Witches, portals, griffins…these five books are perfect for middle- and high-school readers who like a bit of the fantastical within their stories. See also our Five Questions interview with Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Faith Schaffer about The Worst Ronin, and the Guide/Reviews Database subject tag Fantasy.

Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest
by Isabel Greenberg; illus. by the author
Middle School, High School    Amulet/Abrams    288 pp.
5/24    9781419765117    $24.99
Paper ed.  9781419765124    $17.99
e-book ed.  9781647008499    $16.19

This spirited, intelligent mashup of Arthuriana puts Morgan Le Fay — now Ancient Crone, cheerfully saggy-bosomed and thin-haired — and her granddaughter, Young Hag, at the center of a fresh new story. At her ceremonial naming with her mother and grandmother, Young Hag learns from Ancient Crone that the ways between Faerie and the human world have been severed and that it is their task to return the broken sword Excalibur to Avalon to mend that rupture. As they traverse the wild countryside, Young Hag learns through Taliesin the bard and Ancient Crone just how King Arthur, Merlin, magic, and the land ended up in this predicament. When Ancient Crone disappears and Young Hag’s recently met traveling companion, Tom, is magically ensnared, Young Hag is on her own, piecing together stories, “fragments, questions, faces, threads all gathering, and me at the heart” — to bring all to a new beginning. Greenberg’s drawing style is comic but has a skillfully naive, seemingly unpracticed quality that enhances the protagonist’s poignant, youthful courage. Epic tragedy and grave betrayals are conveyed with a light touch, while Young Hag’s arduous personal growth and development have a heartwarming gravitas. “It takes a whole life to come of age,” says Ancient Crone — robust words of wisdom for any reader. Greenberg’s play with her sources — medieval Arthuriana, Edmund Spenser’s Britomart (here wonderfully queer and pink-haired), Christina Rosetti’s “Goblin Market” — has satisfying imaginative and critical depth. DEIRDRE F. BAKER

The Maid and the Crocodile
by Jordan Ifueko
Middle School, High School    Amulet/Abrams    304 pp.
8/24    9781419764356    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781647008185    $17.99

After seventeen-year-old Small Sade ages out of her orphanage, her primary goal is to discover a home where she truly belongs. However, her physical appearance, marked by vitiligo and a maimed foot from a childhood accident that requires her to use a cane, sets her apart in a fantasy world that, like many societies, looks upon difference cruelly. But Sade possesses a unique gift — the ability to perceive and cleanse malevolent spiritual energies. That gift leads her to unexpected encounters, including one with the enigmatic Crocodile God, who is afflicted by a seemingly unbreakable curse. Prophesied as his deliverer, Sade initially chooses her own path in Oluwan City, impressing the wealthy elite with her spiritual powers. However, her course pivots when she confronts the darker realities lurking beneath the surface of the city. Awakening to these realities and deepening ties with the Crocodile God, Sade realizes the imperative for social change not just for herself but for all who are marginalized and oppressed. This standalone novel, set within the same universe as Ifueko’s Raybearer duology, offers a fresh narrative lens within that universe by prioritizing the perspectives of commoners over royalty. While familiar characters and settings are present, Sade’s narrative enriches them, offering deeper insights into their complexities. First-person narrator Sade’s distinct voice and her journey of discovery and transformation are likely to captivate readers. S. R. TOLIVER

 The Forbidden Book
by Sacha Lamb
Middle School, High School    Levine/Levine Querido    256 pp.
10/24    9781646144563    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781646144822    $13.99

“On a full moon night, after a day of fasting, the young bride Sorel Kalmans leapt from a window and left her life behind.” Seventeen-year-old Sorel is betrothed to the rebbe’s son, a rather milquetoast character, but something compels her to flee. That something turns out to be both her own impulse and an otherworldly force, which is revealed partway through this unique and absorbing novel. Disguised as a boy, she doubles back to her own pre-wedding “beggars’ feast” and encounters a young peddler, Sam, who helps protect her from the city guards after a case of mistaken identity (or is it?) gone wrong. The two are joined by a third ally, revolution-minded Adela, in helping find the missing boy whom Sorel so resembles. There are many gripping twists and turns, along with dubious motivations, questions of faith and orthodoxy, friendship, identity (gender and otherwise) — and a stolen book that was “written by an angel, with its own hand.” Says Sam: “Paradise is a book…a place built of the same Hebrew letters that built the world. No book a human hand could write contains all of Paradise, but a book that captures even one chapter of it can change the world.” In this worthy follow-up to When the Angels Left the Old Country (rev. 1/23), Lamb demonstrates a deep commitment to this heady idea while crafting another page-turning and un-put-downable narrative. ELISSA GERSHOWITZ

Sunderworld, Vol. I: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry
by Ransom Riggs
High School    Dutton    336 pp.
8/24    9780593530931    $21.99
e-book ed.  9780593530955    $10.99

Leopold Berry lives in Los Angeles in a world like our own, but since his mother’s death when he was twelve, he has experienced dissociative episodes in which he sees unbelievable things, such as a winged parking attendant or a rain cloud chasing a fruit vendor. He thinks of these moments as “Seeing into Sunder” after the short-lived TV show Max’s Adventures in Sunderworld, on whose VHS tapes he fixates. Now seventeen, Leopold is adrift, a constant disappointment to his emotionally abusive father, until a raccoon hands him a token for a decommissioned Angels Flight Railway tram that takes him and his best friend to the not-so-imaginary land of Sunder Hill. There Leopold leaps at the chance to prove he’s a channeler, the “most powerful magical being on the planet,” but things go horribly, publicly awry. Just when everything seems lost, a note from Leopold’s late mother sends him on a treasure hunt through his childhood memories, leading to a discovery that changes everything. Fast-paced and inventive, this gateway fantasy has the grubby, off-kilter realism of a Chuck E. Cheese and a satirical nod to reality TV, with first-rate characters that will hook and charm readers. The treasure hunt celebrates L.A. landmarks, and constant new developments keep readers on the edges of their seats, hoping for Leopold’s vindication — and waiting for the next episode in this projected new series. ANITA L. BURKAM

​​​​​​​Impossible Creatures
by Katherine Rundell; illus. by Ashley Mackenzie
Middle School    Knopf    368 pp.
9/24    9780593809860    $19.99
Library ed.  9780593809877    $22.99
e-book ed.  9780593809884    $10.99

When Christopher finds a wounded baby griffin in a Scottish lake, his grandfather reveals that he is (and Christopher will be, when he comes of age) a guardian of the “waybetween” to an archipelago where the creatures of myth still live. Then Mal, a citizen of the Archipelago and the target of a deranged murderer, arrives in Christopher’s world to reclaim her griffin, and Christopher chooses to go back to the Archipelago with her to protect her. There they chance upon Fidens Nighthand and the crew of the Neverfear. Nighthand is a Berserker sworn to protect the Immortal, the only being who can tend the source of the ancient magic upon which all creatures of myth depend. But a century ago the Immortal took a potion to forget the pain of existence, and every Immortal incarnated since then doesn’t know their own fate. Suggestions that Mal is more than she appears to be grow into a plot of resolute earnestness, where the characters serve a noble purpose that binds them into a closely knit ensemble. Rundell successfully pulls off a powerful drama filled with self-sacrifice and great-heartedness and achieves full reader buy-in. Epic and interpersonal elements balance each other out, and the fresh take on fantastical creatures, in such sure and capable hands (with Mackenzie’s black-and white illustrations interspersed), is entrancing and refreshing. ANITA L. BURKAM

From the August 2024 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.