Nathaniel, a magician's apprentice, summons up the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon Lovelace.
Although Undine is excited about leaving Tasmania for a trip to see her father in Greece, she is also conflicted about using the magic that wells up inside her and confused about her personal relationships, including the one with her best friend Trout.
In this modern day version of Perceval and the Holy Grail, a guilt-ridden British teenager leaves his mentally ill mother to live with his wealthy uncle and begins a journey of self-knowledge and redemption after being briefly transported to the Waste Land of Arthurian times.
In ninth-century Britain, fifteen-year-old Aethelflaed, daughter of King Alfred of West Saxony, finds she must assume new responsibilities much sooner than expected when she is betrothed to Ethelred of Mercia in order to strengthen a strategic alliance against the Danes.
After successfully evading an Urgals ambush, Eragon is adopted into the Ingeitum clan and sent to finish his training so he can further help the Varden in their struggle against the Empire.
Having reluctantly accompanied his academic mother and pesky younger sister to Oxford, twelve-year-old Blake Winters is at loose ends until he stumbles across an ancient and magical book, secretely brought to England in 1453 by Gutenberg's mute apprentice to save it from evil forces, and which now draws Blake into a dangerous and life-threatening quest.
In Aagaesia, a fifteen-year-old boy of unknown lineage called Eragon finds a mysterious stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic, and power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters.
Anita, an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl, is transported from modern-day London to the realm of Faerie where she discovers that she is Princess Tania, the long-lost daughter of King Oberon and Queen Titania.
Troubled by family problems, Henry finds his life taking a whole new dimension when he and his friend, old Mr. Fogarty, become involved with Prince Pyrgus Malvae who has been sent from the faerie world in order to escape the treacherous Faeries of the Night.
David Rain is faced with the most perilous task yet when Gwilanna returns, this time determined to resurrect the dragon Gawain on the ice cap of the Tooth of Ragnar, unless David and her friends can stop her.
Name Ven Polypheme
Gender Boy
Attributes Youngest of 13 children; belongs to the Nain race that lives four times longer than humans; family is known for their ship-building talent; left unconscious in a pirate attack; rescued by mermaids; ends up on a ship of adventurers
Fourteen-year-old Flora Fyrdraaca, whose mother is the Warlord's Commanding General and whose father is mad, kindly helps her house's magical--and long-banished--butler, unaware that he draws strength from the Fyrdraaca will.
Accompanied by a mysterious lost boy and a rowdy family with strange powers, fourteen-year-old Beatriz searches for her missing parents while evading a band of slave traders and a vengeful witch.
As the seventh child born of the union of two seventh children, fourteen-year-old Thea has not fulfilled her parents' hope of having special magical powers, and they try a last, desperate measure before sending her to a school for those with no magical ability.
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.
Tiffany Aching, a young witch-in-training, learns about magic and responsibility as she battles a disembodied monster with the assistance of the six-inch-high Wee Free Men and Mistress Weatherwax, the greatest witch in the world.
Three young men are entrusted with the Imaginarium Geographica, an atlas of fantastical places to which they travel in hopes of defeating the Winter King whose bid for power is related to the First World War raging in the Real World.
In nineteenth-century England, a powerful sorcerer and King of the Goblins chooses Kate, the elder of two orphan girls recently arrived at their ancestral home, Hallow Hill, to be his bride and queen.
Two teenage cousins, one Irish, the other from the United States, set out to find a magic doorway to the Faraway Country, where humans must bow to the little people.
In 17th century London, Coriander, a girl who has inherited magic from her mother, must find a way to use this magic in order to save both herself and an inhabitant of the fairy world where her mother was born.
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.
When Dustfinger finds a crooked storyteller who can read him back to Inkscape, he leaves his apprentice Farid behind. Farid seeks out Meggie and the two follow him back into the enchanted book.
Life becomes more interesting for Ananka Fishbein when, at the age of twelve, she discovers an underground room in the park across from her New York City apartment and meets a mysterious girl called Kiki Strike who claims that she, too, wants to explore the subterranean world.
Eugenides, still known as a Thief of Eddis, faces palace intrigue and assassins as he strives to prove himself both to the people of Attolia and to his new bride, their queen.
In sixth-century Great Britain, a fifteen-year-old girl seeking knowledge of her lineage is drawn into battle to defend the homeland she never knew, aided by one of King Arthur's knights.
Arthur Penhaligon is supposed to die at a young age, but is saved by a key that is shaped like the minute hand of a clock. The key causes bizarre creatures to come from another realm, bringing with them a plague. A man named Mister Monday will stop at nothing to get the key back. Arthur goes to a mysterious house that only he can see, so that he can learn the truth about himself and the key.
Whether it's a tale of a wizard developing his powers or a breakneck chase through New York City in search of the Grail, the best fantasy is all about coming face-to-face with reality -- with boundaries -- and saying, What if? It's about stepping across the threshold of what is and what must be into a world of maybes and why-nots. Most of all, it's a great deal of fun.
Irish teenager JJ Liddy discovers that time is leaking from his world into Tir na nOg, the land of the fairies, and when he attempts to stop the leak he finds out a lot about his family history, the music that he loves, and a crime his great-grandfather may or may not have committed.
Wendy isn't as blind as a bat-there are bats who can see better than she can. That's why, when her new glasses break, she's all too happy to wear the dorky sunglasses she found on her lawn. Oddly enough, they match her prescription exactly... But the glasses do more than correct her vision-she begins to see things that aren't usually there: cheerful corpses, little blue men who eat socks for lunch, and stone portals to other worlds. But even weirder is how different certain people appear when Wendy wears the glasses: The head of the cheerleading squad is a ninety-year-old crone, the nerd in the back row suddenly has pointy ears, and both of them have taken an unhealthy interest in Wendy's new shades...and will do anything to get their hands on them.
A young man with a mysterious past and a penchant for inventing things leaves the troll who raised him, meets an unhappy princess he has loved from afar, and discovers a plot against her and her father.
In a place similar to the 1706 Caribbean, two fourteen-year-old "polliwogs"--humans who can walk on water--rely on a mysterious figure known as the Ghost Trader and a band of pirates to help them escape from the evil that is chasing them.
When Poison leaves her home in the marshes of Gull to retrieve the infant sister who was snatched by the fairies, she and a group of unusual friends survive encounters with the inhabitants of various Realms, and Poison herself confronts a surprising destiny.
Guided by the words of a prophecy, Prince Perryndon, who loves books more than swords, sets out to slay the black dragon that is destroying his kingdom.
Forsaken by the gods and left to his own devices, Eugenides, Royal Thief of Eddis, summons all his wit and wiles in an attempt to conquer the rival Queen of Attolia.
Lynet, a feisty young woman, journeys to King Arthur's court in order to find a champion to rescue her beautiful older sister, and she is joined in her quest by a clever dwarf and a bold kitchen knave, neither of whom are what they seem.
After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls.
Thirteen-year-old Nita, tormented by a gang of bullies because she won't fight back, finds the help she needs in a library book on wizardry which guides her into another dimension.
In the 18-century village of Wall dwells young Tristran Thorn, whose parentage is both human and faerie. This is the tale of Tristran's quest for a fallen star, his crossing into a world beyond the wall, and the discovery of his faerie bloodline.
Explores further the magical world of Earthsea through five tales of events which occur before or after the time of the original novels, as well as an essay on the people, languages, history and magic of the place.
When sixteen-year-old Beka becomes "Puppy" to a pair of "Dogs," as the Provost's Guards are called, she uses her police training, natural abilities, and a touch of magic to help them solve the case of a murdered baby in Tortall's Lower City.
Jonah, a young thief, and his friends and Tersias, a twelve-year-old boy who channels prophesies, become embroiled in the machinations of a magician, a politician, and a false prophet, as well as in the magic of a strange alabaster box.
Gen flaunts his ingenuity as a thief and relishes the adventure which takes him to a remote temple of the gods where he will attempt to steal a precious stone.
Twins Eleda, who can tell only the truth, and Adele, who cannot reveal others' secrets, are sorely tested by a newly arrived pair of handsome dance instructors who seem to harbor a secret.
Sixteen-year-old Undine, hearing her presumably deceased father calling to her and feeling a strange force growing inside her, travels to the sea to discover the depths of her magical powers.
Seventeen-year-old Val runs away to New York City, where she falls in with a gang of squatters who live in the city's subway system and consort with faeries, trolls, and other strange creatures.
A young witch-to-be named Tiffany teams up with the Wee Free Men, a clan of six-inch-high blue men, to rescue her baby brother and ward off a sinister invasion from Fairyland.
A grotesque foundling turns against the witch who sacrificed almost everything to raise him when he becomes consumed by the desire for money and revenge against those who have hurt him, but he eventually finds his true heart's desire.
In 1756, as a deadly comet hurtles toward London, Dr. Sabian Blake and his fourteen-year-old housemaid, Agetta, struggle against dark forces that seek an ancient, powerful book in Blake's possession that would enable them to carry out an evil plan in which Agetta unknowingly plays a pivotal role. An epic adventure from a master storyteller.
