Site last updated:
1 January 2009

I like books about normal kids who find magic things, go magic places, or meet magic people, usually by accident. As a kid I always thought it would be neat to suddenly find that I could levitate things by looking at them (like Katie in Willo D. Roberts' The Girl with the Silver Eyes) or find some magic thing that would grant me wishes (like the siblings in Edward Eager's Half Magic), or possess something that could take me to another world (like William in The Castle in the Attic, or Milo in The Phantom Tollbooth, or Bastian in The Neverending Story). Maybe I'd even discover, like Will in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, or the famous Harry Potter himself, that I was destined for greatness.

Of course, I also like fantasies that don't pretend to be about normal people, but instead happen in lands long ago and far away to people who are accustomed to elaborate castles and royal families, or dragons and witches and magic swords. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to mind, as do Andre Norton's Witch World tales, and Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles. Some stories cater to my interest in dragons: Patricia C. Wrede writes of friendly ones in her Enchanted Forest series, while Robin McKinley spins tales of heroic dragon-slayers.

The stories I collect originally came to me in various ways. Some books are books which my mother read to me at bedtime: these include The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Lord of the Rings books, among others. Some are books I was required to read in school, or books which a teacher read out loud. A few of my books are books I met first in movie form, and didn’t read until much later, such as The Princess Bride, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Neverending Story, and The Last Unicorn. I come across The 21 Balloons by William Pene du Bois in the form of a library audio cassette. I would love to own a copy of that tape.

Naturally, not every book I like belongs in the collection. For instance, I don't include books that deal exclusively with animal characters. Books I've turned down include Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien, Watership Down, by Richard Adams, and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. While these books do demonstrate creative anthropomorphism, they don't really have the imaginative elements I look for.

I've certainly also had some disappointments while building my collection. I liked Jane Yolen's Dragon's Blood, but some of her other books left me decidedly lukewarm. The first and only book I read by George MacDonald didn't suit me either. Although my brother, a big fan of Brian Jacques, encouraged me to borrow his Redwall books, I couldn't get through a whole volume because I really disliked the dialog. It's rare that I lay a book aside without finishing it, but I don’t by any means wind up liking everything I read.

Once I settled on Fantasy Fiction for ages 9-12, I began forming my collection from books I already owned, picking my favorites off my shelf and re-reading them. But I've also gone on a serious quest to discover and re-discover all the books I liked, might have liked, or might like. I've returned to the local public library where I checked out books when I was younger, hoping to find a forgotten title and author. I've prowled the big new bookstores to make a note of what gets published these days, bringing pen and paper instead of money. I've read online book reviews, and researched fan sites. I've filed and sorted these bits of information, shaping them into what you see here.

I've added to the original bunch of books, based on what my research tells me is important and on what my wallet tells me I can afford. Although I shop at bookstores and used book bookstores, I've also relied heavily on internet sites like Half.com, Abebooks, and eBay. Occasionally, a rummage sale will yield a treasure for a small price: That's usually how I find paperbacks by Ruth Chew. They're out of print, and since they are meant for young readers, used copies in good condition are not always easy to find. I did succeed in finding a copy of another hard-to-find book, Gerald Durrell’s The Talking Parcel, perhaps better known to Americans as The Battle for Castle Cockatrice. The book painted a picture of paradise for me when I first read it, and I wanted to own it ever since. Another acquisition of which I am especially proud is a 1984 hardback copy of M.M. Kaye's The Ordinary Princess. The charming illustrations in this edition complement the charming tale.

Alghouth some extent, I am just collecting stories, often the actual object means something special too. I try to get books in a series to match. I'd like to own more hardbacks, as opposed to paperbacks. Sometimes I want versions published with a particular cover or illustrator, or with a particular title, or in a certain condition. The edition sometimes matters a great deal: many of the books in my collection are dear to me because they are the editions I've always known and loved. For instance, I can't stand the new Edward Eager covers, done by Roald Dahl's illustrator, but I love the cover of my copy of Madeleine L'Engle's Swiftly Tilting Planet. Of course, why stop at owning only one edition? Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time books have been republished with a cool new set of covers. These new books could never replace the ones I grew up with, but naturally I still want copies!

Allow me to finish with a happy story of my own.  The rediscovered books I read as a kid are the real heart and soul of my collection. I already own The Ordinary Princess, The Talking Parcel, and I've even bought a signed copy of All the Money in the World.  There's one special book about wishes and moral lessons whose title I will never again forget. For years I had vague recollections of a book about a magic cube, but didn’t know who wrote it or what it was called. Finally, after abandoning the Internet as a solution to my quandary, I went back and read the spines of every book in the Juvenile Fiction section of my old Public Library. Sure enough, the book I wanted was still there. When I found it, I was so happy that I must have looked ten or twelve years old again! I hated having to return it at the end of the month, but I knew that somewhere out there, there had to be a copy of Betsy and Samuel Sterman’s Too Much Magic just waiting for me.  Finally armed with title and author, finding my precious book on the Internet wasn't so hard. I bought myself an expensive copy, and was overjoyed when it arrived in the mail, just as beautiful and new as a used book can possibly be. Later on, I discovered that you can never have too much Too Much Magic: I bought another copy (in terrible condition) from a library for a dollar!