Children's fantasy classics - Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, Robert Westall, Ursula le Guin, and more...

I asked for Uprooted and Spinning Silver for Christmas as they had nene recommended. Despite whole cooking/childcare/socialising aspects of day I am half way through Uprooted and really enjoying it. Thank you.

I love Hexwood and have read it at least a dozen times - I always get to the end and think I should draw a table if all the characters. It's SO complicated, but the thing about Jones is she makes it fun, and also I completely trust that she knows what's happening even if I don't. (There's a sci-fi writer called Christopher Priest who often over complicates plots, and I reckon he gets in a muddle.)

But good grief, it's dark, isn't it? The bit where the children are being trained is just gut-wrenching.

Chuffed to bits to meet other DWJ fans! I haven't quite anything as I can't bear to think there's no more - I think I've still got Enchanted Glass and Chaldea to read.

Fire and Hemlock is in my all-time top ten books.

@astronewt said:
"I'm ashamed to admit I didn't really "get" Tehanu when I first read it because it was so different from the first three Ged-centric books, but then I came to love that ULG had shifted perspective to an "ordinary" middle aged woman and taken the time to write from a more feminist perspective."

Oh, I was the same! It seemed a bit naff to go back and rethink it and I couldn't quite process it. Now I've read it more times I think it's wonderful, if horribly dark - the men outside the house at night are horrible. So brave of Le Guin to do it, too. And I love what she does with the afterlife in the later sequel. So clever to unpick your own universe-building like that.

I want to love her adult fiction too, but it seems so dense and wordy compared with Earthsea.

Glad T Kingfisher has a mention!

There's a serialisation of The Dark is Rising on BBC Sounds at the moment. I've been listening this afternoon while peeling the veg mountain for tomorrow.

I need to come back and read the whole thread later, but I've definitely found my people here.

Currently reading the first Earthsea book to my 7yr old. My own favourite of those is Tehanu but it will be quite a while before he's ready for that!

Re-read all the Chrestomanci books recently and am really looking forward to the new radio adaptation of The Dark is Rising.

@NowtSalamander second the warning re David Eddings, spoilt re-reading for me.
Loved Diane Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper and Robin McKinley - The Wizards Guide to Defensive Bakery by T Kingfisher is one I read recently and enjoyed.

Thank you @pollyhemlock and @PurpleParrotfish - I’ve downloaded an excerpt of Sabriel - it looks fascinating.

Those asking for 'adult' fantasy recommendations can I give a shout to Simon R Green. He's a British author who has written loads, but for some reason isn't published in the UK, or sold in WH Smith/Waterstones. You need to try Amazon or Abebooks.

I'd really recommend any of the 'Nightside' books - set in an alternative London where it's always 3am and frightening. Also the Secret Histories which are a magical type of James Bond - but my favourites were probably the stand alone books Shadows Fall and Drinking Midnight Wine.

Simon R Green

Yes to Sabriel and the two books following it, Lirael and Abhorsen. Mogget is great.

I’ve just been trying to remember which book recently had a character which reminded me a bit of Mogget. It’s Sorcery of Thorns, in which there is a demon who is sometimes a cat

A great thread that I’ve only just found. You are all my kind of people!
I love all the above authors, Diana Wynne Jones is my favourite, I think, especially the Dalemark books, but I had a special love for Ursula Le Guin’s Tombs of Atuan. I made DH listen to Weirdstone on Audible and we made a special trip to Alderley Edge last month so we could see the landmarks - I’m another one who’s convinced my claustrophobia is caused by Colin and Susan’s escape through the tunnels. I was always gutted that I wasn’t an Old One, and I come across the odd student called Garion so the Belgariad lives on.
Robert Westall’s short stories are really good, as are Joan Aiken’s if you are trying to get more reluctant readers into fantasy. Patricia McKillip wrote lots of great stuff, Robin McKinley’s Beauty had me spellbound at 14, PC Hodgell’s God Stalk is good although she gets bogged down later in the series. I also still love Sheri S Tepper’s The Revenants. In more modern authors I’d also recommend Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy, Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, Frances Hardinge, Naomi Novik and SJ Kincaid.

Also check out Garth Nix. He’s written loads, but the Sabriel sequence is his best I think. Really good world building . There’s a particularly well -realised demon in the form of a cat, called Mogget.

I loved all of these - Naomi Novak and Katherine Arden both. Haven't heard of the last one so will be ordering that asap!

Loving the recommendations, will have to check some of them out!

Jenny Nimmo's later series, the Children of the Red King books, are very enjoyable though they're not quite as evocative as the Snow Spider

Not to mention Ursula Le Guin's adult offerings!

I’ve read The Blue Sword (very good) and its prequel. My copies are very battered ‘withdrawn from circulation’ library copies and I’ve never seen them anywhere else. She also wrote a good Robin Hood book. Jonathan Stroud is great and I think Netflix are doing ‘Lockwood’ as a series. For anyone who likes Lockwood, also try The Spook’s Apprentice series. More ‘ghostly/witchy’ but also a lot of mythology and very regional if you are north-west, Lancashire based. I was nearly put off by the covers as they looked very horror-sequel but I loved them. The Ranger’s Apprentice series (not the same author) was also good and more fantasy-like.

Again, thanks for all the recommendations. I will have to refer back to the thread as there are lots to read and re-read. It’s good to have some adult fantasy recommendations too.

Another recommendation for Catherine Fisher here

I am a massive fan of the Changeover (Mahy). Bought all her books for DD who seems uninterested so far, I have reread and enjoyed them all again though. Diana Wynne Jones was a big hit with my kids. Currently reading the Chrestomanci books with my youngest who is really enjoying them. We all loved the Carbonel books despite being firmly dog people. I find many fewer grown up books have tht mix of mundane and magical. I actually really love the Host (by the twilight author), somewhat shamefully. And obviously Rivers of London and Jonathan Strange, Circe. I like but don’t love Pratchett. But I think that I might head off and buy some of the recommendations up thread. And pretend that they are for the kids.

Someone said upthread that they hadn’t found adult fantasy they enjoyed as much as the classic children’s books.
My recommendations would be Naomi Novik, (Uprooted and Spinning Silver in particular as her other books are great but not with such a fairy tale setting), Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy based on Russian folk tales, and Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer and the sequel, Muse of Nightmares, which are weirdly beautiful and intriguing.

Yes I think I preferred the screaming staircase.... but think of bartimaeus as more "fantasy". Loved a lot of the books on here, DWJ, Toms midnight garden but actually never read Dark is rising! Think I'll try it

Another contemporary fantasy author to look out for is Catherine Fisher, whose early books were influenced by Celtic myth in a similar way to Alan Garner and Susan Cooper. Her more recent Chronoptika sequence beginning with The Obsidian Mirror is very atmospheric and compelling. It’s set in Devon and features some extremely sinister fairies.

@RobinHobb Jonathan Stroud is excellent, and his Lockwood and Co series starting with The Screaming Staircase is even better than Bartimaeus, I think.

More recently - jonathon Stroud - the bartimaeus trilogy was fantastic.

Joan Aiken - love Dido.

Ooo. Ijust mentioned the blue sword…loved it…not come across anyone else that read it before…

Love the owl service…it’s the contrast of fairly gritty real life issues and the mythical fantasy. I’m old enough to just about remember the TV series. Redshift sort of blew my mind as well

Joan aitken was oneof my favourites but younger age group…wolves of willoughby chase but then the whole series from there such as black hearts at batter sea etc

Pantone read the blue sword by robin mckingley ? Surprised. That didn’t become more well known