The best books that follow a young heroine/hero journeying into the unknown to pursue a destiny & a dream

This collection of short stories remains an elegant and much-loved classic. Although Kipling was the product of an imperial era, he had a profound understanding of India and he was able to capture the wonder of the land and its people in these memorable tales. The wonderful allegorical array of characters in the stories includes the brave & kind-hearted Mowgli (the man-cub), Akela the wolf and Gray Brother, Kaa the python, Bagheera the black panther, Baloo the bear, the Bandar-log monkeys, and, of course, Mowglis nemesis, the malevolent tiger, Shere Khan. These lovely tales remain timely & heartwarming to those of us, young and old.

The 1939 film starred Judy Garland, yet this book was the first of 14 Oz stories created by Baum. A brave heroine, dropped into a strange land by a swirling tornado, gathers together a bedraggled troupe of companions, a cowardly lion, a tin woodsman sans heart, and a scarecrow with brain fog. Together they confront bad and good witches, flying monkeys, singing dragoons, and sundry other antagonists in their journey to the “Emerald City”. There have been political & allegorical references to the yellow brick road and the “gold standard,” the populist movement, eastern industrialization, and scheming politicians.  In the end, we learn that Dorothy (Everyman) had the power to click her (originally silver) slippers together and go home all along. It is a magical tale that continues to please.

This is a lovely bildungsroman tale about Bradbury as a young boy (Douglas Spaulding) growing up in the Midwest. It is infused with his sense of magic in the world and the wonder of everyday existence while learning that life is not all gentle and innocent. Bradbury dares to look in the shadows and talk about death. Doug’s grandmother dies at home surrounded by her family. Later, the aging Colonel asks an old friend in Mexico City to cradle the phone on the window sill and draws his last breath listening to the sounds of the street below. Bradbury entangles joy and grief in a weave that fits tight to the skin. This tale presages later works such as Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Illustrated Man, & Fahrenheit 451. 

This is a book that conjures up wonderful memories. T.H. White (not to be confused with E. B. White, author of Charlotte’s Web) was a gifted British Arthurian scholar. My father read a tattered copy to me as a young boy before going to sleep. Dad was a judge and could alter his voice and affect with the characters. He became Merlyn, the wizard and tutor, the young boy Wart, and the other characters in the tale. I was transformed with Wart in the hawks’ mews, became a perch and swam frantically to escape the hungry pike, became a wise badger, wild goose, ant, and owl…and learned with them all. Later Wart pulled the sword from the stone, and having learned compassion, perspective and leadership, became the great King Arthur.

Pullman has written an extraordinary trilogy. Pullman’s introduction quotes Milton’s Paradise Lost. All human souls have an animal daemon that can morph during childhood and adolescence but which becomes fixed in adulthood. The young heroine, Lyra, and her daemon, Pan, have riddles to unravel with a magical (truth-telling) “alethiometer” compass and are challenged to discern friend from foe in parallel worlds. Lyra’s parents, Lord Asriel and the captivating Marisa Coulter, represent opposing factions to Church authority and the essential nature of Dust. Lyra gains allies in the witches, Will Parry, the aeronaut Lee Scoresby and an armored bear, Lorek Byrnison. Religious critics called the work “atheism for kids”. Pullman responded, “Why don’t we trust readers?”