The following are not necessarily in any order (i.e. I didn't list them with "most favorite" first, etc.). If there's any order at all, it might be chronological based on when I discovered them? Maybe? This is starting about mid-late elementary-school age-ish (8-11 or so) as, once I blasted through Tolkien & Lewis, I was jones-ing to get my hands on my next fix.
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg: While not Fantasy in the strictest sense, this story of young children running away and hiding out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art always had that "fantasy" feel to me as it was such an unlikely scenario - especially considering how long the get away with it. This was another in the long line of "mom made me read all the Newberry/Caldecott award winners" whenever we checked books out from the library. This charming story was one of those where mom got it right.
I will give a special shout out to my 3rd grade teacher who, whenever it was rainy day schedule or he just didn't feel like teaching, he would get out this old Madeira wine jug (not a tall bottle - the short, fat, round kind) that had different colors of candle wax dripped all down the side from the various candles he'd used in it over the years. He'd turn off all the lights, light the candle that was in the wine jug's opening and read out loud to us. James and the Giant Peach was a favorite and no one can convince me that life-size, talking insects living inside a giant peach flown around by seagulls is NOT fantasy.
Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle:
A series featuring a Newberry award-winner (my mother was obsessed with ensuring I read every Newberry book as a kid...sometimes with great results...and sometimes not so great). The first two books are the best IMO. I identified with the social outcast Meg who even the school administrators didn't care for. Proginoskes, the Cherubim, from Book 2 is one of my favorite characters of all time. I loved these books so much that I paid a high school friend of mine who was quite the artist to paint a re-creation of one of the book covers for me. It's still hanging in my room at my parents' house. Do not waste time on the movie version of "Wrinkle". Yet another adaptation gone wrong.
Somewhere in this period I came across Andre Norton's Magic Sequence (part of that "free reading" I was allowed to do when I tested out of the school reading program) which I loved and there will always be a special place in my heart for Steel Magic in particular. A mix of Welsh/Arthurian fantasy elements and some world-gate-jumping similar to her adult Witch World novels was irresistible to me and it always made me look at stainless steel utensils in a different way when I set the table.
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper.
This is a 5-book series and the first book (and probably the weakest IMO) is Over Sea, Under Stone. Book 2 gives the series its name and please, please, please do not judge the books by the HORRIBLE movie adaptation that was attempted a few years ago. It's my favorite book in the series, but Book 4, The Grey King won the Newberry Award (mom strikes again!) and is also excellent as is Book 5, Silver on the Tree. Originally, I would say the series was published as children's books (hence the award), but that was back when "Young Adult" (YA) was not really an established sub-genre the way it is now in the post-Harry Potter world. Don't let that put you off - I re-read it every few years and I maintain that it still holds up although in a different way than it did when I was 12. The author masterfully incorporates elements of Welsh and Arthurian mythology as well as some darker elements (I always had a hard time walking home alone from school after I read this book)!
The Big 3 or How I Spent 7th Grade Lunch Periods Hiding in the Library. My junior high had this weird rotating schedule where every week, your class schedule changed and it impacted which Snack & Lunch periods you went to. For example, week 1 you would attend class periods 1-7 in that order. Week 2 you would attend 2-6, and 7 last. The physical location of whatever classroom you were in during the 3rd and 5th slots of the day would determine if you went to Snack 1 or Snack 2 or Lunch 1 or Lunch 2 (1 being before the relevant period and 2 being after). So, if, say, ALL YOUR FRIENDS had a different class than you did, you often wound up on different lunch periods (I'm going to ignore snack time for now as this is already confusing enough and snack time was short enough that I could usually avoid any problems). It's probably apparent from my reading list that I was...persona non grata at my school. Not well liked. Hated and bullied in some cases. What? An honors-student nerd who reads sci-fi/fantasy was bullied in Junior High? I know, show me your shocked face and I'll show you mine. Anyway, I did have a small core group of...hmmm...friends is likely too strong a word...group that let me eat with them and didn't harass me. However, when our schedules didn't sync up, it was a whole 'nother story - until I figured out I could spend my entire lunch period in the library. Technically, we weren't allowed to do this, but being a canny nerd-girl, I figured out how to slip in after the librarian left for lunch so she didn't see me. Now, a REALLY smart girl would have used this extra time to get caught up on the math assignment she'd blown off the night before, but...math. Ewww. 'nuff said.
Then one day I found it...emergency shelter...also known as the sci-fi/fantasy library shelf. And there they were:
The Witch World series by Andre Norton.
Norton is a true master of the sci fi/fantasy genre and also one of its most prolific. In the Witch World books, she manages to weave together elements of high fantasy such as an ancient land drenched in magic (much of it best left alone if you know what's good for you), fantastic creatures, Arthurian elements (the Siege Perilous), world gates, and sci-fi elements like the villainous Kolder. The geography is varied as well as the stories bounce from WW II-era Earth to Estcarp, Karsten, Alizon, Gorm, High Hallack/the Dales and finally to forgotten Escore. There are even hints that this is an apocalyptic scenario where ancient Adepts unleashed powers of magic and science to devastating effect and then gated themselves away leaving the rest of the populace to pick up the pieces. The early books, written solely by Norton, are my favorites - especially Year of the Unicorn. The later books were often collaborations with other authors and, while still good reads, did not have quite the same quality level as the early books. There is one exception: The Key of the Keplian which remains one of my favorite re-reads to this day.
Multiple series by Anne McCaffrey.
Of course, she's best known for the Dragonriders of Pern books and that's where I started as well. Lessa of Pern was one of my earliest intros to a strong female protagonist. Besides, who wouldn't want to ride a magnificent golden queen dragon like Ramoth? While the series starts out firmly in the fantasy realm with telepathic dragons and their riders, later books bring in some sci fi elements as the people of Pern discover more about their lost history and the origin of the dragons. And I maintain that nobody does dragons as well as McCaffrey (with the possible exception of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik which I'll review in a later section as it's a more modern series). Again, as with the Witch World books, I find the earlier ones are the best and the later ones (some of which were written with or by her son) are not as compelling.
Also like Norton, she was prolific and wrote multiple series that leaned into different areas of the genre. The Talents series (To Ride Pegasus is Book 1) tracks humanity's discovery of and gradual acceptance/use of telepathic/telekinetic powers.
The Brain/Brawn (The Ship Who Sang is Book 1) series is one of the earliest examples of a protagonist with profound disabilities and cyberpunk elements.
The Crystal Singer series asks the question "how far will you go when the lifelong goal you've dreamed of and trained for suddenly becomes impossible". All lean more into the sci-fi or sci-fantasy and all feature strong female characters.
I first came across the origin stories for most of these series in her anthology of short stores called Get Off the Unicorn and recommend it as a great introduction to her writing and worlds.
The Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
This is another series that straddles the line of sci-fantasy as the telepathically powerful (yet declining) Darkovan society comes up against the more technologically advanced (yet not any smarter for all that tech) Terran Empire. Strong female characters are often featured although arguably her most memorable characters, Lew Alton and Regis Hastur, are both male. Many of the books deal with the ethics of genetic engineering as well. The Bloody Sun, Winds of Darkover, and Stormqueen remain some of my all-time favorites. I'm aware that this author has become a controversial figure in recent years as allegations related to her personal life have come to light. I have chosen to remember the enjoyment these books brought to a lonely, depressed kid hiding in a library and leave the rest to each individual to research and determine their own personal choices regarding separating reaction to an author vs. reaction to their work.
With the discovery of the above three authors, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I mean magic, gates, dragons, psychic powers, space expansion, aliens, all there for me to peruse at my leisure via these 3 series (and sneak into math class later so I didn't have to pay attention to algebra).
Next, I'll move into the series I discovered during my high school years. I moved on from hiding in the library and learned to just carry a book in my back pack at all times.
KJ
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