmother's mementos and discovers her harrowing teenage years, including survival in a mass grave and Nazis killing her husband.”
The Sight. David Clemente-Davies “In Transylvania, a pack of wolves sets out on a perilous journey to prevent their enemy from calling upon a legendary evil one that will give her the power to control all animals.”
My Sister Sif. Ruth Park “Fourteen-year-old Erika returns with her seventeen-year-old sister Sif to their original South Pacific island home of Rongo, near Tahiti, where these mermaids who communicate with dolphins find their way of life threatened by human-produced pollution.”
Faerie Wars. Herbie Brennan “Troubled by family problems, Henry finds his life taking a whole new dimension when he and his friend, old Mr. Fogarty, become involved with Prince Pyrgus Malvae who has been sent from the faerie world in order to escape the treacherous Faeries of the Night.”
Inkheart. Cornelia Caroline Funke “Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.”
Dragon Rider. Cornelia Caroline Funke “After learning that humans are headed toward his hidden home, Firedrake, a silver dragon, is joined by a brownie and an orphan boy in a quest to find the legendary valley known as the Rim of Heaven, encountering friendly and unfriendly creatures along the way, and struggling to evade the relentless pursuit of an old enemy.”
Summerland. Michael Chabon “Ethan Feld, the worst baseball player in the history of the game, finds himself recruited by a 100-year-old scout to help a band of fairies triumph over an ancient enemy.”
Attack of the Mutant Underwear. Tom Birdseye * “Fifth-grader Cody Carson keeps a journal of his hopes for a fresh start in a town where nobody knows about his humiliating mistakes of the past, but before school even begins so does his embarrassment.”
The Tangle Box. Terry Brooks “Troublesome magical trickster Horris Kew has unleashed a powerful evil sorcerer who’s bent on ruling Landover. And that means destroying its king, Ben Holiday.”
Sword of Shannara. Terry Brooks “An epic fantasy of gnomes, trolls, dwarfs and elves in which a simple man, Shea Ohmsford, is pitted against the greatest power of evil the world has ever known.”
The Scorpion Shards. Neal Shusterman + “Six teenagers are horrified to discover that an evil force has taken control of them. A force that feeds on them hungrily and finds its only outlet in the blind desire to destroy. The force must be destroyed. But how? What follows is the ultimate battle for supremacy between the forces of good and evil.”
Lost in Cyberspace. Richard Peck * “Josh Lewis a sixth-grader at the Huckley School for Boys embarks on a big adventure after his best friend, Aaron, mysteriously vanishes into cyberspace.”
Into the Land of the Unicorns. Bruce Coville “This is the magical story of Cara, a girl sent on a mission by her grandmother to the land of the unicorns. Only Cara can protect the unicorns and their world from invasion.”
Amazing Maurice and His Fantastic Rodents. Terry Prachett “The Amazing Maurice runs the perfect Pied Piper scam. This streetwise alley cat knows the value of cold, hard cash and can talk his way into and out of anything. But when Maurice and his cohorts decide to con the town of Bad Blinitz, it will take more than fast talking to survive the danger that awaits. For this is a town where food is scarce and rats are hated, where cellars are lined with deadly traps, and where a terrifying evil lurks beneath the hunger-stricken streets.”
Songquest. Katherine Roberts “On their first journey away from the safety of their island home, two novice Singers learn important lessons when they must confront an evil Khizpriest and stop him from stealing the power of their life-controlling Songs.”
Gallows Hill. Lois Duncan “When seventeen-year-old Sarah works in the fortune-telling booth at a school carnival, she finds that sometimes she can really see the future in the crystal ball, a talent that disturbs some of the other students and makes them suspect her of being a witch.”
Dragon’s Bait. Vivian Vande Velde “Wrongly condemned of witchcraft, fifteen-year-old Alys is tempted to take revenge on her accusers when the dragon to which she has been sacrificed turns out to be an ally.”
Secret of the Ruby Ring. Yvonne MacGrory “This Irish time-travel fantasy is a good old-fashioned story in every sense. Just before her eleventh birthday, Lucy receives from her grandmother a ruby ring with a dramatic history and the power to grant two wishes. When Lucy wishes to live in a ‘much larger house,’ she’s magically transported to a nearby castle in a time long past, 1885.”
The Warrior Returns: an Epic Fantasy of the Anteros. Allan Cole “All of Orissa believed that Rali Emilie Antero, legendary warrior and sorceress extraordinaire, was dead, lost at sea during some grand adventure gone wrong. In fact, Rali was not dead, but left entombed in ice to dream for eternity—until a goddess needed her for one last quest.”
Blood Debt. Tanya Huff + “Offering up an irresistible team of terror busters—Vicki, a female private eye who was until recently human; Mike, a Toronto homicide detective who is her ex-partner and current lover, and Henry, a vampire who writes bodice rippers—this book is a masterful blending of contemporary fantasy and the supernatural.”
The Phantom Tollbooth. Norton Juster “Discovering a large toy tollbooth in his room, bored ten-year-old Milo drives through the tollbooth’s gates and begins a memorable journey to the Kingdom of Wisdom with a watchdog named Tuck Tour.”
Sabriel. Garth Nix “Sabriel, daughter of the necromancer Abhorsen, must journey into the mysterious and magical Old Kingdom to rescue her father from the Land of the Dead.”
Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr. Garth Nix “When a dangerous necromancer threatens to unleash a long-buried evil, Lirael and Prince Sameth are drawn into a battle to save the Old Kingdom and reveal their true destinies.”
The Darkangel. Meredith Ann Pierce “The servant girl Aeriel must choose between destroying her vampire master for his evil deeds or saving him for the sake of his beauty and the spark of goodness she has seen in him.”
The Woman Who Loved Reindeer. Meredith Ann Pierce “From the author of the Darkangel Trilogy comes an epic romance, in the tradition of The Clan of the Cave Bear, about a young woman's love for a coldhearted shape-shifter.”
The Killing Dance. Laurell K. Hamilton “With a price on her head and professional hitmen on her trail, Anita Blake, a vampire killer and expert on the supernatural, receives unexpected assistance from an alpha werewolf and a master vampire.”
Princess Nevermore. Dian Curtis Regan * “A magical fantasy finds a young princess inadvertently leaving her kingdom beneath a wishing pool and traveling into a weird and wonderful land known as Earth.”
The Hobbit. J.R.R.Tolkien + “Whisked away from his comfortable, unambitious life in his hobbit-hole by Gandalf the wizard and a company of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins finds himself caught up in a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon.”
The Daydreamer. Ian McEwan * “Peter Fortune has an amazing imagination. He knows what it’s like to be a cat, walking on soft paws, curled up in the sun. He’s experienced the terror of being chased by dolls seeking revenge. And he’s lived the excitement of finding a cream that can actually make people disappear. Peter’s imagination is so vivid that sometimes it frightens him. Especially when he can’t tell what’s real, and what’s just a daydream…”
Unknown Regions. Robert Holdstock + “A young boy with amazing—and incredibly dangerous—psychokinetic powers is able to travel into the past and, with guidance from a shadowy spirit, return with artifacts of great value. But, unknown to him or his family, each trip into the past brings him closer to a terrifying fate, a fate that only a psychic investigator may be able to change.”
Acorna: The Unicorn Girl. Anne McCaffrey “When her parents’ spaceship is attacked, Acorna’s parents set her adrift in a lifepod to be found by three asteroid miners who became her uncles. But Acorna’s special talents bring them unwanted attention, pulling her and her uncles into a series of dangerous and exciting adventures throughout known space.”	</