I’ll break it down for you and start off with a few obvious ones. What I’d like to know is who you feel fits some of the later categories. I have my own list of titles/authors, but I’m wondering who you’d pick.

Victorian
Christina Rosetti
George MacDonald
Water Babies

Edwardian/American of the same era
A.A. Milne
L. Frank Baum
E. Nesbit

Early fantasists
C.S. Lewis
J.R.R. Tolkien

Following in their footsteps (60s-80s?)–these categories are nebulous because these authors’ works span decades; I’ll narrow it down later, as this is just a starting point.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Susan Cooper
Lloyd Alexander

80s-90s fantasy of the 2nd wave feminist variety
Tamora Pierce—Alanna especially
Robin McKinley
Donna Jo Napoli

Today’s fantasy

Real world: fantastic elements

Urban fantasy
Holly Black

Paranormal (sometimes romance)/Supernatural horror
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Alternate/fantastic world

Epic fantasy/sword and sorcery

Fairy tale retellings/related to fairy tales
Shannon Hale (among others, who overlap with 80s-90s fantasists)
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Real world traveling to alternate fantastic world
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

Victorian SF
Jules Verne

Pulp “Golden Age” SF (***NOTE: I’m only looking for stuff published FOR CHILDREN, which might make this category hard to pin down)

Post-pulp SF
Robert A. Heinlein (actually, though, is Heinlein considered part of the Golden Age?)
Andre Norton

Today’s SF

Dystopia (not always SF)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Feed by M.T. Anderson
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

ETA: Postapocalyptic
How could I forget this category? And zombie plagues also fall under this—some books will fall in more than one category. Such as the dystopias—some dystopias are post-apocalyptic, and some post-apocalyptics are dystopian.

Space adventure
I have several titles in mind, but what are the BIG standouts in this genre, gamechangers, for you?

Zombies and other plagues
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Steampunk
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (are there any predecessors I’m forgetting within children’s lit—not adult?)

Futuristic/techy, not fitting in above categories
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer (or would this be dystopia?)

AGAIN, please note that I am ONLY looking for titles and authors who were published FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS. Please don’t go starting a whole new thread of adult titles that I can’t use in this list. This happens all the time when I’m doing book lists, and when I’m working on it for recommendations to parents or whatever that’s fine, but in this case I’m looking for touchstones that changed the genre and/or have great literary merit.

So, what do you think are the most important, most controversial, most talked-about, most meritorious fantasy and science fiction titles over the years for young people? My categories are vague, and will probably change, but I’m looking at overall eras (and those “eras” I just defined are vague too and will change, but let’s just use them as general outlines that get us from the Victorian era to today).

I’d like, in particular, to know about early women writers we might have previously overlooked, and important multicultural contributions. Surely our list of multicultural fantasy—heavy on the more recent years, and more sparse as we go backward—includes books that should be considered touchstones, such as Wizard of Earthsea, several “juveniles” by Heinlein, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm and House of the Scorpion.

Now, “fantasy” in children’s books has a pretty broad definition. I’m going to narrow the focus down to prose novels with human or humanoid main characters. That is, I’m not interested in animal stories (Redwall is awesome, but not the point of what I’m going for) or graphic novels or toy/doll stories (Winnie the Pooh, lovely as he is, doesn’t count here, though he does play into the whole British tradition; but no matter, that’s not what I’m looking for today). The Wind in the Willows is iffy–it’s anthropormorphized animals running around in frock coats and talking in British accents; for our purposes here today I’m going to say we’ll leave it off, though I reserve the right to change my mind later. Of course, so is Redwall (without the frock coats), so that helps make my decision in identifying their similarity.

I’m looking for books that a large number of readers would consider a touchstone—not obscure. “Touchstone,” as I’m using it here, is a title that’s either so popular practically everyone would probably have read it (like Harry Potter) and/or has great literary merit—something with great importance. Hence my list becomes more thin as it comes closer to the present day because I feel like we’re a little too close to those books to really be able to pick out that many books (right now) with lasting merit; those will manifest over time. But some do stand out, and I’ve included them.

Here’s my list. Anything you might add? Surely there are more pre-WWII era that I’m forgetting, and I’m sure I’m overlooking something obvious altogether. I’ve never (gasp) read Andre Norton, for example—hence my request on Twitter & FB for title suggestions—and could use some prompting about what her most memorable/important titles are.

Late Victorian Era (1850–1901)

• The Water Babies, Charles Kingsley (1863)
• The Light Princess, George MacDonald (1864)
• A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne (1864)
• The Princess and the Goblin, George MacDonald (1872)
• The Princess and Curdie, George MacDonald (1882)
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Louis Carroll (1897)
• Through the Looking-Glass, Louis Carroll (1897)
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (1900)—its sequels cross my arbitrary dateline of 1901, which is the end of the Victorian era because that’s when Queen Victoria died

Pre-World War II (1901–1940)

• Five Children and It, E. Nesbit (1902)
• Peter and Wendy (or Peter Pan), J.M. Barrie (1911)
• Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers (1934)
• The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)

Post-World War II, including Vietnam Era (1940s—early 1970s)

• Bedknob and Broomstick, Mary Norton (1943 & 1946)
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis (1950) and of course its sequels
• The Borrowers, Mary Norton (1952)
• The Children of Green Knowe, Lucy M. Boston (1954) and its sequels
• Half Magic, Edward Eager (1954)
• The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien (1955) and The Two Towers and Return of the King
• Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Robert Heinlein (1958) and other Heinlein juveniles
• James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl (1961)
• A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (1964) and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972)
  
• The Book of Three, Lloyd Alexander (1964) and its sequels, especially The Black Cauldron (1965)
• The Dark is Rising series, Susan Cooper (1965-1970s): Over Sea, Under Stone (1965), The Dark Is Rising (1973), Greenwitch (1974), The Grey King (1975), Silver on the Tree (1977)
• Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey (1968)
• A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin (1968)
• The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Pope (1974)

Gen Xers’/Millennials’ growing-up years (late 1970s–2001)

• Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt (1975)
• Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey (1976)
• Chrestomanci Chronicles, Diana Wynne Jones (1977–2006, with perhaps more to come? DWJ is seriously ill, so it depends on her health)
• Beauty, by Robin McKinley (1978)
• The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley (1982)
• Alana: The First Adventure, Tamora Pierce (1983) and its sequels
• The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl, Virginia Hamilton (1983)
• The Witches, Roald Dahl (1983)
• The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley (1984)
• Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card (1985)
• The Hounds of the Morrigan, Pat O’Shea (1985)
• Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones (1986)
• The Devil’s Arithmetic, Jane Yolen (1988)
• Matilda, Roald Dahl (1988)
• Dealing with Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede (1990) and its sequels
• The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
• The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, Nancy Farmer (1994)
• Sabriel, Garth Nix (1995), and Lirael (2001) and Abhorsen, its sequels
• The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman (1995) and its sequels
• Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling (1997) and its sequels (though that also cuts across past Sept. 11th)
• Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine (1997)
• The Folk Keeper, Franny Billingsley (1999)

Post-September 11th (2002–present)

• Harry Potter sequels, J.K. Rowling
• Feed, M.T. Anderson (2002)
• The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer (2002)
• The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi (2003)
• The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (2008)

But now this weekend I’m starting to work on my talk for the Venture/Santa Barbara SCBWI at the end of October, the title of which is Beyond Orcs and Elves: Diversity in Fantasy and Science Fiction. My focus, of course, will be on fantasy for children and young adults, but as part of the discussion I’ll be talking about working on Dragonlance: The New Adventures during my time at Wizards of the Coast, and the huge body of work of epic fantasy that those books drew upon (not to mention hundreds of game manuals).

So, I figured it’s time for another book list. This is a very specific one: I’m looking for a list of PRE-Robert Jordan epic fantasy that appealed to teenagers, whether published for them or not. So that includes Dragonlance Chronicles, which was published for adults, but it also includes Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, published for young readers. (I’m not sure if the latter two were published for teens or children, but I believe it was teens. I could be wrong.)

What do you all think? Remember, I want pre-Robert Jordan. The Eye of the World came out in 1990, so we’re talking the 15 or so years before that, because Robert Jordan really changed a LOT of things in epic fantasy, inspiring a lot of epic fantasists working today both in adult and children’s. I’m looking for the “before” shot. (It’s not really a before-after—more like a before-after-after-after, but you get the idea.)

To get us started, I’ll just list a few authors (I will come back tomorrow when it’s not after midnight and flesh out the list with specific books):

Robin McKinley

Tamora Pierce

Terry Brooks

Piers Anthony

Lloyd Alexander

Susan Cooper

Anne McCaffrey

David Eddings

Then there are the obvious precursors to these fantasists, including Tolkien and Lewis. But any other suggestions to fill out the 70s-80s list? I’m as likely as not to know the books, so please feel free to suggest either an author’s whole body of work, or specific books.

Hoping maybe you can help. My daughter who will be 11 in a few months enjoys reading scary books, for example All The Lovely Bad Ones. Do you have any good ones in mind that I could send her way?

I have a lot of suggestions for good middle grade with suspenseful action, but not as many for truly scary horror/ghost story kinds of books. If she’s already outgrown R.L. Stine’s books but isn’t ready for the plethora of paranormal and horror published for teens, I’m sure there are still plenty of scary books for her, but I’m coming up blank. I have a few suggestions, but hopefully the comments will yield more.

• Skeleton Man and its sequels (I believe there are 5 now), Joseph Bruchac

(In fact, that’s the only one I could think of today–I’ll look at my shelves at home again tonight; hopefully others will come to mind.) I’ve also included suggestions from Child_Lit subscribers, with quotes about their read annotated if it would make a difference in choosing the book.*

• Shadowed Summer, Saundra Mitchell (Child_Lit: “A delicious ghost story. Only caveat: heavy on metaphors and similes. Some readers might find it too much.”)
• Halloween Night: Twenty-One Spooktacular Poems (Child_Lit: “scary-funny poems”)
• The Crossroads and The Hanging Hill Chris Grabenstein
• Revenge of the Witch (The Last Apprentice series), Joseph Delaney, and its sequels
• Coraline, Neil Gaiman
• The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
• The Witches, Roald Dahl
• The House with the Clock in its Walls, John Bellairs, and its sequels
• The Ghost Belonged to Me and Ghosts I Have Been, Richard Peck
• Boots and Pieces, The Curse of Cuddles McGee, and Night of the Living Lawn Ornaments, Emily Ecton

Edited to add:

• Wait Till Helen Comes, Mary Downing Hahn
• The Prince of Mist, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Child_Lit: quite creepy. I’d say it would be
  of interest to older intermediate/younger YA readers; the main character is
  thirteen.)
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Alvin Schwartz (Child_Lit: These books have always been a delightful read in the classrooms I have worked in.  Parents (even the really conservative Christian parents) have enjoyed the stories and books as much as the children have.  The images in the book are a bit on the scary side and I encourage parents to read the text before looking at the pictures (which will stay with kids long after they read the book).  Stephen Gammell does a bone-chilling job in his artwork.  The books keep the folklore tradition alive.)
• The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall, Mary Downing Hahn, the same author of All the Lovely Bad Ones (Child_Lit: It had some marvelous fictional sleight of hand in the end, so just when you think it’s going to slide to a predictable ending, a new twist reaches out with chilly fingers to grab you!)
• Wait Till Helen Comes, Mary Downing Hahn (Child_Lit: wonderfully scary. Much scarier than All the Lovely Bad Ones.)
• Jane-Emily, Patricia Clapp
• A Candle In Her Room, Ruth M. Arthur
• Breathe, Cliff McNish
• The Intruders, E.E. Richardson
• Deep and Dark and Dangerous, Hahn
• Skeleton Creek and Ghost in the Machine
• The Dollhouse Murders
• The Ghost of Fossil Glen, Cynthia DeFelice
• Stonewords, Conford
• The Proof that Ghosts Exist, The Curse of the Evening Eye, and The Hunt for the Haunted Elephant, Perry Nodelman and Carol Matas
• The Owl Service, Alan Garner

I’ll add more to the list as suggestions come in.

* Some comments have been edited for brevity.

I want to set up a little library for our YW. [Young Women] These are multi-cultural girls, low income, some from illegal families. I would love to get your suggestions as to good books to put in the library. Since the library will be at the church, they do need to be on the “clean” side, but the girls range from age 13-17 and I think can handle some more complicated themes.

I have a start of a list here, but would love your additions to the list. “Clean” should include nothing stronger than “darn” or the occasional “crap” or “hell,” and on-screen violence should be kept to a minimum; no sex/sexual conduct beyond kissing/holding hands (at least, not in-scene), though romance is great. That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t handle tough subjects, though. The Maze Runner, for example, is dystopian, but still a clean read overall. Even a book that tackled rape and its aftermath, or something similarly violent, could be appropriate for a list like this depending on how it’s written.

In general, I’m an advocate for good literature over judging a book by what isn’t in it, and my friend is that kind of reader, too. But given that this is a church-associated library, the suggestions do need to be “appropriate,” if you know what I mean. Feel free to suggest titles that might not be shelved in a church library ONLY if they’re borderline (i.e., something my friend my suggest the girls look up on an individual basis if she feels they’re ready for them).

For example, The Hunger Games may not be for everyone. I love it, and would hand it to any teen I knew who didn’t have a problem with a little violence. But some teens are more sensitive than others, so it might be important in a church context to gauge just how well the reader might welcome the visuals they’d get from that book, especially when it might as easily be picked up by a 12-year-old as a 15-year-old. (Then again, given that we live in a dystopia and modern teens know it, perhaps they’d be just fine with it.) Public library, no problem. But it’s the kind of thing that a conservative church library might not be the best place for.

This is NOT a fantasy-only list. Feel free to add YA-appropriate “clean reads,” particularly but not limited to multicultural books, from any genre. I’m just biased for SFF, that’s all. It is a tough list to assemble, though, because I hate to recommend something as “clean” when I haven’t had a chance to read it myself.

• The Maze Runner, James Dashner
• The Sisters Grimm series, Michael Buckley *
• Conrad’s Fate, Diana Wynne Jones
• The Dalemark Quintet, Diana Wynne Jones
• A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle and its sequels
• Matched, Ally Condie (to be published in Nov. 2010)
• The Princess and the Hound, Mette Ivie Harrison, and its sequels
• Princess of the Midnight Ball, Jessica Day George, and its sequel Princess of Glass
• Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, 2008, Nahoko Uehashi, and its sequel, Moribito II (this is technically a middle grade book, but the cool thing about it is that it can be appreciated by all ages–the main character is a 29-year-old woman who protects a young king)
• Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier
• Book of a Thousand Days, Shannon Hale
• Flora Segunda, Isabeau S. Wilce, and its sequel Flora’s Dare
• Little Sister, Kara Dalkey, and a sequel
• The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
• The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley
• Foundling (Monster Blood Tattoo #1), D.M. Cornish, and its sequel, Lamplighter **
• Uglies, Scott Westerfeld, and its sequels ***
• Midnighters series, Scott Westerfeld ***
• When My Name Was Keoko, Linda Sue Park
• A Single Shard, Linda Sue Park
• The Goose Girl, Shannon Hale
• Princess Academy, Shannon Hale
• Enna Burning, Shannon Hale
• Impossible, Nancy Werlin *** (this one has some really tough themes—rape, single teen motherhood, manipulation and control—but for a mature teen reader, it’s a must-read)
• Sabriel, Garth Nix, and its sequels Lirael and Abhorsen
• Tantalize, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and its sequels *** (possibly too much sensuality, according to the author, and a possible replacement would be her Rain Is Not My Indian Name)
• Sucks to Be Me, Kimberly Pauley
• Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon
• Devil’s Kiss, Sarwat Chadda *** (strong themes of sacrifice and redemption)
• Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones, and its sequels
• The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, Nancy Farmer
• The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer ***
• The Devil’s Arithmetic, Jane Yolen
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred D. Taylor
• Blue Willow, Doris Gates
• Beauty, Robin McKinley (and she rewrote this same tale later as a more complicated book, Rose Daughter)
• The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Pope
• The Agency: A Spy in the House, Y.S. Lee
• The Agency: The Body at the Tower, Y.S. Lee
• The Hallowmere series, Tiffany Trent and coauthors (be forewarned, though, that it’s out of print and only 6 of 10 books were published, so the end is on hold indefinitely)

There are so many books I want to recommend but can’t, because in this case a book with even the occasional s-word wouldn’t be something we’d want to put in a booklist handed out at church or in a church library. That leaves out excellent titles such as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, but hopefully the girl who is the right reader for that book will find it anyway.

So, that gives us a starting point. What other books might be suggested for this list? I’m low on historical fiction, contemporary realism, and non-fiction, mostly because I’ve just listed a few good books off my own shelves and pulled a few titles from the multicultural SFF post. There are SO many titles about civil rights and slavery—feel free to suggest some, as I only have one on this list—but there are so many other time periods and issues that books tackle, too. So, light and heavy, as long as its clean. Go!

* Technically, this is a middle grade series, but the books are loved by older girls too and I think would be a fun recommendation for girls who like fairy tales.

** Starred titles may have a little bit more violence than you might want in the library; you might want to read it first to be sure.

*** Can someone remind me, as it’s been a while, whether the language in these books goes beyond made-up cursing and slang? Or if, in the case of Impossible, the rape scene is too graphic for a conservative audience?

I’ve gotten a lot of great suggestions to add to the list, but my website seems to still be broken, and my own computer has a dead motherboard (well, it did when I started writing this last week—thankfully, it’s now fixed). I’m still figuring out why WordPress won’t let me edit any of my old content.

So, in the interest of having one place that people can use as a resource, I’m going to copy everything into this entry. Rather than divide the list by what I’ve read and what I haven’t, which was just more a personal exercise last year in wondering whether my own reading habits had reached past my own culture, I’ll divide the list by age group and genre (fantasy/SF). What that means is that I am not making a comment on how good I think a book is or recommending it/not recommending it—there are several books on this list I haven’t had a chance to read yet. It’s simply a list compiling what’s out there. I’ve also added books that I’ve discovered over the last year or that have been suggested to me in the comments. Go to the previous booklist post for comments on some of the books in this list.

Middle Grade Fantasy

• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, 2009, Grace Lin
• Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, 2008, Nahoko Uehashi, and its sequel, Moribito II
• City of Fire, Laurence Yep
• The Tiger’s Apprentice, Laurence Yep
• Dragon of the Lost Sea, Laurence Yep (and pretty much anything else written by Laurence Yep)
• Zahrah the Windseeker, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
• Chronus Chronicles, Anne Ursu (someone mentioned this and I haven’t read them—are the main characters people of color or is it set in a non-Western culture? from its Amazon listing, it seems to star a white girl and use Greek mythology, which are great, but don’t fit the definition we’re using here)
• The Red Pyramid, Rick Riordan
• Sword and Wandering Warrior, Da Chen
• The Conch Bearer, Chitra B. Divakaruni
• Circle of Magic quartet, Tamora Pierce
• Circle Opens series, Tamora Pierce
• Pendragon series (?)
• Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
• Lavender-Green Magic, by Andre Norton
• Dragon Keeper and Garden of the Purple Dragon, Carole Wilkinson
• Moonshadow: Rise of the Ninja, Simon Higgins
• The Magical Misadventures of Prunella Bogthistle, Deva Fagan
• Magic Carpet, Scott Christian Sava
• Marvelous World #01: The Marvelous Effect, Troy Cle
• Ninth Ward, Jewel Parker Rhodes

Middle Grade Science Fiction

• The Animorphs series
• The True Meaning of Smekday, Adam Rex

Young Adult Fantasy

• Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier
• Book of a Thousand Days, Shannon Hale
• Flora Segunda, Isabeau S. Wilce, and its sequel Flora’s Dare
• Little Sister, Kara Dalkey, and a sequel for which I’ve forgotten the name
• Magic or Madness, and its sequels, Justine Larbalestier
• Eternal, Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Tantalize, Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Tantalize: Kieren’s Story, Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Sucks to Be Me, Kimberly Pauley
• Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon
• How to Ditch Your Fairy, Justine Larbalestier
• Guardian of the Dead, Karen Healey
• A Wish after Midnight, Zetta Elliott
• The Black Canary, Jane Louise Curry
• The Secrets of Jin-Shei, Alma Alexander (older YA and up)
• The Worldweavers Trilogy, Alma Alexander
• The Will of the Empress, Tamora Pierce and its sequels
• Libyrinth, Pearl North
• Across the Nightingale Floor and its sequels, Lian Hearn (older YA)
• Devil’s Kiss, Sarwat Chadda
• Annals of the Western Shore series, Ursula K. LeGuin
• The Two Pearls of Wisdom (or Dragoneye Reborn as it’s known in the US), Alison Goodman
• City of the Beasts, Isabel Allende
• Blood Ninja, Nick Lake
• Magic under Glass, Jaqueline Dolamore
• Stormwitch, Susan Vaught
• 47, Walter Mosley
• Pemba’s Song, Marilyn Nelson and Tonya C. Hegamin
• Rogelia’s House of Magic, Jamie Martinez Wood
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie
• The Icarus Girl, Helen Oyeyemi
• Invisible Touch, Kelly Parra
• Soul Enchilada, David Macinnis Gill
• Eon: Dragoneye Reborn, Alison Goodman
• The Comet’s Curse: A Galahad Book, Dom Testa
• Bleeding Violet, Dia Reeves
• Liar, Justine Larbalestier
• Meridian, Amber Kizer
• Ruined, Paula Morris

Young Adult Science Fiction

• The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, Nancy Farmer
• The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer
• A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin
• The Shadow Speaker, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
• Extras, Scott Westerfeld
• Black Hole Sun, David Macinnis Gill

Unsure of whether these books are MG or YA (have not read yet, pulled titles from Shweta Narayan and The Happy Nappy Bookseller‘s lists. Can someone give me a head’s-up what categories they fit in?

• A Posse of Princesses Sherwood Smith. (Is this YA?)
• The Dragon Keeper, Carole Wilkinson
• A Girl Named Disaster, Nancy Farmer
• The Wizard series, Diane Duane
• The Green Boy, Susan Cooper
• The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl, Virginia Hamilton
• Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed, Virginia Hamilton
• The Night Wanderer, Drew Hayden Taylor
• Dread Locks (Dark Fusion), Neal Shusterman

Please feel free to continue to leave other suggestions in the comments.

Today I break radio silence to build a book list. My sister reports that my five-year-old nephew is going through a dragon phase. He already has A Practical Guide to Dragons (how could he not? I think I gave a copy to every relative who wanted one, and then some), along with the one I edited, A Practical Guide to Monsters. My sister called while in the bookstore, looking for books to go with a Christmas present, and I could only think of the Dragon Codex books I edited. I didn’t even think of the Dragonology books off the top of my head, which would be perfect for him—some reading, but a lot of tactical exploring, as well. So now I’m putting together a list of books for her to look up at the library.

He’s only five, so picture books are welcome for the list. I’m just not as well-versed in them, so I don’t have a great lot of suggestions in that category. I’d love early readers and chapter books, because he can work on those on his own (though he might need help for some of the more advanced ones). They also read aloud a lot together, so suggestions for middle grade novels are definitely welcome.

Dragon Codex books by R.D. Henham (Red, Bronze, Black, Brass, Green, Silver, and Gold)—full disclosure: I edited these. They’re GOOD. And so of course they go at the top of the list.
How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
How to Speak Dragonese by Cressida Cowell
Dragonology (& all related books)
Kenny & the Dragon, Tony DiTerlizzi
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville
Puff the Magic Dragon (picture book—we loved the song as kids)
Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke (I *knew* she had a dragon book!)
Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull—fun of all sorts, dragon doesn’t come in until most recent book
St. George & the Dragon by Margaret Hodges & Trina Schart Hyman
Magic Treehouse #37: Dragon of the Red Dawn (they love Magic Treehouse in their house–my nephew’s older brother devoured practically the whole series)

So with this in mind, what other books am I missing that are the kind of read for kids ages 7-10, with a concentration on the 8 and 9 year olds that Wimpy Kid really hits on target? It’s an interesting niche, because it hits slightly younger than the all-prose books in the same middle grade section of the bookstore, yet slightly older than the kids reading chapter books like Magic Treehouse.

I doubt we’ll find quite as many books in that range that are as highly illustrated as Wimpy Kid, but I am looking for books with illustrations.

I’m going to start compiling a list of all the suggestions from people in various places (Facebook, Twitter, this blog and its LJ mirror):

• Supernatural Rubber Chicken by D.L. Garfinkle (except that it’s a chapter book for a slightly younger age, so perhaps it *doesn’t* meet the narrow criteria?)
• The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman (except that it doesn’t have *as many* illustrations… you get the idea. Let’s be broad for the original list so I can go check the books out and narrow things down)
• The Dork Diaries
• Dear Dumb Diary
• Flat Stanley
• Ellie McDoodle

***

Also, I’ve added several books to my POC booklist thanks to all the people who have been suggesting books. There are a number of fantasy books by or about people of color that I’ve never seen before, including new books just coming out this year. One that just came out last month, Libyrinth, features a black girl right there on the cover (which we have found in the recent discussions is really rare in YA and children’s, especially in fantasy) and sounds like a really good read, so perhaps for those of you looking to read and review books for Color Online’s Color Me Brown book review challenge, you might want to check it out.

I’ll be looking for it myself. I tend not to read new books when they’re new, so here’s me trying to catch up yet again! I am in the middle of reading Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit and need to get back to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon so I think I’ll be meeting that challenge myself. I’ve got plenty of other books on my TBR list now with the booklist to reach the needed more than three reviews. The only question is whether I’ll have enough time to finish these in the month of August, given all the other things on my plate right now. Even if I don’t meet the challenge for prizes (and yes, there are prizes, so you guys should try for it!), I definitely will try to meet it to get myself to review books on a more regular basis.

This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, as we’ve already discussed, but let’s talk about books I’ve already read in which the main character (not a supporting character) is a person of color. Obviously, a lot of the manga I’ve been reading lately features people of color — at least, the ones set in Japan can reasonably be assumed to be people of color. (There’s an ongoing discussion among people who know more about manga than I do that addresses this, because many people unfamiliar with manga assume that the characters are white because of the range of hair colors and because eye shape isn’t characterized with the fold that is so common to Asian people, but from what I understand, it’s just an artistic choice, not a statement on the race of the characters. It certainly makes it easier to distinguish different characters when you’ve got a range of hair colors, especially in black-and-white manga. But that’s not what this post is really about.)

So what science fiction and fantasy — specifically, for young readers — have you read lately that feature a main character of color? Here’s my list (note that even though this is a “multicultural” list, I’m deliberately leaving out fantasy inspired by Celtic culture unless it features a character of color, because such fantasy is usually the most predominant in the market. I love it, but it’s not what this list is for):

SFF books for young readers that feature multicultural characters that I’ve read

• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, 2009, by Grace Lin. I’m still working on reading this fairy-tale retelling-like tale, but so far it’s beautiful.
• Wildwood Dancing, 2007, by Juliet Marillier. This one’s a little bit of a stretch, but it is set in Romania, which is a culture we don’t see too often in non-vampire stories.
• Book of a Thousand Days, 2008, by Shannon Hale. Mongolia-inspired. Lovely, lovely fairy tale retelling. My favorite of Shannon’s books (and that’s saying something, because she writes some good books!).
• The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, 1994, by Nancy Farmer. Set in Zimbabwe in the year 2194.
• The House of the Scorpion, 2002, by Nancy Farmer. Set in the zone between the U.S. and Mexico, main character is Latino.
• Flora Segunda, 2007, by Isabeau S. Wilce, and its sequel Flora’s Dare. Set in a fantasy world inspired by a fun mix of medieval, fashion-forward, and Spanish-inspired cultures (Spain-Spanish, given how the language is used, I’m thinking, but I could be wrong).
• Little Sister,1996, by Kara Dalkey, and a sequel for which I’ve forgotten the name. Japanese folklore. This is actually one of the first multicultural fantasies I discovered way back in college, and I loved it so much, but at the time couldn’t find many more books like it.
• Magic or Madness, 2005, and its sequels by Justine Larbalestier. Reason Cansino, the main character, is an Australian of mixed race.
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Leguin. This one has had a lot of misunderstanding over the years due to publishers in the 60s and 70s putting a white Ged on the cover, when in fact Ged and many of the other characters are dark-skinned.
• Eternal, 2009, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Miranda is Chinese-American.
• Tantalize, 2007, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Main character Quincie is English-Italian-Texan, and non-POV character (but featured in a graphic novel sequel) Kieren is Mexican-American. (This one’s kind of a stretch, because Quincie isn’t technically a person of color–unless that Texan part is Latino?)

ETA: How could I forget Lawrence Yep? I have one of his books, but I’m not sure where it is. The ones I’ve read of his feature Asian characters in Asian settings (Chinese? I can’t remember off the top of my head). His books are great reads.

SFF books written by authors of color (where I’ve been able to identify them) in which characters may be of ambiguous ethnicity, or ethnicity simply not mentioned

Sucks to Be Me, 2008, by Kimberly Pauley

Multicultural science fiction and fantasy on my TBR pile

• Silver Phoenix, 2009, by Cindy Pon. Set in ancient China.
• Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, 2008, by Nahoko Uehashi, and its sequel, Moribito II. Written by a Japanese author (originally published in Japan and translated to English) and set in a culture inspired by medieval Japan.
• The Shadow Speaker, 2007, by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. Set in Niger, 2070. I’ve had the ARC of this since 2007, and have been wanting to read it for forever, and keep misplacing it when I actually think of it! It’s an oversight I need to correct.
• Zahrah the Windseeker, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu.
• Extras, 2007, by Scott Westerfeld. Main character, Aya, is Japanese, I believe. I LOVED the first three in the series (and somehow have misplaced my signed copies of the first two books ) but haven’t had a chance to catch up with this one.
• How to Ditch Your Fairy, 2008, Justine Larbalestier
• Tantalize: Kieren’s Story, by Cynthia Leitich Smith–the above-mentioned sequel to her Tantalize.
• The Animorphs series
• Chronus Chronicles by Anne Ursu
• Doret says that she’s been told the Pendragon series apparently has a black girl protagonist, despite the white boy on the cover? I’ll have to investigate that–perhaps it’s alternating viewpoints, or perhaps she’s introduced at a later point in the series? I know there is a follow-up series once the main boy protag grows up, so perhaps she’s in that?
• Devil’s Kiss, by Sarwat Chadda
• Libyrinth, by Pearl North
• The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex
• Sword and Wandering Warrior by Da Chen

Multicultural fantasy that never came to be, and I lament it

Books 7 and 8 of the Hallowmere series by Tiffany Trent, which was canceled at book 6. I was so looking forward to editing Mara’s story (former slave, probably the most interesting of the Hallowmere girls because of her backstory) in book 7 and Chumana’s story (Hopi girl who Mara was going to meet in her travels through the raths) in book 8.

And books to add to my TBR pile thanks to shweta-narayan

• Across the Nightingale Floor and its sequels, by Lian Hearn. Japanese historical fantasy. I had a copy of this in Seattle, and I’m not sure where I put it. I think I must have lost it in the move to Utah.
• Annals of the Western Shore series by Ursula K. LeGuin. I remember the controversy over this cover, too–originally when Gifts came out, they’d put a white kid on the cover, too, and given LeGuin’s long history of having the cover of Earthsea whitewashed, that was a pretty big fight, and the final book ended up with I believe an Indian or Pakistani boy on the cover instead.
• Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. I keep forgetting to read this one, though people keep recommending it to me. I even have a free copy from ALA a few years back.
• The Two Pearls of Wisdom (or Dragoneye Reborn as it’s known in the US) by Alison Goodman. I’ve been meaning to pick this one up. The whole mythology is inspired by Asian culture (Japanese? I can’t remember which one).
• Lavender-Green Magic, by Andre Norton.
• A Posse of Princesses by Sherwood Smith. (Is this YA?)
• Stormwitch, by Susan Vaught
• The Dragon Keeper, by Carole Wilkinson
• A Girl Named Disaster, by Nancy Farmer
• The Wizard series by Diane Duane
• The Green Boy, by Susan Cooper
• Jin Shei trilogy by Alma Alexander
• The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl, by Virginia Hamilton
• Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed, by Virginia Hamilton
• 47, by Walter Mosley
• Pemba’s Song, by Marilyn Nelson and Tonya C. Hegamin
• The Icarus Girl, by Helen Oyeyemi
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie
• The Night Wanderer, by Drew Hayden Taylor

There are also books in which the ethnicity of the character is neutral/unclaimed, as in The Hunger Games, in which most of those who work in the Seam are dark-skinned, but of an unspecified ethnic origin (Mitali Perkins discussed this on her blog a while back), so I’m not counting it on this list but it’s still a great book.

As you can see, there are some really great books out there already, but the list is still pretty short. Can you guys help me add to it? Especially the TBR pile, though I know I’m also forgetting books that I’ve read that I just don’t have copies of. What am I missing?