Fantasy book recommendations

[Hiddeninplainsight]

My DD is a big fantasy book fan, and a prolific reader. She has read a lot, and we are looking for ideas about what next! Her favourite is probably all things Rick Riordan, but she has also really enjoyed:

The Hobbit
Harry Potter
Northern lights
Oska Pollock
Diana Wynne Jones (she loved them when she read them but seems to be less interested)
Narnia (she didn't love but she enjoyed them all)
Lloyd Alexander Prydain books
Norse and Greek Myths
Artemis Fowl (liked first three but then got bored)
Who let the gods out

She didn't get into:
Garth Nix
Susan Cooper

She is a good reader, has a very good vocabulary, and is very happy to read complex language/plot. Anyone got any recommendations (nothing YA theme wise)? Is the Earthsea Trilogy suitable? She has looked at the Inkheart books but hasn't been taken by them (not sure why not). Sometimes if I start reading the book to her I can get her hooked (but not with Susan Cooper), so if the Inkheart books are something she might enjoy let me know. Thanks

I would also recommend Alan Garner, Madelaine L'Engle and Marianne Dreams.

There is Mistress Masham's Repose by T H White which is fantasy based on Gulliver's Travels.

Other authors she might like - Eva Ibbotson, Katharine Rundell.

What about Abi Elphinstone?
Or Cogheart by Peter Bunzl.
Philip Reeve also might work.

Stephanie Burgis has a great trilogy - A Most Improper Magick is the first. It's effectively Jane Austen + magic and very well written. There's also a new one (stand alone I think) called The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart about a dragon who gets turned into a girl and becomes a chocolatier's apprentice!

Thank you for all these great recommendations - most of which I've never heard of! If any of you need recommendations for ballet stories for any children you might have who have very different reading tastes to you all, let me know. Then I can help in return .

Incidentally, I found out yesterday that she hasn't actually read the Garth Nix books! She decided she didn't like the blurb on the back. But we had the same issue with a whole load of books, which she ended up loving, so I will start by reading them aloud to her - there is nothing like reading aloud to get her hooked.

Have you tried the Renshai books by Mickey Z. Reichert?
I really enjoyed them when I was younger and they have nods to Norse mythology as well.

Oh and if you don't mind an overtly Christian philosophy (think Narnia) then the Stephen Lawhead Dragon King books are really good.

Would definitely agree with all the recs for either Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series or his Johnny books. I've just read his Only You can Save Mankind. Always good to read something that doesn't assume kids are idiots! If she reads Only You then explain that it's the Gulf War and who Stormin' Norman was first and it'll make more sense! For Douglas Adams, maybe keep her away from Dirk Gently just yet, one of them has a severed head spinning on a record turntable in it.

YMMV on these ones. I was fine with them but I have been greeted with horror on other threads at these for primary school children so I guess it depends on the child.
Nicholas Fisk, especially Grinny. Nothing like kids defeating the insidious alien menace that creeps into their home. My primary school recommended Grinny and I loved it.
The Tripods books. Remember them on TV? Main disadvantage looking back is virtual invisibility of female characters.
The Devil on my Back and The Dream Catcher by Monica Hughes. Have seen this suggested for everything from your DD's age to end of high school! I guess it depends on the reader. Dystopian fiction.

The Edge Chronicles should keep her going for a bit.

There are also the Beverley Nichols books:

The Tree That Sat Down
The Mountain of Magic
The Stream That Stood Still

Look for un-abridged versions though!

Archie Green books by DD Everest
Witchworld books by Emma Fischel

Not sure on age but what about the time travel/historical type of book:

A Traveller in Time
Charlotte Sometimes
Moondial
The Haunting of Bellamy 4
Tom's Midnight Garden obv

YY to the Nicholas Fisk and Tripods recommendations above. Also Robert Swindells for dystopian stuff. And yy to Catherine Storr (Marianne Dreams and others) - sort of eerie/slightly supernatural rather than fantasy.

Rosemary Sutcliff is ace. I remember Warrior Scarlet and Knight's Fee. Preferred them to Eagle of the Ninth actually - possibly because the main characters were children?

I had forgotten about The Stream that Stood Still!

Thanks all so much!

So much good stuff.

She isn't quite so into time travel. She enjoyed Toms Midnight Garden as an audio book a couple of years ago, but didn't really fall in love with Charlotte Sometimes (it was just at the end of her boarding school phase, and by that point she preferred magic in her boarding schools).

But, maybe after a bit of Roman Britain she may develop more of a taste for it...she is enjoying listening to her brother's book on the Great Fire of London. So we'll see.

There is enough stuff in these recommendations to keep her going for at least a year I'd imagine! Thanks so much everyone.

wow, so many awesome replies! @Hiddeninplainsight I'm the first poster under your OP, I've actually note read much fantasy (but found I liked the ones aimed at children, and the ones I do like, I really like) and the list was a mix of my recommendations and OH, who has read LOADS from about age 8. Because we re-remembered books as we pulled together the list, I've been re-reading Quest For A Maid by Frances Mary Hendry, and I just love it.

(slightly derails thread) Can you pm me the ballet book recommendations? My DD is 5. There was one I read as a child and I'd love to find it again (written 1980s?) about a girl who was a good dancer but thought her friend was better than her...and when they were picked for the harder class the protagonist didn't join and her friend did...she finds out at the end that she is actually a better dancer. Sorry it's so vague, I don't remember it very well but I remember feeling very anxious for the protagonist! Cheers

This is a good site for searching for kid's books, easier to navigate than Amazon. I think they do giveaways for review as well:

www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/

Right fabulous people! An update and a request for more follow-on advice!

Since my last post, I managed to get her to actually read the Garth Nix days of the week books which she has LOVED. She has burned through them (more than one a day), and I wanted to know if his other books were okay theme wise? She has also enjoyed Tiffany Aching and I wondered about other diskworld books? Thanks!!

My Father's Dragon books (a trilogy)
Eva Ibbotson books too

Agree with recommendations above for Kate Saunders and Jenny Nimmo's Charlie Bone series. If she loves Rick Riordan, try Paul Shipton's Pig Scrolls and The Pig Who Saved the World, which are funny fantasies set in Ancient Greece. An oldie but goodie is James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks. I would leave Earthsea for a bit, particularly if she couldn't get into Susan Cooper. You may find she will love them in a couple of years time.